Reaper - Welcome to the Tea Party

I came of age watching the Twin Towers fall… sitting in ninth grade Latin with the feed on CNN playing the collision over and over, the puff of smoke, the people, glass, and paper motes in the camera’s eye. My classmates cried, some of them had parents who commute to Manhatten on a regular basis. The veil was lifted, the masquerade of peaceful suburbia shattered to pieces in the weeks after as the government took hammer after hammer to American innocence. Maybe I’m just kidding myself, all signs are that only our youths were innocent. Or maybe ignorant is a better word, a generation lost in smoke with no time left to start again. Wipe the blood away, the smoke, the death…

Marie shook herself out of her reverie. Her coffee was cooling fast. She rubbed at her eyes at her desk in Fort Dietrich, Maryland. “Howard!” Her CO called from the office door. “Stop busting your brain over that speech, you have a visitor!”

She looked up to see an aging man with dark hair, thin with his face stresslined. He wore a simple black suit and trilby hat. Marie pushed a strand of luxurious dark hair out of her eyes. She nodded at her CO slowly. “Lemme log out…”

She hit save on her word processor, looking at her reflection when she shut down and the screen went dark. What was it like to look out from a computer? She wondered to herself as she pocketed her flash drive. “What were you working on?”

“They wanted me to make a speech. I made Lieutenant and I finished my Masters at around the same time. A bunch of the old guard here at Dietrich wanted to throw me a party. Now I just have to decide to go for a second Masters or a PhD. It's going to be biology, whichever it is, maybe with an ecology bend, maybe a microbiology bend.” Marie offered her hand to shake. “Marie Howard.”

“James, just call me James.” The man replied. “I represent someone who’s been looking for an emergency planning and response specialist, though some general detective work will be required as well.”

“For what? Public health?”

“Kinda, can we find someplace more… private to talk?”

Marie looked over at her CO. “They do top secret shit, if they need emergency response personnel it's important. And they only take the best Howard, in my not so humble opinion that's you. You worked your ass off for this promotion, congrats.” He offered his hand to shake.

“Sir I’m not going away am I?” She asked, shaking his hand.

“That's up to you.” James replied aloofly.

“What’s your last name, really?” Marie was getting annoyed now.

“Dean.” James replied with an ear to ear shit eating grin.

“Fuck I had to get a wise ass.”

“I do UC work, so a single name is all you’re going to get.” James beamed innocently at her. “C’mon Howard. I’ve been looking at your dossier… says your mother’s surname was Phillips?”

“Yeah real funny, Howard Phillips Lovecraft, Phillips Howard is my mom’s surname. Not original.” Marie grumbled.

“Yeah there’s some crazy shit we need you to look into.”

“Not that hippie guy with the mushrooms again… sure Agarikon is something but…”

“Oh no no none of that…” They made it into a conference room. James was playing with a pen between his fingers. He sat down, straddling a chair and eyeing Marie. “… see what you make of these.” He opened a folder and turned it to her. “Found in a farm outside of Chicago. We’re keeping it under wraps until it's investigated.”

The folder was photographs and workups of a massively blistered body with some kind of grotesque growth on the throat and shoulder. “Are those… teeth?”

“It was some sort of mutative agent. We think the victim was dosed. We found a couple of the same a few years ago, including a rape victim, and a couple the year before that. The victims had multiple teratomas across their body. Same spots the bubos would have been if they had bubonic plague. Lots of internal damage too.”

“Lymph glands maybe?” Marie held one of the photographs up to her face and squinted at it. “God damn that one’s got hair!”

“We need you to try and isolate whatever it was that did this and find out everything you can about it. Our medical examiner has already done the most basic stuff and it's time to bring in a specialist. There’s a permanent position for you there once the job is done. We need investigators. Well we always need investigators. If you need guidance on how to get around, HR is just around the corner from the lab and we’re assigning you a technician for any computer stuff that has to get done. He volunteers to help a lot of other units with their tech stuff.”

“Who are you really? Like what’s your real name.” Marie was slightly annoyed and slightly amused by the thinly veiled bullshit the man answered with when it came to his name.

“James Dean Domino.” James teased with a gleeful glint in his eyes.

Marie snorted down her laughter. “Fuck you… sir…”

“So are you interested?”

“In investigating? Absolutely. Not sure about the position, depends on if I like the place. So… who are you really?”

“Um… James… Potter?”

Marie doubled over the table laughing. “Oh god normally I hate fucking bullshit like this… but I want to see how many different Jameses you can come up with in popular media.”

“Um… James… Roquette? And Meowza his feline sidekick?”

“Now you’re picking the low hanging fruit! James Roquette and Meowza my ass!” Marie burst into laughter again, shaking her head. “Alright, so how do I…”

“Non Disclosure agreement and then we can be underway. I just have to call someone and they can pack up your apartment. You’ll be living on base.”

There was nothing particularly odd about the nondisclosure agreement, standard legal fare. Marie read it three times top to bottom and signed it.

Within ten minutes she was being whisked away in a chopper. Her things would be sent along. The whirring of the helicopter and its rocking filled her hearing. She could see rivers and houses down below. And once she put on earmuffs, the rocking of the helicopter lulled her to sleep. “James Dean Domino my ass.” She muttered with a chuckle as her eyes drifted closed. “My cousin played that game so many fucking times I know a fake out when I see it.”

The jolt of the chopper touching down was her wake up alarm. The rotors spun down and James leaned over her with a smirk on his face. “Wakey wakey, eggs and bacey.” Then he turned and hopped down. “Welcome to site 19…” He beamed as if their surroundings were his creation alone.

Marie took it all in, it looked like a large prison compound crossed with a military base and one of those old Manhatten project towns from the late second world war. In the distance the base housing, gardens, vegetable gardens and a number of pressurized geodomes formed criss cross patchworks of green and glittering glass. Closer in the base consisted mostly of long, low slung buildings forming a patchwork of courtyards. “Goes underground I assume?”

“Yep…” James chuckled. “All the living quarters are topside, the real fun is underneath it. The tunnels run for miles too. And now that we’re on friendly ground, I can actually get a little more specific with names. Welcome to the SCP Foundation.”

“Am I supposed to know that name?” Marie asked, still in awe of the sprawl in the distance. She leaned over the helicopter pad railing and looked out over the courtyards, watching people come and go. White, black, orange jumpsuits, a few navy specks amid the black, lots of oxford shirts and khaki slacks, definitely a military think tank of some sort. There were gunner stations and smaller watchtowers along the sides of some of the court yards, enough that at least two gun turrets were able to be brought to bear at any given time on a particular courtyard. There were helicopter pads every three intersections of the boxes making the main building up.

It was set up it seemed, specifically to be able to chase and or ambush invaders. Every courtyard was a choke point, and the sniper towers allowed precision shots into the windows or courtyards if need be. The sniper towers all had intersecting lines of fire. In the event of an invasion this place would be a death trap. The helicopter pads though… “What about the pads?”

“What about them?” James’ eyebrow raised at her, his expression carefully neutral.

“The way they’re laid out implies its also an evacuation route. So whatever’s below, you want to be able to get away from it if you have to or to establish yourself topside to attack it if you have to. The choke points work for keeping something in or someone out.”

“Once you get to work in this place, and there’s an interesting necropsy you’ll be able to attend this evening, you’ll understand why we need this kind of a defense strategy.”

Below the chopper pad, on the ground floor, they came out in some kind of reception room. There were no markers anywhere there saying it belonged to the SCP Foundation. There was one party there for a funeral, clustered around the casket and crying while they waited for a hearse to take it away. There were a couple of folks that were obviously prisoners in cuffs and leg irons being minded by cranky looking men in suits and sunglasses. One of them had his glasses off and sticking out of his front pocket, so it was clearly an affectation and not a uniform. The prisoners were all pouring over folders they’d been given. There was no signing anything, or pens visible, so whatever contract they had had already been struck.

Existing agents seemed to use that room as a waiting ground, guests seemed to be coming and going very quickly and didn’t seem to be very common except for the prisoners in orange and a few folks that were being handled, probably prospective agents. Marie knew they were being handled because they had an array of different ‘unsure’ expressions on their faces, from eager to reticent, to impassive with just a curious glint. “So I’m not the only one being brought in.” Marie concluded.

“For your case you are, we just needed one more. But there are other cases, other work, and general work. Sometimes there’s even menial work. Everyone but the class D, that's the orange jumpsuits, gets self defense training if they haven’t learned already. Most folks get reassigned fucking quick. But we get enough staying on to get by.”

To Marie it was pretty clear they didn’t want visitors, but had provisions for them, but her train of thought was interrupted. A dark skinned man with a heart-shaped, boyish face and a head full of ear length dreadlocks strode towards them, a playful bounce in his step. “James I almost thought you’d forgotten to come back.” He said that with a wink as if that were some kind of inside joke.

“Naw, wouldn’t forget about you guys so easily.” James laughed. “Marie this is David Henderson. He’s not from your unit, friend of mine though.”

“I was raised on base, in the staff housing area.” David offered his hand to shake. “I worked as a technician here, since I was a kid.” His grin was warm and infectious and immediately put Marie at ease.

“Seriously?” Marie eyed him in shock and suspicion.

“Busted into a top secret database when I was twelve. I was supposed to be in ninth grade because of my grades but because I was young they kept me back a year, and a year, and a year, finally got bored and decided to prove Just how smart I was. Wanted to prove I could handle adult work and I got my wish alright. Once they realized I was just a very smart kid and nothing more…” He chuckled. “God the looks James gave me. He was a rookie back then. Just twenty.”

“Was he always just James? No last name?”

“Well James was an assumed one, he didn’t have a name. One of the bosses said it had been stolen. Wouldn’t say by who.”

“And yet I am sane and endure.” James replied smugly. “One day I’ll get the SOB who stole my identity. But I’m used to being James. I might not even change my given name back on the papers.”

“And they let you in?”

“Oh I have to have psych evals three times a year.” James told her. “I’m good, totally. And actually I was twenty five when we met David. I was just going through a… bit of a nihilistic phase I guess… so your little training group is going to have just one more. He came in last night, been exploring the place so we’re going to have to try to find him.”

“Oh Damascus? He’s not totally an anime nerd like me but… I think he was going to have a look at the Omega 7 try outs.”

“God really? I have to deal with… fine… I hate dealing with Abel but if I have to.”

“Oh don’t worry, I’m sure you and Bright have so much to talk about hating Abel.”

“Stop being an imp David you’re a grownup agent now.” James grumbled.

“Says the man who hasn’t aged a day in what… must be eight years now?” David chuckled. “How old are you really James?”

“That’s classified.” James snapped.

“He doesn’t age?” Marie asked curiously, head turning suddenly in his direction.

“Long story. But also my memory is completely fucked, I can only gauge my age based on what doctors can tell me about my teeth and skeleton.” James grumbled. “Abel decided I wasn’t trustworthy because of it. If it weren’t for Cain and Doctor Mosley… I’d literally have lost my head.”

“Wait, Cain and Abel, like the bible?”

“Yeah big fucking joke…” David smirked. “But don’t underestimate Cain man, he may be quiet but you fuck with him he’ll knock you flat on your ass.”

James turned them down a couple of corridors and then stopped after a couple hundred yards. “Smell that?”

“What?” Marie sniffed, the scent of lavender wafted through the halls.

“Lavender…” David stopped one of the passing guards. “Hey did they move 049 through here?”

“Yeah he’s going to be part of the demonstrations this week, since all the new MTF guys including the Hatters are coming in, a lot of famous SCPs are due to be demonstrated. Nothing that can’t be reasoned with mind you, but they are planning to necropsy a 939 and 049 is going to make some of his creatures for demonstration purposes. Hence the reek of Lavender everywhere. Only way to keep him from compliant.”

“Some psycho killer or something?” Marie looked from David to the guard and back.

“Heheh, newbie huh? You’ll see… seriously 049’s special… skills are terrifying to behold. Just hold the Frankenstein jokes for later.” The guard walked off, whistling to himself.

“Frankenstein?” Marie watched him go.

“Long story…” James hurried them down a number of corridors until they reached a nearby practice yard. The entire place was a hive of activity, with people in different iterations of cameo fatigues and police uniforms and suits and labcoats, all escorted by Foundation Personnel and all with freshly minted level one badges. “Whoops… forgot to give you yours.” He reached into his suit pocket and pulled out a small piece of plastic. James proudly pinned it to the front pocket of Marie’s jacket. “That's your ID badge. If you’re promoted you’ll get a higher clearance level but for now because you’re an MTF Cadet you can’t go into higher clearance zones without permission and an escort.”

Marie looked at the badge carefully. It wasn’t the best picture, but she smiled none the less. “Thanks.” James lead her out into a practice field, with a nice soft grass surface and a large set of bleachers, much like a highschool field or court. It wasn’t large, and clearly wasn’t painted up for ball games.

In the middle a man with long black hair in a ponytail, covered in tattoos effortlessly fended off a series of hand to hand attacks by a number of soldiers in black uniforms. There was no armor involved, and a helmet commonly used as wrestling safety equipment. One careful spin on his heal and a man that had to be six feet, built like a linebacker, went flying from a palm thrust. A much more nimble combatant tried to get in a sneak attack from behind, reaching for a flag pinned to the man’s belt. Only he got an elbow in the gut and the woman who came after him had her feet swept out from under her with a swift, graceful kick.

“Omega 7 is the Foundation’s last ditch squad. When everything else fails. They use the symbol of Pandora’s box for a reason.”

“In the greek myth, when Pandora opened her box, all the evils of the world came out. She slammed it shut, and the only thing left inside was hope.” Marie recited. “I’ve heard the story many times as a child. I’m Itallian, we love our classical myths.”

“Yeah well… meet the hope at the bottom of Pandora’s box.” James snorted cynically.

“WEAK WEAK WEAK! All of you!” Abel looked about to storm out. “Stop handing me WEAKLINGS. I knocked all of you to the ground in one shot! Do you think the Foundation’s enemies will show the mercy of letting you get back up? No! They will not. And so with my training I will show you none. You have to be ready to DRIVE yourself beyond your limits! Or you’ll meet a swift death minutes into one of our missions.”

“So all they have to do is grab the flag from your belt?” A man with a low ponytail hanging around his shoulders, wearing a beat cop uniform asked, a smirk on his face. He stood there with his arms crossed over his chest, a skeptical look on his face.

“Harder than it looks, Greenhorn.” Abel cracked his neck lazily.

“I’ll have a go.” The man rolled his shoulders and took a defensive stance.

“Oh no, you don’t take the defense here, you have to actually attack. And what makes you even think you can win?”

“I don’t. But I’ve never lost a footrace with a suspect.” The man’s eyes flashed, the orbs deep blue and his expression cocky. “Would have made detective but I was tapped for this little sortee right after they handed me my badge.”

“Fine…” Abel darted forwards with a simple punch, fast, lightning fast. Marie could barely track it.

The man swung out of the way, hopping backwards like a schoolboy skipping rope. Abel tried a kick next, and the man feinted. “Name’s Damascus by the way. Nice to meetcha.” He swung around behind Abel and reached for the flag. Abel fell into a roundhouse kick, and Damascus caught it, then immediately grimaced in pain. Marie could hear the crack of skin on skin, as the impact caught Damascus off guard. He hissed, that and a grimace crossing his face for a mere second. He tried to recover, to power through the pain, only Abel got a second roundhouse kick in and sent Damascus flying.

“Abel… pleasant to meet you… Greenhorn.” He said that nickname grudgingly. “Give it a few years.” He offered Damascus his hand to help him up. “And you might actually be able to do something.”

“Yeah… so I’ve been told.”

“Oh… my… god…” David ran over. “Holy shit Damascus are you okay?”

“More than okay.” He held out his hand, unfurling a crumpled piece of paper. It was a business card. “Looks like a martial arts instructor.”

“Lemme see…” James looked at the card over his sunglasses. “Ah yes, I know this guy.”

Abel gave James a cold look as he passed, like he was beneath the graceful man somehow. James ignored him. “So what does he do?”

“Teaches some of the higher level MTF squads their melee combat skills. I’d say that was a sterling recommendation if I ever saw one. It means Abel thinks you might actually be worth his time some day.”

“Is he that big of a snot?” Marie asked, eyeing the man curiously as he stopped to talk to a pair of important looking agents. She couldn’t see their key cards, but one of them was wearing an expensive looking fedora and carrying a shotgun instead of the usual pistol sidearm. Whatever Abel said to the man with the shotgun he laughed it off as the tattoo’d man strode out of the arena. The man with the fedora and shotgun hopped up into the stands, pulled out a trio of beers, and popped the tops for his companions, raising a toast that Marie couldn’t hear.

“Abel is elitist, just a mite, but more importantly he’s matter of fact. He is hands down the SCP Foundation’s best combatant, though I’m sure many of the senior staff would disagree. I can also tell you that over the years he’s steadily gained more control and social skills. He’s not going to just go on a rampage, not anymore. And while he still doesn’t like me, he’s definitely not going to haul off and kill me for just being… suspicious to him. Anyway this is the third man in your rookie squad…”

“Damascus, that's the code name I picked.” Damascus offered the hand not injured by the impact of Abel’s kick to shake.

Marie took it eagerly. “Marie Howard, Lieutenant US Army. And this is…”

“I met David and James already.” Damascus nodded cordially to the other two men. “I guess I’m supposed to be the detective of the three of us.”

“From now on the three of you are a team through basic training. Takes about a year. So even if you aren’t assigned something in your specialty, odds are one of the rest of you will be able to fill in the gap.” James gestured them towards the door the man in the Fedora had come out of. “C’mon, if we hurry you can catch sight of them bringing in the 939 corpse.”

“Heheheh, wait until you two see these guys.” David grinned. “Size of a fucking bear, hit like trucks… if you get attacked by one you won’t know what hit you, literally!”

“C’mon David, don’t spoil it.”

“So this 939 is some kind of wild animal?”

“Ooooh, and more!” David rubbed his hands together conspiratorially. “They have some nice pharmaceutical compounds the Foundation likes to harvest. We use them for memory research.”

“Really? What do they do?” Marie asked hopefully.

“Induce anterograde amnesia for a short time.” David beamed as if the information were worth gold.

“Wait WHAT?” Marie suddenly felt a jolt of excitement. She’d never heard of such a compound, but if so it was like pharmaceutical gold.

“Yep, but you have to see them before I tell you more.” David said with a glint in his eye.

Marie picked up her pace after James. The corridors were a maze, twisting and turning. The procession transporting 049 must have passed through, because she smelled Lavender briefly. It was as if their path had been soaked in it. After about ten minutes they reached a loading dock, and a refrigerator truck was just opening up its doors. “I want to see I want to see… you said it causes anterograde amnesia? How?”

“Gas.” David smirked.

“Hello David, finally made it to the adult table huh?” The porters laughed. “This guy, never loses his childish enthusiasm. So you came to get a sneak peek at 939 I take it.”

“Yes sir.” Marie curiously tried to peer in the partly open door of the truck.

“Easy there tiger.” James chuckled. “She’s recruited for the Maz Hatters.” He added.

“That so? Where ya from?”

“Fort Dietrich, Maryland.” Marie answered with a smooth smile. “I’m a Lieutenant in the US Army.”

“That so? Well you’ll have to earn your Lieutenant pin all over again here.” The transport agent was carefully muscling a stretcher out of the truck. “Covered up for the big reveal, make sure you suitably ooh and aah when Doctor Millar shows it off himself.”

“They convinced Doctor Gears not to give the presentation then?” James asked hopefully. “Millar’s got showmanship. Gears has the showmanship of a rock. We lose somebody every time he gives the presentation just because of boredom.”

“Yeah Millar’s got just enough jackal in him to be interesting without being terribly unstable. Not like Clef. Entertaining but fireworks always go off when he gives it.” The transport agent shook his head. “The year I joined the Foundation, they had him give the orientation. And Bright decided to give a demonstration of how to make shotgun shell shaped fireworks.” He laughed with a roll of his eyes.

“And these guys are…”

“Well Millar is the guy that does most of the teaching when it comes to how different scps work. Gears is known for having the showmanship, and personality of a rock. Hence why we don’t want him to give the presentation. And Clef well… he does infiltration shit, and instructs in it from time to time, but mostly he does sneak jobs. So when he’s on base he’s anything but sneaky. Gotta blow off steam somehow.” The agent explained to Marie. “The problem is, a lot of his stunts, Bright’s too, get messy if done in the wrong place at the wrong time. So one of the most important rules of dealing with the higher ups here, be ready for insanity at any time, in any form.” He set the stretcher on flat ground, and Marie could see a giant mound underneath the sheet. Then he whipped it away with a flourish.

“WOOAAAAH!” Marie’s eyes turned huge. 939 was a huge bright red lizard like creature. It had no eyes, huge jaws and claws, a broad forehead, and bulky shoulders. Spikes came out of its back. The creature was the size of a bear, more or less, a black bear.

David beamed as if the creature were somehow his creation. “Told you they were awesome.” Damascus moved to the other side of the creature, silently running a hand over its physical form. “But seriously dangerous. They can rip people apart, like a fucking piranha.”

“Wow…” Damascus’ tone was hushed. “Wonder if I can outrun one of these…” He lifted one of its back legs, comparing it to his own. “Small but the muscles are solid. This guy can run, but not far, not for long. He’s an ambush hunter.”

“I point out pitbulls are not the fastest or smartest dogs, they can still do a crapton of damage to somebody if they’re abused, neglected, and trained to like ripping things apart.” Marie said cooly. “Still, these guys must be fantastic when they’re alive in full combat. I’d hate to meet one of these in a dark alley.”

Damascus compared its head and shoulders to his. Standing beside the 939 instance and holding one of its arms and its attached shoulder up to him. Damascus’ expression was reverent, even as he was sizing the dead creature up to his own abilities. Marie ran a hand over the creature’s flank, imagining it alive and in combat. “This thing could decimate a squad even with automatic carbines. Where do they live?”

“Mostly in the Rockies.” The agent replied.

“Mostly?” Marie asked sharply, looking up at him.

“This one was bred by Marshall Carter and Dark. They were harvesting the damn stuff from him. Weapons research. We had to put him down. They’re too dangerous to transport, and we have plenty in cryo storage and containment for study.”

“They weren’t going to use him as a weapon were they?” Marie asked sharply.

“It was possible, which is why we had to put that operation down HARD.” The agent emphasized the word and shook his head. “Buddy of mine was in the MTF that did the bust. Now you guys had better hurry or you’re going to be late for orientation.”

Marie and Damascus walked in silence behind James. David’s expression was eager and bright. “See? There’s all kinds of different anomalies, some are dangerous like nine three nine is. Some are objects, info hazards, cognito hazards, even memes that come to life! Our job is to protect the public from them. As for creatures, I’ve seen dinosaurs, giants and ogres, even origami dragons! I heard they even got the human skeleton closet to do his routine tonight.”

“The what?”

“He’s from the circus. Only his sideshow skills aren’t some illusion or makeup or bunk or anything. He has this dance and song he does to tell the story about how he got his powers. See the Mobile Task forces, that's us, we’re combat squads. So we mostly see the really dangerous… we call them SCPs, or anomalies. SCP comes from our credo, Secure, Contain, Protect.” David went on like that for a few minutes, from the sentient octopuses to the ‘mermaid’ that was too injured to go back to the wild, three or four kinds of anomalous spiders, and apparently a pterodactyl the size of a bat that he once got to ‘borrow’ for halloween (he was dressing up as a pirate, and had no parrot.)

Marie just kind of tuned it out, thinking about that 939… thing… “hang on!” David slipped into a side room marked “Locker room” and came out with two vials of lavender oil. “Knew I had spares! With 049 being shunted around you can’t be too careful! Here, one for each of you.”

“This will actually protect me?” Damascus eyed the vial skeptically.

“Yep. He loves the stuff. It’s like catnip to him he totally gets stoned.” David chirruped.

“Thanks.” Marie popped the bottle open and breathed in the calming scent. “So… orientation… which way?”

Doctor Millar’s presentation was oddly cheerful, or at least he himself was. They got to take turns examining the 939 specimen, Marie oooh’d and aaah’d appropriately. And he went on about all the different, bizarre forms of the anomalous he’d seen, trying to give them an idea. The anomalous was a serious matter, some anomalies could bend space time, drive people insane, it wasn’t just creatures or superpowered humans. There were anomalous items, info hazards (and no Roko’s Basilisk didn’t count), even anomalous diseases.

“We are the first and last line of defense. We study these SCPs so that we learn how to counteract their effects. We die in the dark, unmourned, sung only by our fellows, so that others may live in and enjoy the light. We take the extreme big picture, well as much so as a normal human can get I think, so that the world can continue turning as it has for centuries. We find anomalies from every era of history, and we also find people and organizations that fought them, that tried to do what we do but weren’t big enough in scope at it, that weren’t advanced enough to succeed.”

“So who decided it was the Foundation’s job? And why?” Marie thought she had long since moved past speaking out of turn in class. But the question was suddenly so pressing she couldn’t stop herself.

Every head in the room turned to look at her, and Marie suddenly felt like a bacteria under her microscope. “The Foundation decided it was their job. Nobody else was doing it.” Millar seemed delighted with her question. “There were people exploiting anomalies for personal gain, trading and trafficking in them. There were cults that worshipped anomalies. Governments were getting concerned. Travel speed was increasing. And many were just wiping anomalous creatures and individuals out simply because they were afraid, without trying to understand the bigger picture.

“There is a lesson from the conservation movement that can be gleaned here. Humans have an innate bias towards warm blooded, complex, preferably social animals. We are very protective of our lions and tigers and bears; oh my. What we don’t realize is that the insects, spiders, worms, fungi, bacteria, all those tiny creatures we walk past dozens of times a day and never notice, have a much greater role in keeping us alive. We may be impressed by our friend with many voices here on the demonstration table, but he is a symptom of a greater truth. If we wipe them out without understanding what role they play, or could play, we may be missing something else that we’ll regret later.

“Because of this the Foundation catalogs everything, even anomalous persons or objects that don’t rate becoming SCPs. Because we don’t know what the complete picture of any of it is, and if an item turns out to be dangerous or useful or if there turns out to be more of than one of them and someone else gets the other one, we need to know. We need to know how to counter it, we need to know how to find it, we need to know if someone is driving it behind the scenes that could show up later. We don’t want any surprises, NONE.

“So we save the bacteria, the bugs, the mushrooms and worms and spiders, because we don’t know which of them could have a pleasant or obscenely nasty surprise or what’s going to show up later. For example this mother fucker right here.”

Millar moved on at that point. Marie wholeheartedly agreed about surprises. She was in emergency planning and response, preparing for the worst, surprises were the worst thing to find in the middle of an operation. They were also an inevitability.

When the orientation was over, Millar directed them to a hallway with less threatening SCPs set up for display and promise of a chance to watch the Plague Doctor’s work tomorrow night. Marie slowly made her way towards the hall she had been directed to. The people bustled by on either side. James appeared at her right elbow, David and Damascus at the left. They were led towards the proper spot, moving more closely together and a bit slower against the crowds. The world seemed to blur around her, except for just the four of them.

As Marie turned the corner to look into some of the labs, she ended up alone amid a number of animal scps, tended by their scientists. David and Damascus peeled off and David showed off a tiny pterodactyl one of the female researchers was showing on display. The two dangled crickets for it, trying to get him to take one from their fingers.

Marie ended up in front of a small terrarium, watched by a slightly tubby looking researcher in glasses. “So what are you working on?”

“Not really working on, more like tending to. These are the descendants of the only telepathic spider.” He chuckled. “Ever read the book Charlotte’s web?”

“Watched the cartoon actually. Cried like a baby. Some kids watched Old Yeller to bawl their eyes out, me I watched the story of a spider and a pig!”

“Well that's what 1470 was kinda like. Only he didn’t realize we were the ones talking to him, he thought we were a bunch of other spiders. It's a nowhere assignment, but I’m determined to see if another one will show up, a Charlotte I guess you could say. Poor thing, I’ve seen the tapes. My mentor gave him a bit of an existential shock. Now we have a terrarium full of his progeny. These are just a few of them brought over for the display. Personally I don’t think we should have told him what he was, think how alone he felt when he died!”

“Yeah, being one of a kind would just plain suck.” Marie looked curiously into the terrarium. One of the spiders looked curiously back at her. “Is it true they have really good visual acuity?”

“Yeah but think about the scale they’re looking from.