Brian stared for a full minute, hoping it would turn out to be something else, but the dead roach under the bed stubbornly continued to exist.
Gross. How did it even get in here? He went to get something to touch it with. Toilet paper and then flush it, I guess. It was when he came back and got on his hands and knees that he saw the nest.
It was circular hole in the floor, teeming with them. They writhed over each other as he pulled back in horror, looking around for something to spray them with or sweep them away. He took two quick steps toward the door, ready to bolt if they came after him, but they stayed put under the bed.
He grabbed a pen and bent down again, hoping he could just be mistaken about the whole thing. No. Shit. That's real. He couldn't deny what he saw, and when he carefully stuck the pen into their midst and felt them pushing against it he had to accept that it wasn't a hallucination.
He jerked away, crawling backward to put some space between himself and the bugs. They swarmed over and around each other like fish in a pond, but only within their little circle. In fact, however they squirmed, they never rose above the level of the floor. They were flat, like a movie projected onto the carpet. But with depth; when he stuck the pen back in and released it with trembling fingers, it disappeared completely.
___
"Hey, I'm Neal. From the, uh, you called an exterminator?"
The man was in his late twenties, with a mop of blonde curls down to his shoulders. He was unshaven and very obviously stoned. He pointed to the words "Wilson's Wildlife Control" on his jumpsuit and smiled, rattling his spray can as proof of identity.
Brian squinted at him. "This is the right place. Look, I think this might be kind of serious -"
"Yeah, totally. That's why they sent me. I'm good with weird stuff."
Brian considered for a moment, then let him in. "They're in the bedroom, back here. Hopefully they haven't moved."
Neal started down the hall, taking the lead. "This the first time you've seen roaches around your house? I guess you don't have other pests?"
"No, never. As you can see, I keep it pretty clean in here."
"Yeah. Nice place, by the way."
"Thanks." Brian watched as Neal gently opened the bedroom door and peeked through, ducking as if anything might happen. When nothing did, he stepped in decisively and started looking around. Feeling absurd, but caught helplessly in the moment, Brian hung back to see what happened.
"Coast is clear, man," Neal said from inside the room. "If they were gonna, like, jump out at us or anything, they'd have done it by now. Were they under the furniture, or something?"
"Under the bed." Brian gestured, keeping the exterminator between himself and the spot he'd seen the bugs.
Neal got casually on all fours and peered into the darkness. "Okay. Yeah. those are roaches all right. You'd be surprised how often I see stuff like this. They got in and now they're your floor."
"I've never heard of cockroaches burrowing in wood like this."
"Nah, man, they're not in the floor, they are the floor. The ground under your bed is those bugs now. They haven't burrowed into the house, they've burrowed into your personal space. You know?"
"No." He's just high. "I think I need a second opinion."
"I mean, call someone else if you want, but they'll just tell you the same thing. Here, check this out." Neal pulled a flashlight from his belt and lit up the underside of the bed, gesturing for Brian to get closer.
"Look what happens if I — there it goes." The exterminator stuck the long steel nozzle of his spray can into the midst of the roaches. Brian watched as its length disappeared into the hole, inch after inch, well into where the building's foundation should have been. "Okay, now if I just -" and he pushed it forward a little more. Brian yelped as cold metal poked him in the back.
"What - stop! What the hell was that?" He'd felt it beneath his skin, as if the probe were inside his body. He shuddered, touching his chest and back to make sure nothing bulged out.
"Okay. This is what I was worried about. What you've got is, this floor, this apartment, it's all connected to you, right? So, you're seeing them in the floor, but that's not really where they are. They're in you, right? Get what I mean?"
"I don't. I don't understand this at all. You're saying - so I just need to move? Is that it?"
"Yeah, no. The thing is, if you replaced the whole floor, the new floor would become your floor as soon as you had it installed. You see what I mean? They'd still be there. They're feeding on something moldy in you, like old regrets or a guilty conscience or something."
"But I'm not like that. I'm fine." He grimaced as he said it, a highlight reel of mistakes and social awkwardness playing in his mind's eye. "I mean, I'm a regular guy. I'm normal. This isn't normal."
Neal shrugged. "I don't know, man. It's probably not even anything you'd remember. Think of your life like a house. These guys must have gotten in way down at the basement. If you're seeing them here, then, like…" he made an awkward weaving motion with his fingers. "They're gonna be going all the way through. See?"
"Wait, are you saying there's more of them?"
"Well, you know what they say, right? 'For every one you see, there's a hundred more you don't."
Brian felt his jaw slack, his face going pale. He looked at his hands, then at Neal, searching for words but coming up with nothing more or less than "so what do I do now?"
The exterminator looked back sympathetically. "Well. They're in your space because it's yours. Changing the space won't help. You want to clear them out, I think what you're looking at is having to become a whole new person."
He felt lightheaded. "How do I do that?"
"Well being a person is mostly about what you do, so repairing it's mostly about doing new things. Trying stuff, meeting people. Gotta make a lot of mistakes. It's a big process, obviously. Probably less expensive than replacing an actual house, though, so that's good, right?"
Brian crouched down, head between his knees, fighting the urge to throw up. "It's so - none of this makes sense."
"Well. Sure it does, man. Look, no judgment, all right, but this kind of thing doesn't happen overnight. You know? But, just, you're better off doing something about it now than waiting for it to become a real problem. Right? So it's good that you called today."
"Right." He stood, collecting himself. He was a rational adult. He could handle this.
"That's the spirit, dude. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other, and, y'know, be okay with it taking a while. Like a remodeling a house, right? You do one thing at a time until you've replaced all the bad parts with new stuff. That's how you'll get rid of this situation down here."
Brian nodded. "I think I can do this. Thanks for your help. I… just, thanks."
"No problem. Hey, man, while I'm here, you want me to spray for ants?"
Personnel File of Dr. Adelaide Fields
Early Life: [REDACTED]
Foundation Career: Starting in 2021, Doctor Fields will always have worked for the Department of Temporal Stability. She was very successful as a researcher and containment specialist until a Scranton Reality Anchor malfunction caused her to undergo a Class-T biotemporal reversal, physically becoming a toddler of approximately 18 months.
Following a medical clearance, Doctor Fields was deemed able to continue serving as a Class-E personnel. Having been provided reasonable accommodations, such as stair lifts and nap times.
Meadow parks on the mountain road outside the secret entrance to Site-72, admiring the view and reflecting on whether they'll survive the next ten minutes. They sling a duffel bag over their shoulder, tall and confident in a stolen uniform, and smile wide as they walk up the narrow pass toward the gate and twin guardhouses.
The guard in the booth isn't buying it - Meadow waves, reaching for a forged ID, but the guy is already unclipping his radio. Meadow points a finger, cocks an imaginary hammer, and says "bang."
The guard's skull explodes - way more of a mess than Meadow was expecting. The bulletproof glass is undamaged. Meadow smells cordite and feels warmth pulsing from the magic revolver at their hip. The guard in the other booth gets the second shot before she can react, blood coating the inside of the window. Three left. The gun holds six, but if Meadow performs the activation gesture a sixth time - ever - the last will blow up their own head.
They unzip the bag and rush through pulling stuff out, throwing on shoulder straps and filling pockets. Pill-shaped speaker with an old iPod stuck to the side by a glob of epoxy. Pruning shears. Plastic bag of fresh blood. Bandolier of grenades. Small power drill, wrapped in duct tape. Bandolier of gas bombs. Riot shield, covered in newspaper. Gas mask over the nose and mouth. Flat brick of iron with a hole in the front. Calico, sidearm, belt of clips on their waist. Goggles. MTF-issue helmet with its thick visor.
Magic revolver still on their hip. Super important flash drive still in their pocket. Body armor underneath all of it. Earbuds and throat mike. It's a lot to be burdened with, but Meadow feels light as a butterfly.
"Theresa, you there?"
<I'm here.>
"I'm at the side entrance. Disguise didn't work."
<Copy. Are you willing and able to continue?>
"Fucking A, I'm willing to continue."
There's a pause while Theresa confirms with someone. <Commence.>
Meadow rubs their palms together, flips a middle finger at the nearest camera, and starts climbing the fence.
—-
//"Good morning, Meadow. Thank you for joining me."
"'Morning, Ryan."
"Have a seat. Can I get you anything? Coffee? Rum? You're welcome to smoke, if you have it on you."
"I'm good, thanks, but I'll take you up on the smoking."
Ryan smiled infectiously. "By all means. Leadership isn't going to change me, Meadow. I promise. We're still about freedom here."
"Good to know."
"There's a big moment coming. We're going to get the Chaos Insurgency back on track. We're going to finish the job our founders began."
"Liberation."
"Liberation." A moment of silence passed. "We'll have to appropriate some resources from Big Brother to lay the groundwork. And I trust you for the most important part of the job."
"You want me to do a heist?"
"No, friend, I want you to do what you're good at." Ryan stood, enough charm and enthusiasm on his handsome face to make the death sentence feel like a privilege.
"I want you to run up and fucking clobber them. I want you to pull out all the stops! I want you to get loud!"
___
It's time to pick up the pace. Meadow can't see into the distance through the goggles and helmet, so they sprint up the rocky trail toward the entrance, hoping not to get shot. They fumble the speaker out of a cargo pocket as they run, looping its strap around their wrist.
"Theresa, it's time. Blast the tunes."
Mos Def starts blaring into Meadow's earbuds:
City breathing all down your neck
Bad news and good dope, special effects…
Once the world is drowned out, Meadow turns on the player they're holding and starts its only song. They hope the contraption's working, but taking out their earbuds to check isn't an option.
The trail ends at a cave with a thick, vaulted door in the back, keypad alongside it. Meadow dashes in and crouches next to the door, air inside their helmet already humid with sweat. The perimeter security team will be on their way - the fact that nobody's shooting at Meadow yet probably means they're waiting in ambush on the other side of this very door.
Meadow pulls out the drill. Its bit is tipped with diamond and wrapped in a tangle of wires, which lead to a weird, bony cube embedded in the drill's handle. The cube is supposed to be some kind of computer, but Meadow's never seen a computer breathe before.
They drill into the keypad's casing, feeling through their fingertips as it crunches into the control circuits underneath. The little cube hyperventilates for a moment, then the door starts grinding open.
Meadow immediately tosses a grenade into the crack, following it up with a gas canister. They feel the ground shake and see the thick white cloud of nerve gas start pouring out. With a tap, Meadow sets their goggles to thermal, and the world is painted in blues, yellows and reds. Before any defenders can pour out, Meadow fires a burst around the corner and charges after it, keeping low.
The side entrance leads into a security checkpoint and a long hallway equipped with waist-high barricades, designed to give guards cover so they can gun down anyone trying to do exactly what Meadow is doing now. The perimeter security team gathered here when they saw Meadow on the surface cameras, just as Meadow hoped. This site has three squads on the outer security team; 24 officers total. It's hard to tell exactly how many of them are in here - there's a shitload of bullets in the air for such a tight space.
One of them ricochets around and hits meadow in the back, but it's already bounced so much that it just thunks off the body armor. Another round hits their visor right over their cheek. This one hurts like a motherfucker, like being punched in the face. There's a flash and the taste of copper as blood trickles from their nose, but the visor does its job. Meadow just fires wildly and scoots along, hopping like a frog - it would probably look ridiculous to the guards if they weren't dropping dead.
The song could be a chant in a dead language or a meaningless series of tones; the less Meadow knows about what it sounds like, the better. According to the lab techs, it uses pataphoric inversion to impose literal manifestation of colloquialism on the human auditory system. That doesn't make any sense to Meadow - and they suspect it really doesn't to the lab techs either - but the part they do understand is it's an earwig song that converts nerve cells into actual earwigs.
A security officer falls as meadow passes, thrashing, bugs pouring from his ears and chewing their way free through his eyes. The goggles render it all perfectly in psychedelic colors - the insects fade from yellow to blue as the blood cools on their shells. Meadow fires blindly over the cover to keep the rest of the guards down, but nobody's shooting back anymore. They can feel the crunching through their boots as they start to run - the goons' bodies are starting to squirm, bulges appearing under their clothes. Meadow thinks about how many times bigger an earwig is than a nerve cell, wonders if the song will convert enough of them to fill up the whole corridor. By the time Meadow reaches the door and drills the keypad, the things are teeming around their ankles. And Meadow's wrist is starting to burn, this prickly heat coming from inside-
They rip the strap off and toss the speaker into a corner. Nobody in or out past that. Vibrations traveling through Meadow's bones, or something, must have counted as hearing; there's bumps popping up on their arm, slithering down across the back of their hand.
"Ah, shit. Oh. Oh, that's gross. Fuck."
<What? Update.> Theresa's voice layers over the bass in Meadow's earbuds.
Fingers still work. That'll have to do. "Nothing. Good to go. You can kill the music. I'm coming up on the offices." They pop the hinges and toss their busted faceplate aside - it won't stop a second bullet, and the fresh air on their cheeks and forehead is almost worth getting shot in the face anyway. Meadow's been swallowing everything from their nosebleed, ecstatic with relief that the gas mask didn't get knocked loose.
Alarms are shrieking, but there's no movement as Meadow tears through the halls. A woman peeks out from the doorway to a staff lounge and Meadow fires a burst in her direction without slowing down. The Calico is a clunky awkward gun, and damn near impossible to aim because of the boxy clip on top of it; but that clip holds a hundred fifty rounds, and Meadow has six more full ones on their belt. Aiming was never part of the plan. They toss another gas canister over their shoulder as they pass the doorway - it'll choke anyone trying to get through here, starting with whoever's hiding in that lounge.
Left, straight, take the second right, drill the door and take a left again. A pair of researchers in lab coats round a corner, panicked, and Meadow ventilates them both. They're getting this queasy feeling they get when they hurt people who deserve better. Big Brother started it. Sorry I'm not sorry. Big Brother started it and you're his goons.
They rush to the stairwell, thoughts churning. They spent days studying blueprints and staff schedules
[kill the first floor, hack the stairs to the labs, run through smashing things using teethsplosion riot shield to get through resistance, hold off while the magic drill hacks the elevator to the central control floor,
Down the stairs to the third floor; get to the security office. Personnel rally and try to swarm meadow here - M puts down the projector and take cover, letting the attackers be whisked away. They shit down the air defenses and hack the elevator with the time that buys, then descend to the control level.
The control level is guarded by the operational security team, which is way tougher than the perimeter security team. Time to take the wrapper off the shield - half is covered with an infohazardous image that makes teeth explode. The other is an infohazardous word that makes you grow extra teeth. The OpSec team has their mouths burst open and extra teeth boil out of their skin - meadow shoots them all while they're distracted with that, and gets into the main control room.
They put the haunted flash drive in the computer system, pouring a circle of blood first, and it releases all the skips- mission accomplished. Meadow uses the finger - eating lock to get out and to the roof.
There's a Foundation helicopter coming in - meadow uses the "bang" revolver to take it down by killing the pilot. The CI pick meadow up and they're off to go home.
If the stairwell had been filled in or used for storage, Meadow would have been trapped forever in a partially materialized state. They sighed in relief and hit
Item #: SCP-3312
Object Class: Keter
Special Containment Procedures: Containment efforts at this time are centered on prediction and prevention of SCP-3312 events. Monitoring of civilian psychological records and social media posts are being used to identify individuals at risk of SCP-3312 events. MTF Epsilon-90 (“Chill Pills”) are to administer early intervention techniques to at-risk individuals and divert at-risk individuals from any vacation or other recreational travel that would take them within 50km of a coastline between the Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn.
Field agents are to monitor coastal resorts and beach destinations throughout the entirety of the Tropical Zone to assist with preventing and/or concealing SCP-3312 events. Completed SCP-3312 events are to be concealed through mass distribution of amnestics and disinformation regarding the disappearances of affected persons. The SCP-3312 containment team is to avoid stress about the magnitude of these responsibilities.
Personnel assigned to SCP-3312 within the tropical zone are to engage in SCP-3312 prevention activities regularly while within 50km of a coastline. Personnel are required to utilize at least two options from appendix SCP-3312-A1 per 24 hour period.
- Dancing as part of a group (groups of 12 or more are most effective)
- Consumption of alcoholic beverages (coconut-shell cups and miniature umbrellas recommended)
- Appreciating a seashell for at least 1 minute
- Windsurfing or other watersports
- Lounging poolside (laying at an angle of 45 degrees or less, within 7m of an artificial body of water for a minimum of 1 hour)
- Eating breakfast at local establishments
- Wearing a lei (plastic flowers are effective for this purpose; simultaneously wearing palm-leaf patterned “Hawaiian” shirt increases relaxation factor by up to 85%)
- Observing a sunrise
Description: SCP-3312 is a phenomena that causes the disappearance of visitors to tropical beaches.
The mechanism of disappearance varies from case to case. All observed disappearances have coincided with erratic behavior from the affected person. For a complete record of observed disappearance behaviors, see appendix SCP-3312-A2.
- Waded out to 1m deep water, then dissolved into foam
- Crawled into seashell, compressing body to fit into the shell’s opening
- Climbed a coconut tree and vanished without descending
- Opened a door in 3m-wide sandcastle and walked through, closing door behind them
- Climbed into pelican’s beak and were carried away by the animal
No affected person has ever been recovered after an SCP-3312 event. Civilian attempts to interfere with SCP-3312 events have not been successful in any reported instances. Research on SCP-3312’s physical process is extremely limited, because the phenomena cannot be replicated in controlled settings.
The exact trigger of SCP-3312 events is currently unknown. In all recorded instances, the affected person was facing the ocean and had an unobstructed view of the water at the onset of the event. Reconstructive psychological analysis of disappeared persons indicates that SCP-3312 affects individuals who are experiencing unmanageable levels of occupational stress. Witnesses frequently report that affected persons make statements that they are “not going back” or “can’t go back.”
The highly public and visible nature of SCP-3312 events make concealment both extremely important and extremely difficult. An abnormally high occurrence of SCP-3312 events has been recorded among personnel assigned to SCP-3312’s containment team, apparently because of the pressure associated with this position. Since the establishment of leisure-based containment procedures, manifestations affecting Foundation personnel have decreased by 91%.
Description: SCP-TH is a semi-tangible entity hypothesized to have previously been Arlene Taggart of Houston, Texas.
Since 1996, TH-Gatecrash events have been reported during 87 funerals in 37 different countries.
pitch - skip is a woman who went missing after buying a bunch of guns and opening a portal to hell. she pops out of the ground at funerals sometimes and liberates the spirit of the deceased from demons. by having badass demon shootouts. once she was seen with a little girl, which the demons snatched back, eliciting extreme duress.
Item #: SCP-4000
Special Containment Procedures: SCP-4000 is to be separated from the concept of humanity as soon as an acceptably safe means of doing so can be developed. A sample population of SCP-4000 instances are to be quarantined within abstract ideas for further study. Excess instances are to be diverted into tangential lines of thought, where they will be refuted and/or forgotten until neutralized.
Description: SCP-4000 is a species of conceptual organism that parasitizes human existence as part of its reproductive cycle. Research into the exact point at which SCP-4000 ends and human nature begins has yielded inconclusive results.
Ongoing research into pataphysics, reality interlayering, and other meta-universal anomalies has led to technological advances that allow the Foundation to observe and interact with conceptual space (footnote)A layer of reality, superimposed with tangible existence, in which cause and effect are linked by themes or motifs rather than physical laws. The relationships between real objects and their conceptual essences tend to be abstract and therefore difficult to predict or manipulate.(footnote).
Conceptual analysis of historical events within this space has revealed evidence of intangible organisms that uses large-scale conflicts as nesting sites (footnote)Evidence includes placental tissue adapted to convert desperation and anger into nutrition.(footnote). It is unclear whether this species only takes advantage of pre-existing conflict, or if it contributes to human warfare directly in order to create habitats for itself. As this behavior constitutes a potential threat to normalcy, these entities have been tentatively designated SCP-4000.
The building of facilities and training of personnel for research missions into conceptual space is underway.
___
A gateway to conceptual space was created using the Feynman-Hobbes computational modeling procedure[(footnote)A method in which quantum-powered Foundation AI analyzes the physical space of an empty chamber, and its inhabitants, down to the exact positioning of individual molecules. Once the informational model reaches a sufficient level of detail, it becomes indistinguishable from reality, allowing the conscious experience of the operators to cross over into the conceptual space of the chamber, from which point they can continue exploring.(footnote).
Begin Log:
[extraneous conversation removed]
OPS: Okay, equipment check is good, let's do final checks and then we can proceed. For the record, we are using names during this excursion to ensure that personnel do not become intertwined with the concept of their assigned number or other callsign.
COR: Coronel, military escort.
DAN: Danielewski, surveying and navigation.
WIL: I'm Wilson, conceptual historian.
OPS: Okay, good to go. Coronel, you have command. A reminder that we do not have access to a visual feed, and will need your team to provide narration.
COR: Thank you, operations. Captain Wilson, please provide the operator with a verbal description of what's going on.
WIL: Happy to do it.
COR: Then, Major Danielewski, once we get out there I'd like you to take point and lead us in the direction of the human past.
DAN: Got it.
COR: Then here we go. Keep weapons ready. We're not here to engage the skip, but we could be attacked by anxiety, or an obsession could try to capture us.
WIL: We're now leaving through the surface elevator connected to the chamber.
DAN: We should head away from the Site without looking back. We don't want to get bogged down the history of the Foundation itself. We want to head away from where we came, and also away from the future -
WIL: Danielewski is indicating a horizon that - it hurts to look at.
DAN: Yeah. It's not defined yet, so you're not going to be able to make much sense of it. We definitely don't want to interfere with that, so let's just - we're in the present, and can you feel that current? That's progress, pushing us forward. We need to trace it upstream. That means, let's see - this way. Follow me, here. Toward history, and away from how we got in.
COR: We can't walk in all those directions at once.
DAN: Don't worry, there are more of them than we're used to here.
WIL: We're proceeding into the recent past now. There are thick woods pressing in around us. It's pretty dark, but there's glimmers of hope shining down through the canopy, enough for us to see by. The trees look ancient, but a lot of them have artificial parts that look recently-added. I see vines of wiring, and power transformers hanging like fruit. There's a few trails in front of us, leading off into dark passages. There's light at the end of those tunnels, but only some of them -
DAN: Stick to the path of least resistance. We just want a broad view.
COR: Lot of dead plants.
WIL: There are. The ground is covered in - I can only call it trash. Bits of twisted metal, scraps of plastic. I can't really see the ground.
DAN: Hmm. This way - uphill. We need to get to higher ground. You can't see the forest from the trees, right?
WIL: That's what they say. We're now blazing our own trail, trying to get some perspective. The footing is treacherous, and I don't want to think about what might happen if we took a hard fall here.
DAN: We're about to hit a crest. Here we go - whoa.
COR: What. The. Fuck.
WIL: That'll be - wow. I think we found what we're looking for.
OPS: Please provide a description.
WIL: Let me, uh. Wow. It's huge. It's like a mountain range, stretching off in the distance as far as I can see. It's like - not quite a worm, it's segmented. Like a centipede, where each section is made up of ribs and bellies. It doesn't look healthy - I can see some of what look like open sores, I guess you'd call them ulcers, complete with pus. There's all kinds of metal and stone and glass sticking out of it, smokestacks and things like that. The whole top of it is covered with them. Each segment has a pair of arms, and I can see mouths underneath them. The arms are shoveling in everything they can reach, and the mouths are chewing and swallowing it. Let me get the scope out and - oh. Permission to, uh, speak freely?
OPS: Use whatever terms you have to. You're not gonna shock us.
WIL: It's shitting trash. It's got sphincters all over and it's shitting rivers of trash. That's, uh, a lot of what the arms are feeding back in.
COR: It's disgusting.
WIL: Like the sweet potato said to the judge, 'I yam what I yam.'
OPS: Could those metal and glass protrusions you mentioned be products of SCP-4000 activity?
WIL: Hard to say. They're a metaphor for industrialization, that much is obvious, but I don't see anything that looks like a parasite. They look like they're growing out of the, uh, body. It's not a pleasant sight, but it doesn't look alien.
DAN: That's just us.
WIL: Right. Those sores are pretty bad, but they still look human.
COR: Well, let's keep looking til we find something that isn't.
DAN: This ridge leads in the right direction. If we can go back a little ways to a pre-industrial period, we can get a better idea of what belongs and what doesn't. Watch your step; we'll encounter more and more pitfalls as we move further from the time we're familiar with.
WIL: As we travel backwards chronologically the skin of the entity is clearing up fast. Still a lot of those wounds, though. A few of them are still blee- hold on, what's that?
DAN: Where?
WIL: Along the top, where the spine is. You see that? Like a vein, it's shining -
COR: That's gold.
WIL: So we've found a literal gold vein, and - let me get the scope - This actually looks like something foreign to the body. I can see where it emerges down there, and where it goes in again here - but it's just going under the surface. I can see there's a healed entry, like a - it looks like the crust around someone's piercing.
DAN: Let's keep moving and see if there's more of it.
WIL: We haven't actually gone that far back in time, but here's the tail end of - of us. And sure enough…
COR: A gigantic golden tumor.
WIL: Right on our gigantic ass. Figures.
OPS: Gentlemen, please. Narration.
WIL: There's a, well, it's a giant golden tumor. I can see it shimmering, and pulsing. It's got patches of gangrene emeralds and fissures bleeding rubies. I don't know if it's what we're looking for, but it's… it's pretty disturbing. I can see a high concentration of the ulcerous wounds I mentioned around it, and -
COR: Weapons.
DAN: I don't see any weap-
COR: No, weapons ready. There's movement. See it? That one, right there, on the side of the ass.
DAN: Oh. Shit.
WIL: It's breaking open. One of the wounds is opening, and there's - we found your four thousand. They look puffy, like maggots with arms and legs. They're pouring out of that wound like it's an anthill, they must be tunneled all through that body, and they're carrying - oh. Those are weapons. We'd better go. They see us.
COR: Don't engage unless you have to. Keep it moving. Danielewski, get us out of here.
DAN: We have to get back to the present. Follow the ridge -
WIL: No! Dammit get down -
OPS: Update?
WIL: They're shooting at us. Mortars are hitting this ridge and leaving craters that just - they're blacker than black, just emptiness. Danielewski took shrapnel.
DAN: It's - it doesn't hurt. It's just numb.
COR: Annihilation. They're trying to make us into nothing. That feeling you have is nihilism setting in. If we don't get you to a better place we're gonna lose you.
WIL: We've crossed into the treeline, and we can't hear the shots anymore. I think we can stick to generalities until we get back to the entry point and break out of this allegory.
Debriefing Excerpts |
Coronel: As far as I'm concerned, we found our answer. Men are corrupted by gold, it's the oldest story in the world. We didn't have to do all this, mi abuela could have just told you. Whether it they caught it from somewhere else or they grew out of us, they have to go. We have an enemy, and the only question left is how we're going to fight them. |
Danielewski: I don't know if we'll be able to meet force with force. Fighting is what makes them, it's what they live on. More violence will only feed them. I think maybe they're just us, a part of us. Like there's different kinds of bees that make up a hive. Maybe we need them. |
Wilson: I think they are different, they've always been different, that they're not a part of us. They've grown into us, the way cells came together to make colonies in the primordial soup. The creatures that eventually became cells in jellyfish probably didn't get along at first. Maybe we're still coming together. Maybe we're still figuring out how to make them part of us - maybe all of this, everything we are, maybe it's still going to change. Someday we could be as different from how we are now as a jellyfish is from an ape. Maybe this is a stage in our evolution. One that we'll leave behind. |