Comrade Zero

"Doc… hey, I'm not feeling so well."

She starts, turns and he's grinning at her from the doorway.

"Heyy…don't be scared Doc, it's just me." Smiling his little boy smile, hands out at his sides. "Just your star pupil."

"Your ability to repeatedly interact with SCP-XXXX has been somewhat remarkable Mr. Calhoun, though it does not mean you are allowed to simply roam the facility at will. Let's have security return you to your cell shall we?"

She shows him the necklace fob, clicks the button twice under a red lacquered thumbnail.

"Yeah, press that all you want… it won't matter. Turns out that guard captain, Hernandez? Turns out we're familiar with each other from long ago; he had a price and I paid it. So you and me? We're alone for the next bit, all alone."

His smile widens, predatory and wet.

"And you can call me Donny, all my friends do."

She pushes the button anyway, reflexively, hating the knowledge that he's telling the truth. She's starting to stand and look for a weapon but she's slow, terribly slow and unprepared.

He's not slow.

He's on her quick, almost preternaturally fast, closing the distance between them in a instant. His left hand grasps her throat as his right sails in from the corner of her vision bringing a total black.


She wakes in fright, thrashing herself away from him onto the floor of her sleeping quarter. But that's not right, they were in her office…

The door leading into her small living room is open; she sneaks through it carefully, naked, the skin on her back crawling. Is Calhoun in here?

He is not.

She scrambles to her desk and tears open the bottom drawer, pawing through the junk until she finds it in the bottom corner. A heavy black cylinder a little longer than the width of her hand wrapped in a checked rubber grip, a small silver stud near the top. A gift from an old girlfriend, Marlene the Drama Queen.

She depresses the stud while giving the thing a practiced snap of her wrist and three feet of black telescoping metal expands out smoothly. A type of military grade alloy with an unusual amount of flex, the weighted end impacts objects with incredible force when deployed.

She has a bad taste in her mouth, thick and unpleasant and with this realization comes, unbidden, the images of the assault.

His hand griping, the fist looping down. She tries to bring her memory further, to examine the events after he strikes her, but it's as if those memories don't exist.

Does it matter? No, she doesn't need to remember.

She knows what he did.

She stares down at the extended weapon in her hand.

What should she do?

Clean up. Get right.

Find him.

"I'm going to brush my teeth and then I'm going to go whip that mother fucker in his balls until he bleeds out in front of me."

Talking to herself, sign of stress but that's okay; she is angry and strong, ready to lash out and destroy and that is more than okay.

Some sub-human D-Class piece of shit that no one will ever miss, never mind wonder about.

Her stomach rumbles loudly but the thought of food repels her. The thick, glue like nature of her own mouth repels her.

Kicking the open button to the bath cubicle she brandishes the whip high, hoping Calhoun will be standing in the small space waiting for her.

Again, he is not.

"You're okay. Clean up, get right."

Then find him…

Yes; find him and kill him.


Hernandez is waiting for her in the service corridor leading to the D-Wing. As he begins to speak she unloads the whip into his eye, swinging from the hip.

He screams and drops to the ground clutching his face as blood wells heavily up and out from between his fingers.

She waits while he tries to collect himself, coldly staring down a lone D-Class trustee who limps past pushing an over-burdened laundry cart.

Hernandez is quietly whimpering and has pulled himself into a sitting position against the wall, both hands cupped around his shattered eye socket.

"Toss your radio and stick over here."

He pulls the small tab com from his collar and the modified cattle prod from his belt and weakly throws them in her direction, his palm soaked in his own blood.

"You're a crazy bitch!"

"Fuck you; you sold me to Calhoun."

"I…" Hernandez slumps against the wall "I, fuck, I'm sorry…"

"Yes you are. Where is he Ken?"

"Calhoun? In his cell. But you… I mean… he's dead. I thought you did him already."

She stares at him, considering, and her stomach rumbles again, like a bastard. She realizes the glue mouth is back too, product of adrenaline and stress; whatever, focus.

Find him.

"Show me his body."

"My fucking face is torn apart, I think I'm blind!!"

"Just in one eye Ken. Show me his body and I'll patch you back up; you can trust me. I'm a doctor."


Later, in her office again, she winds clean white gauze around his head. He's exchanged his blood soaked guard uniform for patient greens and seems smaller because of it.

"You had a price and he paid it."

"What?"

"That's what Calhoun said. I tried to call security and he said you had a price; a price he paid, so we'd be alone."

"He tell you we used to know each other, back in the way back when?"

"Something like that."

"Well we did, not much different than it is now. It wasn't Foundation, but Donny was a prisoner and I was a guard. Only Donny was wired in… he had connections to some scary people. Called him the Dime, just never to his face. People knew with just one phone call Donny could fuck your life bad outside the walls."

"Donny the Dime?"

"Yeah, real original right? Anyway, one day in the yard this mutt walks up to me an says he's got a message for me from Donny. I was pretty new so instead of smashing this dude down right there I asked what it was."

"And?"

"It was a picture of my family leaving my house that morning. My wife and son, leaving to take him to daycare; go to work herself, you know? It was my family… what was I gonna do? You understand, you got a family."

"Of course, everyone has… I have… my mother."

"Right? An what would you do if someone threatened her? You'd probably do whatever you could to keep her safe right?"

"Threatened? I would eliminate the threat."

"Yeah, well, that wasn't possible… so I had to do what he told me."

"This was a long time ago though."

"I see him here, first time we're alone enough he's all smiles asking about the family. I'm so sorry Doc, I am… but they're here with me, in the residences. Donny seems to be able to go wherever he wants, I got scared."

"Donny was going wherever he wanted because you were letting him you moron!!"

"It wasn't just me! I don't know how many of my guys he had figured out. Donny was a dangerous man."

"And now he's dead."

"I saw his body Doc, it was in his cell. I was walking up to check on you when you caved in my face."

"So where is the body now Ken? Answer me that. Did it also walk out to check on me?"

"Yeah, it is kinda weird, I'll admit that… Why are you interested though? I mean I get it, dude assaulted you, that's fucked up. But he's dead; don't you, like, have other things to do?"

"Other things? I…he assaulted me, you said it yourself. I'm going to find him Ken… I… I just realized I don't have to explain a goddamn thing to you. Help me find him or you're terminated."

"Luckily Donny, ah, has an ID chip implanted so we can probably find his location on your terminal over there. Would you like me to?"

"Find him Ken, now!"

"Sure thing Doc, just give me a mo."

She watches him carefully as he operates the box, navigating his way through the symbols and shapes until he comes to rest on the image of a green grid. A small green dot pulses and she knows this is where they must go.

"This is weird…it looks like he's in with your skip."

"My Skip? I do not…"

"SCP-XXXX, the one you've been working with? He's in her containment."

Yes, yes this is right. She has found him and it is so very right. Amongst the smell of rotting flesh, the pollen the power the hunger she will find him. It is time now, time to go.

"You will take me to her Ken. Take me now."

"Sure thing Doc, let's…"

"But first I will brush my teeth!"


She walks as quickly as she can, but she feels slow and ponderous. She knows she is quickening but it seems as if this does not translate to her physical body as of yet.

Ken walks with her, guides her. She knows she needs to find him and Ken guides her. He has changed again. No longer green and small he is now dark, dark blue and much harder. Ken carries objects now that are almost familiar, almost…alarming?

But she doesn't care. Ken guides her. Ken guides her to him and at last…

Oh at long last, they are there.

There here him her the doorway. I am here it is time.

Clouds of pollen billow from the doorway and tinge the air yellow, predatory leaves rustle and the air reeks of rotten meat and she is here, finally here.

Calhoun's body is propped against the wall of the room and she sees him as she enters but he is forgotten, no longer matters because…

She is here. And She is here.

"Mother."

And Ken is here… What the fuck is Ken doing here? He is unecessary, intruding…

"Ahhh, you poor girl… don't even know you're dead. I'm sorry Doc, you never even realized that you didn't even have a name, did you?"

"Ken, fuck off…"

"Freeze it; now!"

Who is he talking to…it is the TIME!!! Ken must FUCK OFF!

A D-class trustee limps in and points something at her but it is TIME and nothing can…no, oh no it's cold… oh no, she hadn't even realized…oh no…how warm it was until it got…


To: Dr. Henry McDaniel, Operations Co-Ordinator Selective Breeding Project
From: Dr. Kenneth Hernandez, Facility Liaison Site XXXX
Subject: The really bad not very good day lol.

Hank:

I attached the whole file of course, but I'm gonna rant…

Sorry to joke in the subject line of an offc. doc but I lost a fucking eye today so here goes professionalism, the nerds can clean it up later if it's too much for someone's tastes. (I'm about two hours from getting it replaced, I'm gonna get a blue one to go with the brown one and really fuck with people. Kinda like SPC-XX… I wonder if Iman would date me now that he's "dead" haha.)

Again, sorry. I may have had a few drinks to kill the pain, bear with me, there's relevant info and I'll try to spin it as concisely as I can so you don't have to read the whole goddam file. I wasn't kidding about the eye man, and maybe I've had more than a few… haha, whatever.

I took too many chances today Hank, played it too fast and loose and I cost myself. Lucky for me that plant and her kid are just the fucking dumbest… I mean, words fail.

For an anomalous species that reproduces asexually I have never seen so much complication and confusion in simply getting the thing done.

What a fuster cluck. Where to even start?

The seedling (SCP-XXXX-1) had to TRANSFER itself halfway through gestation to a new host because it's close to exhausting it's food source and it's NOWHERE NEAR ready to birth. This act, get this, traumatizes the remaining psyche of the new host so badly that it creates aberrant, like, terminally flawed behaviour.

Instead of just heading to where momma is so she can get a nice dose of pollen and trigger the birthing event this idiot is roaming around looking for the body of the previous host. Bent on revenge fantasies and smacking military grade self defense weapons into the eye sockets of poor defenseless yadda yaddas too, she is.

And, in all honesty, that yadda yadda maybe took a little too much time figuring all this out and had to essentially stall with story time while dead bodies were moved around as bait. So yeah that one's kinda on me too… What. A. Day.

Anyway, I'm going to go ahead and again push the idea that this stupid plant is extra-terrestrial. It just doesn't seem to do well here; we've found what, like X? They breed like pandas Hank, it's a no gainer.

The necro-animation the seedling displays is no doubt fascinating, and in some small ways it was incredibly realistic, especially in the early stages whilst in Calhoun. But I practically had to push him into the doctors room when it was obvious the seedling needed to transfer. It did display some fascinatingly precise dialogue at that time but it was definitely reciting an implant we'd provided in this "Calhoun" character's consciousness.

This species just isn't very bright Hank.

I had immediately moved out ALL essential personnel when the seedling transferred itself from Calhoun to the doc and she didn't notice shit. An entire facility and there's just her and I…oh and, what is it, Horst? I really enjoy his theatrical touches, excellent field agent that guy, always there if you need him.

But yeah, three people in an entire facility while this plays out…does she notice? She does not, which is, as I've noted, just dumb.

You should have seen her face when I mentioned Calhoun having an ID chip… she wanted to ask "What's that?" so fucking bad Hank, it was almost cute but ultimately so very, very sad. Guessing complicated machine use isn't possible due to a severe lack of intelligence.

What else before I go get my new spec? Hmmm… oh, those new hypno-sets doctored the hell out of that street rat. WOW!. She even did an "above-average" job of patching up my eye according to the tech here. All while technically deceased and under the control of an extra-moron alien plant baby, so yay brand new hypno-sets I guess. "Calhoun's" implants, while much more basic were quite effective as well. I may have already mentioned that the seedling fully accessed and repeated one, I don't emember because I may be drunk. And worried because I wonder if the plants problems were maybe due, in part, to our im-plants… unsure on that, but concerned. Things should never work too too well.

Anything else, comrade?

Oh yeah…the temperature. I mean, I'm sure there's a thousand things and we'll talk about them all when I get to XXXXXXXXX but I did want to mention the temp.

This ones on her mom, stupid bitch that she is haha. (I know, keep it impartial, I know…but she ate a friend of mine Hank. Friend of yours too. He still misses his arm. I'll say hi the next time we're out golfing.)

Temp though…Never an attempt Hank, never once did that idiot plant try to jack temp controls or send a human agent in to crank the thermostat, because that's what WE had to do ourselves. Just to keep this stupid fucking panda palnt warm.

I guess, what I'm really trying to say here Hank, is that I'll own up to my mistakes like a man, but we pulled it off and you got your idiot popsicle plant baby. Don't fucking forget that wehn bonus time comes around.

So, long story, don't give me anny shit about the dual coloured eyes when I see you. It was just a plant taht ate people but yoo wanted it to be a mommy.

Congratulations

Yours,

Ken