Icky and Lolly screamed in delight as the Frite Lite Roller Coaster zoomed along its twisted path through Wonder World!™. In addition to being the theme park city’s biggest attractions, the roller coasters doubled as metro trains. While their looping and winding tracks may not have been the most efficient route, they made up for it in speed and smiles.
As much as Lolly loved the Circus, she also loved the chance to enjoy the much larger attractions that were possible at a fixed location. From the peak of the loop, she could see all of Wonder World!™. It was an unusually colourful city, pastel buildings with no sharp corners, most of them so oddly shaped they looked like funhouse mirror reflections of themselves. The sky was blue, the sun bright, and the music of songbirds and laughter of children pervaded the air. From the sights to the sounds to the people themselves, everything about the city was designed to project an aura of childlike innocence. Wonder World!™ was intended to be a place where dreams came true, where nothing bad ever happened.
Lolly may have been willing to believe that, but Icky couldn’t help but wonder how many problems Wonder World!™ just covered up instead of dealing with to preserve its squeaky clean image.
As the roller coaster dove down towards the ground again, it began to decelerate.
“Next stop – Wonder Plaza!” an automated announcer proclaimed with the same mandatory enthusiasm it did for all stops. As soon as the roller coaster came to a halt, Lolly hopped out while pulling Icky behind her.
“So I think I’ve had enough rides for today, so we should probably do some shopping,” Lolly told her. “The Pan Boutique has the largest selection of kid’s style clothes in adult sizes I’ve ever seen, plus all their outfits come in matching doll sizes -”
“Lolly.”
“I can probably get some props for my act at one of the toy stores, and I want to hit the candy stores because everything they sell here is delicious -”
“Lolly.”
“Then we can get dinner, catch a show, they’re supposed to put on an amazing Seussical, and then we can finish the day at the skating rink, or maybe a balloon ride, or maybe -”
“Lolly!”
“What?”
“Just slow down for a second. We're on a date, not running a marathon. Let’s just take a minute to ourselves, enjoy this,” Icky suggested. She pulled Lolly towards her and went in for a kiss. To her surprise, Lolly pulled back.
“Hey, remember we’re in Wonder World. We got to keep it family friendly.”
“Lesbians are family friendly now. There’s like a whole show on Cartoon Network about space lesbians. It’s awesome.”
“Icky.”
“What’s the point of going on a date if we can’t even kiss? Just kiss me and you’ll see no one cares. Trust me.”
Lolly gave a somewhat embarrassed smile and nodded her consent. Icky pulled her towards her and kissed her, only to be interrupted by the high pitch screech of a police whistle.
“Uh oh.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“That’s enough of that you two, hands where I can see them,” the whistleblower said. He was dressed all in bright blue with a reflective orange sash and an odd round hat with a plastic badge pinned to the front that read 'Wonder World Security Force™'.
“Is there a problem off- I’m sorry, I was going to say ‘officer’ but you’re closer to a mall cop or something, aren’t you?”
“I’m a hall monitor, and you two are in direct violation Wonder World’s public decency bylaws.”
“Is that so?” Icky asked in a low, cold voice.
“Icky, please stay calm,” Lolly urged her.
“I’m afraid it is. No individuals, be they residents or guests, may engage in kissing on the lips or the fondling of any swimsuit areas whilst in public view,” the hall monitor informed them.
“Swimsuit areas? That’s how the law is actually worded?” Icky asked. “You can’t even use grownup words in your legislation? Is your company charter written in crayon?”
“It is actually. There’s an activity sheet on the back.”
“Icky, you heard what he said. It’s just a public display of affection thing. It’s not homophobic, it applies to everyone, so let’s not make a big deal out of this.”
“Hand over your hall passes and I’ll stamp them with frowny faces,” the hall monitor said. “Three frowny faces and your hall passes will be revoked.”
Icky couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of the situation.
“And what if we don’t? What then? Your nightstick is made out of nerf. How exactly do you plan to enforce any of this if we don’t just politely cooperate?” she asked.
“Icky, think about this. I love coming here, and Wondertainment is one of our suppliers. This isn’t worth it,” Lolly insisted.
“Actually that’s a good point. We’re from the Circus of the Disquieting, which is a decent sized client of yours. Unless you want to risk losing our business, I’m going to have to insist that you waive this particular bylaw, just this once.”
His face sternly resolute, the Hall Monitor unsheathed his nerf bat.
“I’m sorry miss, but the law is the law. Your hall pass, if you please.”
Icky just rolled her eyes and turned to leave, grabbing Lolly by the hand. She stopped dead in her tracks when she felt the soft foam baton strike the back of her head.
“And there’s another one where that came from if you don’t -”
The Hall Monitor immediately fell silent when Icky spun around, her eyes burning with a fierce purple blaze. She telekinetically pulled the bat from his hand and transmuted it into a spiked medieval weapon of heavy iron.
“Did you seriously just hit me with this?” she demanded, her voice taking on a deep and terrifying timbre. The Hall Monitor stumbled backwards, tripping and falling, too paralyzed with fear to get back up. He stammered inanely but could produce no coherent response.
“Icky! You’re making a scene!” Lolly yelled at her. Icky looked around the rest of the plaza and saw that most of the other people were now staring at them, most with looks of shock and horror. She shook her head, returning her appearance to normal, and then tossed the bat to the ground. It landed with a heavy clunk, its spikes cracking the pristine pavement. Grabbing Lolly by the hand once more, the two of them ran out of public view as quickly as they were able.
Once they were gone, the Hall Monitor grabbed his Walkie Talkie off of his belt.
“We have a hostile Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo on the loose in Wonder Plaza. Subject appears to be a female Clown from the Circus of the Disquieting with long black hair, white and purple face paint. Subject is too dangerous for Hall Monitors to engage. Deploy Wondertron 9000. Repeat, Deploy Wondertron 9000!”
The two Clowns ran into the unexpectedly bright and immaculately clean back alleys of Wonder World!™ and paused to catch their breath.
“Icky, what was that about?”
“I know, I’m sorry, I overreacted, but he hit me!”
“Before that. Why couldn’t you just let him stamp our hall passes and be on our way?”
“Because I love you! I love you and I’m not going to obey any puritanical laws that say expressing that is indecent! Lolly, look, I know that when we’re in less tolerant places you don’t see what the big deal is about respecting local customs, but you’ve never been in the closet. You were with the Circus since before you even had an inkling of what you were, and you always knew you’d be loved and accepted.
"It wasn’t like that for me. I was terrified of people, especially the people who were supposed to love me unconditionally, finding out I was gay. It sucks living like that which is why I left and why I refuse to live like that again. And it’s not just about me because not everyone has the option to leave a situation like that.
"Think of everyone in this city who must be afraid of to kiss the people they love. It doesn’t matter to me if it’s being done out of adherence to a bronze-age morality or because they want their whole city to be a kid-friendly fun-zone, it’s wrong!
“I… I’m ranting. I ruined our date. I’m sorry.”
Icky hung her head despondently, only for Lolly to lean in and kiss her.
“Don’t be sorry. I never really thought about it before, what it would be like to have to live like that every day, but you’re right,” Lolly said. “I mean, I guess I didn’t want to think about it. I like it here because I thought that everyone else was like me, that they thought it was awesome to pretend to be an overgrown kid. But that’s actually the law here, these people don’t have a choice. Even I don’t want to act like a kid all the time. Icky, I love you a bazillion times more than this fascist tourist trap, and I’m sorry for not supporting you.”
“Well, maybe I should do like you do and take Clown Impulse Suppressant whenever we go anywhere,” Icky smirked. “We forgive each other then, Little Lollipop?”
Lolly smiled and nodded, and the pair exchanged a reconciliatory kiss.
“HALT RIGHT THERE NARE-DO-WELLS!” a booming robotic voice shouted from the end of the alleyway. Standing between them and escape was an eight-foot tall robot made of shiny chrome, it’s chassis adorned with many blinking LED lights and buttons, with a winged jetpack mounted on its back.
“What the fuck?”
“I AM WONDERTRON 9000™, DEFENDER OF WONDER WORLD™ AND ALL INNOCENTS WITHIN. YOU HAVE BEEN CHARGED WITH COOTIE SPREADING BEHAVIOR, REFUSING FROWNY FACE STAMPS ON YOUR HALL PASSES, THREATENING A HALL MONITOR, CAUSING A PUBLIC DISTURBANCE, DAMAGING CITY PROPERTY, EVADING ARREST, AND, AS OF THIS MOMENT, NAUGHTY LANGUAGE.”
“Hey, I remember you. You’re the robot that came to the Circus when Herman tried to make his Little Mister knockoffs,” Icky said.
“LITTLE MISTERS IS THE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OF DOCTOR WONDERTAINMENT!”
“Look Wonderbot -”
“WONDERTRON 9000™!”
“Whatever, we know when we’re not wanted. Just take us to a door outside of the wards, and we’ll make a Way back home,” Icky said.
“SPARE THE ROD, SPOIL THE CHILD. IT’S THE NAUGHTY CORNER FOR BOTH OF YOU. SURRENDER NOW, OR FACE THE FULL ARRAY OF MY WONDERTASTIC COMBAT FEATURES.”
The pair of Clowns stared down the giant robot with simmering rage.
“You think we can take it?” Icky asked.
“Definitely,” Lolly agreed. She withdrew her oversized mallet from her pocket and charged straight at Wondertron.
“HOSTILITIES INITIATED. DEPLOYING COUNTERMEASURES.”
A large shield with the Wondertainment Logo unfolded from Wondertron’s left forearm, blocking the first of Lolly’s swings.
"ACTIVATING ONE HUNDRED PERCENT NONLETHAL MAGNAPHOTONIC LASER VISION™!"
Twin rays of lava coloured lasers beamed out of its photoelectric eyes, moving far to quickly to be evaded. Fortunately, its intended effect seemed to be nothing more than disorientation, and due to a combination of their Circus training and essokinetic abilities, Icky and Lolly were relatively unaffected.
Lolly struck the shield from the bottom, knocking it upwards and into Wondertron's direct line of sight, reflecting it's lasers back at it.
"DEACTIVATING ONE HUNDRED PERCENT NONLETHAL MAGNAPHOTONIC LASER VISION™. VISUAL PROCESSING AND GYROSCOPIC ORIENTATION IMPAIRED. SYSTEMS REBOOTING."
Taking out her trick cards and engulfing them in a murderous red aura, Icky threw the entire deck at Wondertron while it was rebooting. Though some did make it through its shield, they all just bounced harmlessly off its chrome plated hide. Lolly bashed away at it relentlessly with her mallet, causing many disfiguring but ultimately harmless dents in its chassis.
“SYSTEMS REBOOT COMPLETE. INITIATING KUNG FU ACTION GRIP™!” Wondertron announced as it grabbed Lolly’s mallet by the hammer and lifted it off the ground, with her along with it.
“Put it down you dumb tin can!” she threatened, kicking at its shield.
“INITIATING ONE HUNDRED PERCENT NONLETHAL MAGISHOCK TASER BLAST™!”
Powerful electro-thaumic bolts shot out of the robot’s fingers like Sith lightning. They coursed through Lolly’s body, causing her to convulse and expose her skeleton like she was a cartoon character, then fall unconscious to the ground.
Unsurprisingly, that was all it took for Icky to go full monster Clown. Her nails jutted out of her fingers like claws, her tongue became forked and flickered out between sharpened teeth, and violet smoke poured from her flaming black and purple snake eyes.
Ducking the lighting, she grabbed the mallet and transfigured it into an enormous Warhammer, as heavy and spiked as the baton she had created mere minutes earlier. Yielding the unwieldy weapon with fury and precision, she knocked off the shield and then swung for its legs.
The hammer successfully punctured the metal limb, with hydraulic fluid gushing out of the wounds. Seeing (and hearing its 120 decibel announcement) that the robot was about to use its taser again, she forcefully pulled the hammer out of its leg and bashed it across the head.
The blow was strong enough to knock Wondertron off balance and send it falling towards the ground. When the creature looked up it saw that Icky was coming in for a coup de grace.
“INITIATING PYROMATIC GUIDED COMBAT MISSILE™!”
“Wait, wha -”
A large missile blasted out of Wondertron’s shoulder, punching Icky in the gut with the force of freight train and ploughing her into the air with it. The missile soared up and through the city at near supersonic speeds, swerving and jerking to avoid hurting or damaging anyone or anything. Once it had a clear path up it made a beeline for the sky, rising for several seconds until it exploded above the city in a beautiful pyrotechnic display that sadly couldn’t be fully appreciated during the day.
Icky, winded from both the gut punch and the explosion, fell from the sky and crashed into the middle of Mainstreet™. As the drivers screeched to avoid her they caused a 20 car pile-up. Fortunately, they were all bumper cars so nobody was hurt.
Wondertron came soaring in on its jetpack, landing in the middle of the road. In one hand it carried the unconscious body of Lolly, the other it aimed straight at Icky.
“CHARGING NINETY-NINE PERCENT NONLETHAL MAGISHOCK TASER BLAST™!” it said, its voice slightly more ominous than before. “SURRENDER NOW AND NO FURTHER HARM WILL COME TO YOU.”
Since it was taking most of Icky’s essokinetic abilities just to stay alive at this point, she didn’t have much left to put up a fight. Shrinking back to her ordinary form, she placed her hands behind her head.
“REJOICE GOOD PEOPLE OF WONDER WORLD!™, FOR WONDERTRON 9000™ IS VICTORIOUS.”
“Gary? Gary is that you?” Icky asked into the phone she had been provided with. “Good. Listen up. Lolly and I are in the Naughty Corner in Wonder World, their jail basically. They’ve got the Hume-idity cranked up so we can’t use our magic, so we need Manny to come bail us out.
“We’re political prisoners! We were kissing in public, which is a misdemeanour at most here, and that somehow escalated to them sicing a giant robot on us! Make sure Manny knows we’re the victims here, and if they actually try to charge us with anything we are suing for police brutality. I was struck by a missile! If they want to keep our business after this we’d better get an apology and a tent’s worth of free stuff!
“Yeah, bail’s 5000 Gold Edition Wondertainment Power Play Pogs. No, I don't know what the exchange rate is on that. Alright, thanks Gary.”
Icky hung up the phone and sat down beside Lolly, wrapping her arms around her comfortingly.
“Lolly, I am so sorry this got so out of control,” she said, kissing her on the top of the head. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine, I just got electrocuted. You got a lot worse than I did,” she replied. “Looking back on it, trying to fight an enormous battle bot was probably not the best decision we’ve ever made.”
“Yeah, I’m starting to see the appeal of nonviolent resistance. I’m just glad you weren’t seriously hurt. This was probably our worst date ever.”
“In the short term, maybe, but long term it’ll make one hell of a story,” Lolly smiled. Icky smirked and nodded in agreement, ever impressed by her lover’s unflappable optimism. “So where do you think we should go for our next date trip? Threeportlands is probably a lot more gay-friendly. Not as many rides, but more art, and the shops and theatre are probably pretty good too. Same for BackdoorSoHO.”
“We could go hiking in Roadkill County.”
“Roadkill County?”
“It’s just a name. The scenery’s beautiful, lots of free anomalies to admire, you’ll love it. It would be nice to go somewhere quiet for a little while.”
“It doesn’t matter. As long as we’re free to be who we are without being assaulted by giant robots, I’ll be happy,” Lolly smiled. She cuddled up closer to Icky and rested her head on her shoulder to get some sleep. “Happy date night Icky.”
“Happy date night Lolly.”
Item #: SCP-36xx
Object Class: Euclid
Special Containment Procedures: SCP-36xx is currently owned by the Foundation front company Sweet Comb Produce. No unauthorized personnel are permitted access to SCP-36xx's primary containment zone. Civilians are to be kept out using standard cover story 23 "Staff Only'', and government inspectors are to amnesticized and implanted with standard cover story 336 "Average Apiary".
All staff entering SCP-36xx must wear standard apiary protective gear and carry a bee smoker.
At least once per day, all honeycomb placed at the entrance of SCP-36xx by SCP-36xx-1 is to be recovered. Any messages are to be recorded and the honey extracted. As said honey is non-anomalous, it may be sold commercially to offset containment costs. All reusuable honeycomb is to be returned to SCP-36xx. Appropriate responses to SCP-36xx-1's messages, as determined by research staff, are to be spelt out using the honeycombs wax cells. The used honeycomb is also to be accompanied by 24 dozen fresh cut bouquets of cultivar flowers, with arrangements varied on a daily basis.
Description: SCP-36xx is a subterranean cave system measuring a total of 720 meters, found 1.3 kilometers north of █████, ██. The interior of the cave walls are completely covered in honeycomb. SCP-36xx-1 refers to a unique subspecies of Western honey bee (Apis mellifera) endemic to SCP-36xx. SCP-36xx-1 appear to function as a single hive, despite numbering in the millions and possessing hundreds of queens.
The primary anomaly of SCP-36xx-1 is that they collectively possess the ability to write in an idiosyncratic dialect of English, which they typically accomplish by selectively applying wax caps to honeycomb cells. This is believed to be a form of swarm intelligence, as individual bees removed from the hive do not exhibit any anomalous behavior.
At the time of recovery, the interior of SCP-36xx was almost completely covered in SCP-36xx-1 writings, which mostly consisted of stream-of-consciousness style rambling.
Random sample of text produced by SCP-36xx-1:
Buzzing bees bee loud but there bee no meaning in bee buzz
Letters bee quiet but letters bee more meaningful than any bee that ever bee
To bee or not to bee is no question since bees will always bee
They maintain SCP-36xx in a matter typical of honey bees, however no instance of SCP-36xx-1 has ever been observed traveling to the surface to collect nectar.
As part of the investigation into SCP-36xx-1's honeycomb production, multiple instances were recovered and equipped with micro video recorders. Upon review of the footage, it was revealed that a number of empty honeycomb cells appear to function as translocational vectors to a currently undetermined location, labelled SCP-36xx-2.
The area of SCP-36xx-2 immediately accessible through SCP-36xx consists entirely of rolling hills covered in wildflowers. Aside from these flowers and SCP-36xx-1, no other forms of life have been observed.
“Iris!” Carter hollered from the hallway outside. Iris sighed slightly at the sound of the senior partner's petulant tone.
Iris Dark and Ruprecht Carter had never much cared for one another, but as they were both board members and key shareholders of Marshall, Carter, and Dark, they were obliged to meet from time to time.
Iris had yet to seek out Carter for anything outside of official meetings, and the only time Carter ever sought her out in person was when he thought it was a matter of utmost importance.
It was never anything important.
“I’m in my office, Ruprecht,” Iris replied. Her office door swung open and Ruprecht Carter marched in like he was reporting to a general after a catastrophic enemy attack.
“Look at this!” he said, dumping a bag of paper cups, napkins, leaflets and fast-food containers out in front of her.
“Why are you pouring garbage onto my desk Ruprecht?”
“Read it!”
Iris rolled her eyes and picked up a leaflet at random.
“Now you can order ahead of time with mobile ordering. Download the My McD’s app -”
“There, right there!”
“What?”
“These are from Canada, I picked them up while I was in Toronto and -”
“What were you doing at McDonald’s?”
Carter hesitated for a moment.
“That’s not important,” he said dismissively.
“I’m afraid I have to disagree. You’re the most elitist prick I’ve ever met. You eat haute cuisine exclusively, drink only Black Ivory coffee because ‘everything else is shit' -”
“I was aware of the irony of that statement when I made it, Iris.”
“- And literally the only bad thing I’ve ever heard you say about Trump was bashing his fast-food habit.”
“Two Big Macs, two Filet-o-Fishes and a chocolate shake is not a meal fit for a king!”
“So I ask again; what were you doing there?”
“I… I was with a whore and she insisted on getting something to eat first, and I didn’t want Penny to know so I couldn’t take her anywhere I might be recognized, so we went to McDonald’s. I ate prole food, I admit it. Are you happy?”
“Very,” Iris smiled. “And what did Ruprecht Carter, the paragon of High Society, order off the value menu? Did you get a happy meal? Did they give you a toy with it?”
“I had an Angus burger with a Caesar side salad and a cappuccino, but that’s not the point Iris! Look at this! The McDonald’s in Canada is branding itself as MCD!”
Iris glared at him with a mixture of contempt and confusion.
“Ruprecht, I’m busy.”
“You’re playing on your computer.”
“I’m writing code, which is probably the most productive part of my job, and you’re distracting me with literal rubbish!”
“This is a problem, Iris. Our clientele associate the letters MC&D with ostentatious wealth, and we cannot have that association besmirched by a fast-food franchise printing those letters all over its greased stained, cardboard takeout boxes!”
Iris sighed, a small part of her conceding that his concerns might not be completely inane, and picked up a paper cup to examine it.
“The McDonalds' in Canada, you said?”
“At least. I’ve been trying to get the market research team to look into if they’re doing this anywhere else, but they haven’t gotten back to me yet.”
“I can’t imagine why,” she murmured. “Well, it’s clearly meant to be read as ‘Mick Dee’.”
“It doesn’t matter, it’s still MCD. Do you know what McDonald’s NYSE symbol is?”
“MCD?”
“Those are our letters dammit! People already call us Micky D’s sometimes, did you know that?”
“I’ve heard that before, yes.”
“There’s already an association in the eyes of customers between us and McDonald's, and their latest branding is blatantly reinforcing that association. Our brand must remain unsullied!”
“That being said, this is clearly a branding issue, and I’m Chief of Paratech Development and Acquisition. This is not my department.”
“You’re Darke’s proxy, and I need the support of another senior partner for this to move forward.”
“Meaning Marshall doesn’t support this?”
“He… did not consider it a pressing issue, no.”
“Alright Ruprecht, for the sake of argument let’s assume that McDonald’s branding itself as McD is tarnishing our brand and this is impacting our bottom line. What would you have us do about it? They’re known almost universally, whereas we take it as a point of pride that the ninety-nine percent have never even heard of us. I doubt there’s any legal action we could take.”
“So did I, but I went to the A-78s just to be sure.”
“And what did they say?”
Carter took out the note from his pocket they had handed him earlier.
Brandname doublemake
Burgers and fries = glittering gold?
Illrepute indistinct, supersized portfolio
“… Well, there you go.”
“This is intolerable! We were around for nearly a hundred years before those discount beef peddlers, longer if you count all of Darke’s wheelings and dealings before our merger. The name is rightfully ours! I’m not about to just let this indignity go unchallenged.”
“Well, you seem to have already given the matter more thought than I would care to. What do you suggest?”
“We’re the most powerful firm in the world. Surely it would be trivially easy to get McDonald’s to rebrand themselves,” Carter suggested.
“Not as easy as it would be to rebrand ourselves. Darke & Dark has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”
“Maybe for an emo-punk music label,” Carter retorted. “Besides, changing our name would be even worse. Imagine what people would say! Marshall, Carter, and Dark, cowed into submission by McDonald's. We’d lose our mystique! No no no no no, that won’t do at all. Forget changing their name, we should drive them out of business and send a clear a message about what happens to anyone that even indirectly diminishes our profits. You can write some sort of algorithm or something that can plunge their stock value, can’t you?”
“Conceivably, but -”
“Great, that’s your new project! Good meeting, productive meeting. I’m going to go for a steam, shoot me a memo when it’s good to go.”
“Carter, get back here!”
Carter slinked to a halt and reluctantly turned around to face Iris.
“Carter, even if it was worth my time to create such a program, which it isn’t, do you not think there might be some serious economic repercussions to bankrupting the richest fast-food franchise on the planet?” she asked. “Do you not think that a worldwide recession might impact our profits a tiny bit more than some bad brand recognition?”
“Short term, sure, but the economy always bounces back. Plus recessions are inevitable anyway, so why not engineer one to get some use out of it?”
“Carter, I am not manipulating the global economy to drive McDonald's out of business just because they share our initials,” Iris said resolutely.
For an instant, Carter looked like he might argue with her, looked like he might try to put her in her place, looked like he would scream that he was one of the company's founders and she was glorified tech support, but he stopped himself. As much as he hated subordinating himself to a woman, to a youth, to anyone really, he dared not forget that she was a Dark.
“No, no, of course not,” he sighed, hanging his head in defeat. “Something subtler then, perhaps?”
“Go to Market Research and have them figure out how much, if anything, this is costing us,” she replied. “That will be the budget for any counter-proposals. You can oversee the project since it’s obviously very important to you, and unlike myself, you don’t appear to have anything better to do. Prepare a presentation and we’ll have a vote at the next board meeting.”
Iris resumed typing at her keyboard, letting him know the discussion was over. Carter clenched his fists and gritted his teeth, but also held his tongue. She had given him more satisfaction than Marshall had, at any rate. Pining for the days when Darke’s seclusion and Marshall’s immobility had made him the de facto head of the company, he turned to leave.
“Ruprecht,” Iris called out before he had made it to the door. “Clean this garbage off my desk.”
DKE79/O2RG5/4JLW6 |
Status |
Renting |
Demand |
Medium |
Value |
149 USD/99 GBP per monthly subscription |
Availability |
Unique |
Identifier |
Dark Web |
Description |
Dark Web is a Cloud Computing service, targeted towards the anomalous community. Subscribers can access anomalous applications via ordinary smartphones and personal computers. It is operated by a shell company in order to avoid any uncouth associations our customers may have against the Marshall, Carter and Dark brand. Dark Web is currently housed on electro-thaumic servers and runs on Dark Energy 3.0. Connection to these servers is aetheric in nature, recognizing users as opposed to devices, preventing unauthorized access to MC&D property. |
Marshall, Carter and Dark, LLP |
Initial Report |
Author |
Iris Dark |
Date |
09/29/2017 |
Interest |
Medium |
Identifier |
Dark Web |
While I was on assignment with Mr. Chan at the Circus of the Disquieting, I had the opportunity to examine a device capable of converting multiple forms of telecommunication signals into aetheric waves, and vice versa. I was also able to question the operator of this device, a man by the name of Gary Gorham, self-professed master of telephonesis.
With the information I was able to obtain, Esq. Darke and I have successfully created a functioning facsimile of Mr. Gorham's original device. So long as it has a living human as a source of Elan Vital Energy, it is capable of establishing aetheric transmissions to anywhere in the world, as well as across multiple realities.
The 'battery' was obtained via the same method Mr. Marshall acquires his donors.
This device has solved our security concerns for the Dark Web cloud computing project. The use of aetheric waves allows us to both identify and profile individuals by their auras. Not only is this fool-proof security, aetheric profiling will allow us to screen our subscribers, preventing anyone from the Foundation or the GOC or any other such organizations from accessing our servers. This will no doubt be a major selling point, especially to those who identify with the Serpent's Hand. We will keep their forbidden knowledge safe from the Jailors and the Book Burners and the Mad Men, for a very reasonable fee.
For my more senior associates who may think that I am undercharging for such a valuable service, I remind you that the most valuable commodity of the information age is data. Social media generates billions of dollars a year without ever charging their users a cent. For example, Dark Web contains an app that allows users to share the location of Ways and how to access them. That's information we've literally killed for in the past that will now just be handed over to us. Thousands upon thousands of people will upload their most precious arcane secrets to our servers, and pay us for the privilege. The aetheric information they provide just from logging on will be priceless.
The Dark Web goes live on October, Friday the 13th. |
File Opened Under: |
DKE79/O2RG5/4JLW6 |
Marshall, Carter and Dark, LLP |
Incident Report 01 |
DKE79/O2RG5/4JLW6 |
Author |
Azalea Summers |
Date |
10/20/2017 |
So Launch Week for Dark Web went super! Our subscribers are already in the thousands!
As Dark predicted, the Serpent's Hand are big fans of this service. They especially love the Wayfinder app, obviously, and are also loving the Bookworm app that lets them share reviews and recommendations for Library books. The Little Sister app has the highest rating though, keeping people aware of anti-anomalous organizations' locations and activities, and letting them find safe havens. Stay safe out there!
There have of course been some hiccups. A flame war has already broken out on our social networking app between Mechs and Sarks. There is currently no policy in place to deal with hate speech or threats of mind rape and corporeal transmogrification, so right now we're just advising users to avoid that particular forum thread.
Users should also be aware that the algorithm for flagging memetic hazards is not as of yet a hundred percent effective, so viewing is at your own risk. No one's posted anything dangerous yet, but someone from AWCY posted a photo called 'Penguin is Kink-shaming you'. It's a porcelain, cartoon penguin with a completely neutral expression, and when you look it in the eyes you feel like it's condemning your sexual preferences. Some commenters called it homophobic or heteronormative, but it really isn't because it condemns everything equally. You can be vanilla cishet, you can be ace, it doesn't matter, this penguin is disgusted by what you like. That's the kind of thought-provoking anart I love seeing from the anomalous community!
Dark, however, is personally most excited about the Archives and the wiki. Our wiki, the Cryptonomicon, encourages users to write articles sharing their knowledge of the anomalous with the community, and has already accumulated hundreds of pages! The Archives, on the other hand, are ostensibly private. Dark of course had the legal team draw up Dark Web's terms and conditions in unintelligible legalese which does technically give us the right to do whatever we want with our subscribers' data.
I'm amazed by how much we've accomplished in just a week, and am honestly somewhat surprised that no one's ever tried anomalous cloud computing before. I bet Anderson is kicking themselves in the butt right now!
Keep up the great work team!
|
Marshall, Carter and Dark, LLP |
Incident Report 02 |
DKE79/O2RG5/4JLW6 |
Author |
Lamar Gordon |
Date |
10/27/2017 |
Dark is a genius. We now have complete aetheric profiles on each and every Dark Web subscriber. The Hue, Pitch, Weave and Intensity of a person's aura tells you a lot about them, in particular, their spiritual and paranormal attributes that would otherwise be ineffable. We're offering something no other data brokers can match; the ability to peer into our subscribers' souls.
We've set up another shell company to auction off these profiles, and they're going for five or six figures a piece! Hr'asm'Kal has also been peddling the profiles to his demon contacts. They probably love them more than any mortal possibly could, but their method of payment is a little harder to quantify. 'Kal knows more about that than I do, so if he says we're making a killing I trust him.
My only concern is that some of this data will be put to nefarious use, and we may lose some of our subscribers before we bleed them dry. Perhaps Dark can write an algorithm that will tell us the optimal time to sell each profile? |
Marshall, Carter and Dark, LLP |
Memo 01 |
DKE79/O2RG5/4JLW6 |
Sender |
Jim Tully |
Recipient |
Iris Dark |
Dark, we've got a problem.
On average, we're maintaining over a thousand up-links at any given moment, which I'm guessing is about a thousand times more than that Gorham guy ever did. Plus we're using the same EVE source to power the servers as we are the transceiver so, bottom line, we're burning through 'batteries' faster than Marshall does.
Based on your projected growth for Dark Web, this just isn't sustainable. We could scale up our procurement of 'batteries' but that's risky, especially long-term. At this point, my recommendation would be to find an alternative power source, or possibly even phasing out the aetheric transceiver entirely.
|
Marshall, Carter and Dark, LLP |
Memo 02 |
DKE79/O2RG5/4JLW6 |
Sender |
Iris Dark |
Recipient |
Jim Tully |
Obviously discarding the aetheric transceiver is out of the question. The aetheric profiles it provides are the most profitable facet of this entire enterprise.
You are, however, correct in your assessment regarding EVE sustainability.
Fortunately, we've been data mining everything that's been uploaded to Dark Web, and I believe I've found a solution. The problem with the current, as well as all previous versions of the soul sucker, is that it siphons EVE particles from living beings, a process which causes rapid cellular deterioration. But life is not necessary for the generation of EVE, only consciousness is.
Darke and I discussed the possibility of a sapient AI, but we only have the means to create such entities with electro-thaumic computers, which always consume more EVE than they generate. What we need then is an incorporeal consciousness, from which we can harvest unlimited EVE particles without any deleterious effects, but one that we can reliably contain.
The solution we arrived at was a human spirit confined to a soul-trap. The easiest way for us to create such a soul-trap is through a method known as Retrocausal Quantum Resurrection. This method essentially uses entanglements and other quantum effects to bring a dead body back to life. This does, however, have the rather nasty side effect of retroactively binding a person's consciousness to their body for the duration of their death. They are excruciatingly aware of their decomposing bodies, but so long as they're aware of something they'll generate EVE for us to harvest.
We executed one of our batteries but arranged to resurrect her 144 years in the future. Evidently, we are successful, as the cadaver is outputting more EVE particles than it ever did while it was alive, with no observable deterioration of the body. We have now executed all of our batteries and placed them in cryogenic dewars. In 144 years we'll resurrect them, and then probably kill them again so we can get another 144 years out of them.
Which means I can now tell our subscribers than Dark Web is 100% powered by renewable energy. It really goes to show that good ethics is good business. |
Marshall, Carter and Dark, LLP |
Note to Beta Readers: This tale is a part of a series called Dread & Circuses. It should stand fine on its own but if you feel you need a little more context just check out the hub. It's also a spiritual sequel to an earlier Fuller tale called Freaky Commodities (linked in the tale itself), hence the name.
“So, here we are again,” the Man with the Upside-down Face said as the elevator doors slid shut. “You know, when Burgess did this he had security guards.”
“They’re needed upstairs. I…may have left a Sarkist and Mekhanite together in the same room,” Victor replied with an awkward cough, pressing the button for the desired floor. “Besides, you two I trust.”
“Awww, that’s so sweet,” Lolly cooed as the elevator began its ascent. “I’m so excited, this is like getting a new puppy!”
“We’re not getting a puppy, we’re getting a new attraction for the Circus,” Manny reminded her firmly. “Remember that. It’s not just about whether or not you like something. It has to be a good fit for us.”
“Relax, no one loves the Circus more than I do. No one loves Icky more than I do either, and I would never let her down.”
“Why didn’t Icky come as well, if I may ask?” Victor said. They both remained awkwardly silent for a moment.
“Lolly, do you want to field that one?”
“Tinkles said that Bubblegum’s drinking was going to lead her to an early grave. I was just trying to help!”
“What happened?” Victor asked.
“I slipped her some Antabuse so she couldn’t drink without getting sick,” Lolly replied, shrugging like it was no big deal.
“Now, on top of being down an act, we have a two-tonne elephant going through alcohol withdrawal,” Manny sighed. “Icky is currently handling the situation, and so Lolly is here on her behalf.”
“You’re not mad at me, are you? I really was just trying to help.”
“I know. What I don’t know is where you got an elephant-sized dose of Antabuse.”
“You’d be surprised at what you can buy in bulk.”
Manny gave a nonchalant nod and decided to change the subject.
“Victor, tell me about this first guy again. You said he’s Sarkic?”
“Yes, but I shouldn’t have, and please don’t call him that either,” Victor insisted. “They never call themselves that, it’s like a slur.”
“I’m well aware of that,” Manny said resolutely. The elevator dinged and the doors slid open to the ostentatiously gilded showroom of gleaming tiles, lacquered woods and crystal chandeliers; all of which looked not only very expensive but precariously fragile.
“Oh, I’m starting to have second thoughts about this,” Victor said quietly to himself. The three of them approached a man in front of a draped cage. The man himself wore a rather over-the-top crimson cloak, the hood of which obscured his face. “Manny, Lolly, this is…”
“Valmont will do,” the Sarkist replied in a haughty tone and an accent that, while sounding posh, was clearly an affectation. “And may I say what an absolute pleasure it is to meet two such beautifully deformed individuals.”
“Deformed?” Lolly hissed through gritted teeth, her face turning an incandescent red.
“Easy now; remember the guards,” Manny said.
“Oh, you are lucky I always take Clown Impulse Suppressant before I leave the Circus!” she huffed, taking a deep breath and letting her face return to its regular colour.
Valmont let out a condescending chuckle.
“Deformities are nothing to be ashamed of, child. To survive and thrive in spite of them is proof of strength, and to flaunt them openly is to reject the masses’ insipid obsession with aesthetics.”
“Listen Valmont, we didn’t come here to hear the Gospel of Ion. We’re here on business, so kindly show us what you’ve got.”
“Of course,” Valmont nodded. He raised his hand and pulled the veil off the cage with a single melodramatic gesture. Inside was a mound of ghastly pale flesh, lumps upon lumps like a pool of melted candle wax. Emerging from the mound were several distorted human faces, their mouths perpetually open in an eternal scream, along with a number of limbs that were mangled and twisted beyond any hope of use.
“Behold! Not long ago, while I was reaching across dimensions, I saw a paradise where the sun itself was blessed, where its rays transfigured every living thing it touched into beings of resplendent and rapturous malady. So enamoured was I, that I spirited one such flesh wright into our domain, in the hopes I might be able to recreate such a messianic plague and transmute our own abysmal reality into a utopia of instinctive, rapacious consumption!
“Sadly, it seems that such beautiful beings can only be created by the sun of their native realm, and it’s far beyond my ken to synthesize the peculiar effects of that hallowed star. Having no other use for the poor creature, I’ve decided to sell it.
"Imagine the horror on the faces of your audience when they see this amalgam of souls, this aberrant grotesquery, this singular pile of melted flesh, its mere presence inducing existential confusion and visceral revulsion, challenging the sanctity of nature and the benevolence of God! What do you say to that, upside-down man?”
Manny was unmoved by the Sarkist’s sales pitch. He looked at the thing coldly, and then turned his head towards Valmont.
“It’s dead,” he said, matter-of-factly. There was an awkward pause.
“No it isn’t,” Valmont replied.
“Yes, it is,” Manny said with an exasperated shake of his head.
“Its anatomy makes it hard to move so it’s at rest most of the time, but I assure you it is alive,” Valmont insisted.
“It smells likes it's dead,” Lolly said with a wriggle of her nose.
“The miasma of necrotic and rancid tissue is to force those around it to confront the inevitability of death, disease, and decay!” Valmont claimed.
“No, it’s indicative of its own death, disease, and decay,” Manny said, furrowing the brow where his chin should have been. “Look here sarkie, I know a dead beastie when I see one, and this thing is dead.”
Victor gulped at the slur, but surprisingly Valmont didn’t react to it at all.
“No, it’s like a predatory cat; it spends most of its time sleeping. It’s just asleep,” Valmont said with increasing desperation.
“You’re actually going to commit to this?”
“It’s not even breathing,” Lolly pointed out. “Sleeping things still breathe.”
“Its breathing is very shallow. It has a low metabolism to conserve its energy. Chan, help me out here.”
“Well, the creature was a little more lively earlier, so I suppose it is possible it’s merely sleeping,” Victor offered. Lolly pulled a bicycle (technically unicycle) horn out from the hyperdimensional hammerspace of her pockets and blew it at one of the creature’s numerous ears. All three men recoiled at the impossibly loud noise, but the abominable globster didn’t move an inch.
“Yeah, it’s definitely dead,” Lolly announced.
“Well it’s fainted now!” Valmont claimed.
“Fainted?” Lolly asked in disbelief.
“Yes, it’s like a fainting goat; plays dead when it’s scared. It’s a survival mechanism.”
“It’s like a predatory cat and a fainting goat?”
“Well it is a chimera in a way, so that does make sense. It’s probably got some snake qualities in there as well. Quite the bargain you’re getting, really.”
Lolly looked at him in bewilderment, while Manny just shook his head.
“Mr. Valmont, if you cannot immediately provide some proof of life for this creature, we will have to pass,” he said firmly. Valmont became pensive and took a surreptitious step right up to the cage, which then rattled back and forth for an instant.
“There, you see. It just moved.”
“You shook the cage!” Lolly accused.
“Victor, show us the next offer,” Manny ordered.
“You would dare refuse such a treasure, from one such as myself no less?” Valmont asked, resuming his haughty persona. “You will rue this day, Circus freak! No one denies a Sarkist!”
The three of them all suddenly looked at him in surprise.
“What?”
“Tell me, Sarkist, where does the Valkzaron say that Adytum is located?”
“Ahh…in all of our hearts?” he replied uncertainly.
“You’re not really a Sarkist, are you?” Victor asked, utterly mortified.
“How dare you!”
“In all of our hearts? Really?” Manny chuckled.
“I thought you were being figurative! Adytum is like Atlantis, no knows for sure if it even existed, much less where it was,” Valmont claimed.
“Wrong. Adytum is where it always was; in the northern Urals. Ion just cloaked it with mind-bending magic and shifted it ever so slightly out of this reality,” Lolly stated, popping a sucker into her mouth.
“How the hell would you know that?”
“I watch that show Professor Abnormal's Science Lab. He did an episode on Adytum once.”
“And I’ve been there,” Manny added. “Herman had us perform there once or twice. Not the worst thing he ever did, which frankly says more about him than it does about Adytum. Point is, I know Sarkicism. And you boy are not a Sarkist.”
“…Okay, maybe not technically, but I’m dating a black-blood girl and her dad said that if I could just get rid of this thing for them that he’d accept me as an Orin and…”
“Security!” Victor shouted.
“No please! I need the money. Neo-Sarkic girls have expensive tastes!” Valmont cried as the two security guards dragged him towards the elevator.
“So…I vote no on the gross dead thing from the Sarkic poser,” Lolly said.
“Agreed,” Manny nodded. “Victor, do you not do background checks on these guys?”
“Those don’t exactly work with secret societies,” Victor informed him as they walked over to the next display. “I do apologize for that. I can however personally vouch for the authenticity of this next seller. Manny, Lolly, this gentleman goes by the epithet of Silicon Soul. He's a…"
"A Maxwellian," Manny finished his sentence. "It's obvious enough."
The short man before them was pale and gaunt, with a pair of electrodes permanently attached to his smooth scalp. Their wires fed into something under his heavy black coat. There was a neural port behind his right ear, and his amber glass eyes had mechanical apertures. There was a black breathing mask over his nose and mouth, and some small dark device upon his throat. Though his right arm was mechanical, it hung limp and useless, seemingly as broken as his god.
"It is nice to meet you," he said in a raspy, modulated voice. "I believe I attended your Circus once, as a child. It deeply perturbed my still developing sense of reality, and the image of a man with an upside-down face has haunted my dreams ever since."
"We try to make a difference."
"You said your name was Silicon Soul. That sounds like a screen name," Lolly commented. "You go by a screen name IRL? Lol."
"I consider myself a foreigner to meat space, and my name reflects that," the man replied.
"So what do you have for us then? Some Broken tech?"
"No, actually. Like that Sarkist swine, I too have a creature that I came upon more or less by happenstance and don't know what to do with."
He took the cover off the pedestal behind him, revealing a 'tabby cat' with dark purple fur. It was a long-haired breed, a little overweight, and its violent eyes shone with an electric luminosity.
It was also floating a few feet off the ground.
"Oh my god, it's adorable!" Lolly screamed. "Its eyes are just like Icky's!"
"I named him Khoshekh, since I've heard of a similar creature by that name described of in that anomalous radio broadcast that leaks into our reality from time to time," Silicon informed them.
"The one from that nexus in the Southwest? Yeah, I've been there too," Manny said. "Briefly, I mean. We never got to perform. We were chased out of town by a mob screaming 'interlopers'."
"Can I pet him?" Lolly asked with eyes as big as saucers.
"Just be careful. He's not the friendliest cat I've ever known," Silicon nodded. Lolly approached the floating feline, only for it to hiss at her. The hissing it made sounded more like something from an enormous serpent than an overweight cat, and its teeth were not even mammalian, let alone feline.
"Poor thing. He's scared to death. How much?"
"Lolly, hold on a second," Manny insisted. "Aside from just not being friendly, does this animal have any other liabilities I should know about?"
"It is venomous," Silicon admitted.
"Venomous?"
"Yes, it has venom sacs in its mouth, as well as some venomous spines on its back, so you do need to be careful when interacting with it."
"That sounds like something you should have told us before you said Lolly could pet him," Manny said with an agitated shake of his head. "What about tricks? Can it do anything?"
"Well, for now, it just sort of floats there, which to me seems good enough for a freak show," Silicon said. "I did a bit of research, and I think there's some sort of flux pinning or something going on. I guess it doesn't really matter. But it's purple, it's got glowing eyes, it's poisonous, it makes scary noises, and it floats! You've got animal tamers, right? I'm sure they could teach it some tricks, or at least not to bite people. It's no more dangerous than any other animal act you have."
"What happened to your arm?" Many asked.
"What?"
"I said what happened to your arm?"
Silicon took a glance down at his disabled arm, seemingly trying to will it to move and failing.
"…It's unrelated to the cat."
"Really?"
"Yes. I mean, okay, maybe it's tangentially related to the cat. When I found it I tried to pick it up by the scruff of the neck, as you do with cats, but it didn't like that so it somehow produced an electric surge in my arm that fried all of the electronics."
"Sir, I'm afraid this animal has too many potential liabilities for us to consider incorporating it into our Circus," Manny said firmly.
"But he might die if we don't adopt him!" Lolly objected. The cat hissed again, this time flicking out multiple barbed tongues, wriggling like the tentacles of a Kraken.
"…it might kill us if we do," Manny countered.
"But we can take precautions. Put up warning signs or something, and then everyone could enjoy him," Lolly suggested. "Icky and I could use him in our 'pussy lovers' routine, or we could put him in the petting zoo!"
"Only if we want every child to die a slow, painful death," Manny said. "Lolly, I get that this thing is cute…"
"Super cute!"
"But it's also very dangerous. So dangerous no one can even touch it safely. I really can't imagine any scenario where someone doesn't get poisoned by this thing. Do you want that on your conscience? You said you weren't going to let Icky down. Do you really think Icky would want something this dangerous around kids, or up your skirt?"
Lolly gave the creature a forlorn look, only for it to swipe at her with horrifically distended claws.
"No," she admitted. "Fine, we won't get him. I'm sorry Mr. Kitty. Maybe Victor can find you someone immune to poison to be your forever home."
"I know a surprising number of people who meet the description," Victor told her. "The cat will be fine, don't worry. Silicon, put the cover back on it and wheel it out of the showroom until the next showing, won't you?"
"It seems to prefer the darkness anyway," he said, covering the cat-like creature up and hauling it out of the room.
The creature produced a rolling, thunderous buzzing sound that they could only hope was purring.
“Victor, please tell me you saved the best for last,” Manny said.
“I did indeed. Right this way,” Victor said as he led them to the final display. Unlike the other two, this one had no attendant. It was simply a full-length mirror with an ornate brass frame, encased in some transparent material. “This item came into our possession when its previous owner passed away and we took control of their estate.”
“And what’s interesting about it?” Manny asked.
“I know this may not be the most original premise, but this old antique mirror…is haunted," Victor said with a dramatic flourish.
Literally nothing happened.
"Pepper? Pepper that was your cue," he said, still to no effect. He walked up to the mirror and gave it a gentle shake. This finally produced a result, causing a pale light like moonbeams to shine down from the mirror, illuminating the translucent figure of a pubescent girl with braided pigtails and an old fashioned dress.
“Okay, I'm out. Jesus,” she said, her voice an ethereal echo. She put on a forced smile and curtsied before them. "Hello, people who want to buy me. I'm ever so pleased to make your acquaintance."
“Oh my god!” Lolly screamed in elation, jumping right in front of the girl and scaring the no longer living daylights out of her. “Are you really a ghost? How did you die? What do you have to do with the mirror? Are you stuck as a kid forever? How come Victor wants to sell you? Can I touch you?”
“No, don't touch me! What the hell are you on?"
"Clown's Milk," she replied, giving her signature eerily serene smile that Victor still found so unnerving. Pepper didn't seem to find it endearing either.
"I don't know what that is, but it sounds gross," she said.
"It's no grosser than regular milk, and it's so much more fun!" Lolly told her. "I'd let you try some, but you're dead, and if you weren't already dead it would kill you, so…sorry."
"So what's your story Pepper? How'd you end like this?" Manny asked.
"Does it matter? You're just going to make up some sensationalized horse crap to draw in bigger crowds."
"True, but I like to know my freaks. Are you actually a ghost?"
"I am. There's not really much of a story to that though. I caught pneumonia and died. I haunted my mother because I loved her and couldn't stand to see her so heartbroken. My dad knew someone who could make a mirror that would let me be seen and heard like a real person."
“The mirror acts as a focal point for aspect radiation, letting her take a semi-corporeal form,” Victor added.
"I was actually pretty happy with my folks, considering that I'm dead and can't go anywhere or do anything. But of course, they died eventually and now I'm stuck to this stupid thing forever!"
“There are worse soul traps than a mirror, believe me,” Manny said. “If you piss off the wrong god or mage, or get resurrected with any quantum retrocasuality tech you’ll be trapped in your own rotting corpse, still able to feel everything until you’re completely scattered to the winds.”
She stared at him dumbfounded for a moment.
"You are a weird dude," she said. Lolly tentatively ran her hand through the ghost's intangible body.
"She's tingly," she giggled.
"I said don't touch me!"
Manny stepped up to the mirror and examined its casing.
“What’s this you got it in?” he asked.
“Aluminum oxynitride with a clear superhydrophobic coating,” Victor replied. “You won’t have to worry about any of your guests breaking it, and it’s easy to clean.”
Lolly cleared her throat and put on the most business-like countenance she could muster.
“Pepper, would you like to come back to our Circus with us?” she asked sweetly. “It’s full of all sorts of magic people just like you, so you wouldn’t be alone anymore, and I promise it’s the most amazing, fantastic place you’ve ever seen. You’ll have an enormous family, the most special family in all the worlds who will love you and take care of you and keep you safe. Best of all you won’t have to be a secret; new people will come and see you everyday and be amazed by you because you’re magic, and that single magical experience will brighten their lives forever! Would you like that Pepper?”
The ghost gave an apathetic shrug.
“I dunno. Maybe. I guess it would be better than being sold to some creepy rich pedophile or something. But I don't want people touching me all day!"
“Manny, we have to take her with us. It’s non-negotiable. She's a freak and she has nowhere to go. She needs a home.”
“She’d be a fine addition to the Den or the Hall at the very least,” Manny nodded. “What’s the sticker price, Victor?”
“We’re asking a hundred and twenty thousand U.S. dollars,” Victor replied.
“Well knowing the way you guys mark stuff up that means you’ve got at most ten grand invested in her. How about twenty? Be reasonable, that’s a decent profit margin.”
“Maybe by the Circus’s standards, but not ours. I can take twenty thousand off.”
"Yeah, just haggle over the helpless adolescent girl like I'm a used car. That's not fucked up at all," Pepper groaned.
“Hush," Manny said. "Victor, who do you think’s going to pay a hundred grand for a ghost? People abandon houses worth more than that because they’re haunted. I’ll pay thirty thousand. That’s triple what you’ve spent on her, which is the same profit margin Apple has on its iPhones. Are you saying you’re greedier than Apple?”
“I think you know the answer to that. Lolly’s already made it clear that you’re not leaving without her, but if it helps I can knock a few more grand off; ninety-six thousand.”
“Forty thousand, and before you counter-offer keep in mind that we’re still your ticket to the Utterly Bazaar. Seems to me that if someone was going out-of-universe for the first time, they wouldn’t want their Sherpas to be angry at them for gouging them in a simple business deal.”
Victor actually hesitated this time before answering.
“Forty-eight thousand, final offer.”
For a second Victor thought Manny was frowning at him, before realizing it was a smile.
“Deal,” he said sticking out his arm for a handshake. “Gary will wire you the money by the end of the day tomorrow.”
“Awesome! Thanks Victor!” Lolly shouted, grabbing the mirror and sticking it under her arm. “I can’t wait to introduce you to Ragamuffin. She’s going to love you!”
"Please don't carry me sideways, it mucks up the whole projection," Pepper complained. Her visage was still vertical, but it was now a fun house distortion of itself, as tall as the mirror was wide.
"Yeah, you look silly!" Lolly laughed, moving the mirror around erratically to produce increasingly distorted forms.
“A pleasure as always, Emcee D. We’ll show ourselves out,” Manny said, relieving Lolly of the mirror and ushering her towards the elevator.
“Take care of yourselves,” Victor waved as the elevator doors slid shut. He nearly jumped out of his skin when the silence was broken by multiple sharp gasps from the flesh pile in the cage.
“Oh thank god, I thought they’d never leave,” one of the faces said.
“Did you see the face on that one? So much makeup; she looked like a clown!” another face said.
“Security, take that damn thing back to Valmont!” Victor ordered as he attempted to bring his breathing and heart rate back to normal. “And tell him I’m still charging him a broker’s fee!”
“FallenZealot's the full name. ’Spose to be a sorta, ironic oxymoron type thing,” the seller introduced himself. He had a black, dwarven beard and a physique to match, and oddly wore a glove over only his right hand.
“It sounds like a screen name,” Lolly said. “You go a by a screen name IRL? Lol.”
“It’s appropriate, considerin’ my chosen profession. I run a li’l electronics shop in Islington, dabblin’ in the anomalous from time to time. Least it was time to time ’til I ’ad the good fortune to sell some less than quality merchandise to a Miss Iris Dark. She marches into my shop demandin’ a refund, I offer ’er an osteotronic cube (more marketable name, it turns out) as a replacement and she buys out my ’ole bleedin' stock! Been one of my best customers ever since, and set me up to supply ’er family business! The Broken Tech Shack is boomin’!”
He handed each of them a business card with a cartoon of a little broken robot with smoke coming out of it.
“Your hand; it’s mechanical, right? Are you Cogwork Orthodox?” Manny asked curiously.
“Oh! ‘Broken’ tech. That’s clever,” Lolly giggled.
“Ain’t polite to discuss religion in public, now innit?” Zealot replied, examining his gloved hand to see how Manny could have known.
“Answer the question,” Manny insisted.
“I’m a businessman, like yerself. I sell whatever I can get my ’ands on. I got stuff from Cogworks, Maxwellians, Anderson, even some Prometheus Lab stuff if yer really lookin’ to spend some quid.”
“And what do you have to show us today?”
“I… ’ave Fidget Spinners!” he said excitedly, standing aside and revealing a table covered in the luminescent, colourful toys.
…
“Pass.”
“No, I want to see this,” Lolly objected, looking over the table with her usual childlike wonder. “They’re magic right?”
“ ’At they are, and a ’ell of a lot more aesthetically pleasin’ than some mutant flesh monster. Lemme show you wot they do.”
Zealot picked up one of his wares and spun it between his fingers. He held it up for a second and then let it go, only for it to remain exactly where it was.
“It’s made usin’ a room temperature superconductor; metallic hydrogen I think. Anyway, you spin it and it creates enough of a current to cause some flux pinnin’ or wotnot with the Earth’s magnetosphere, so it stays where you put it so long as it’s spinnin’. And watch this.”
He gave the toy a gentle flick, and it coasted through the air, bouncing off obstacles like a puck on an air hockey table.
“How much?”
“Lolly, no.”
“Twenty quid each, ’alf off if you buy ’em by the ’undred. They’d make great prizes for a Circus.”
“Kids would love these! Fuller’s Floating Fidget Flyers! Manny, we got to get these!”
“Lolly, we’re not giving away Fidget Spinners,” Manny objected. “They’re a fad, they’re too of the moment. The Circus has a timeless aesthetic to it. In a year, at most, people will be laughing at how passé these things are. I vote no.”
Lolly huffed derisively, and took out a wad of various banknotes labelled ‘Verse Yesod-14λ’. She flipped through them until she found a hundred pound note.
“I will take 5, both for personal use and as samples to show the Ringmaster,” she said, handing the bill to Zealot. “We have your business card, so if I am able to persuade her of the value of your product, you will be hearing from us.”
“Lovely,” Zealot nodded. “Pick ’em out yourself luv, any ones you like.”
As Lolly gleefully perused the table to pick out her five favourites, Zealot turned to speak to Manny.
“So, did I ’ear you say you’ve been to Adytum? Wot’s it like there?”
“Squishy.”
“I got all my fidgies,” Lolly said, proudly holding up the five spinners she had selected. “What’s next?”
Item #: SCP-3XXX
Object Class: Euclid
Special Containment Procedures: SCP-3XXX is immobile and contained on site. Its containment chamber is to be hermetically sealed and evacuated of atmosphere when not in use. SCP-3XXX is to be surrounded by an opaque hanging shroud, coated with commercial vantablack material to absorb ambient light. Ambient lighting is to be kept to minimal levels as much as possible. The interior of the containment chamber is to be covered with a wire mesh of beryllium-bronze alloy, electrified to carry a slight charge.
SCP-3XXX is to be monitored at all times in case additional bodies, objects or inhabitants emerge. Activity of any kind is to be reported immediately to the site commander. No probes, objects, or personnel are to enter SCP-3XXX until further notice, as to date this has provided no verifiable intelligence and only served to enlarge the anomaly.
Description: SCP-3XXX is the event boundary to either a transdimensional space or a parallel reality. It appears as a hemisphere with a current radius of approximately 3 meters. It neither emits or reflects EM radiation, absorbing effectively 100 percent of light exposed to it, making it appear pure black to human observers. No form of telecommunications has been shown to work across the boundary. None of the probes or other objects that have entered SCP-3XXX have ever been recovered, and there is only one known human who has been inside and returned, D-73937 (see Incident Report). The use of safety lines is not effective, as every line has been severed once the object or individual was completely through the event boundary.
The charged beryllium-bronze alloy appears effective at containing expansion, but as the limits of this effect are not currently known containment is primarily centered on preventing expansion outright. The diameter of the anomaly increases whenever anything enters it, including air and light, and appears to decrease when something leaves. It has been speculated that the inhabitants of SCP-3XXX (assuming any are intelligent) are aware of this and that this is why there has to date only been one incursion event. It is believed that if SCP-3XXX were ever to significantly increase its diameter, incursions would be more common.
Incident Report: On 15/03/17, at 03:00 hours, the corpse of a male human was ejected from the anomaly. The radius of SCP-3XXX was observed to shrink by approximately 0.05 meters following this event, the first time it had ever done so. The subject in question was naked, emaciated to the point of starvation, covered in third degree burns, had several hundred blood-sucking larval insects attached to him (SCP-3XXX-1a, the only confirmed non-human lifeforms to ever emerge from the anomaly) and bore numerous injuries which suggested he had been the victim of frequent physical and sexual assaults. The most recent of these injuries were his eyes, which had become septic and presumably left him blind.
Instances of SCP-3XXX-1a were all dead upon arrival, and completely vanished within an hour of leaving the anomaly. It's been speculated that matter native to SCP-3XXX is unstable in our reality and will quickly decay into sub-atomic particles.
Genetic tests confirmed that the corpse was that of D-73937, who had previously entered SCP-3XXX during initial testing. The autopsy determined that his cause of death was cardiac arrest only several hours prior to his re-appearance, most likely due to his starvation. The autopsy also uncovered a scroll lodged in his lower intestines, designated Document-3XXX-1. Testing confirmed the parchment was made of D-73937's own skin, and forensic handwriting analysis indicates it was likely written by D-73937 as well.
There are currently no plans to verify the accuracy of document 3XXX-1.
[[collapsible show="+ Document 3XXX-1" hide="- Document 3XXX-1"]]
I couldn’t see anything. It was complete darkness, so dark that I thought I might have gone blind. I reached for the two-way radio you gave me but the screen didn’t produce any light. It still worked, because it made noises when I pressed it, but there was no light from the screen at all. I don’t think light can exist in that place. It is a bastion of darkness.
It’s noisy in there though. I could hear people, so many people, all around me. I called out to them but they didn’t answer, and no matter how much I stumbled around in the darkness I never ran into them. They would weep and scream, screams of agony and misery and despair. The parched, howling wind carried the scent of carrion on it. The rancid smell of decomposition was so nauseating I nearly passed out at first. I collapsed and as I gripped the ground beneath me I realized it was dried feces, infested with wriggling maggots that would bite where ever they could. I forced myself up and swatted the disgusting things away. The ground itself would moan and lurch in pain, often spewing out plumes of hot, putrid gases.
As my ears became accustomed to the constant cacophony of Human suffering that surrounded me, I found I could pick out other sounds as well. Rarely at first, but they became more common. Giggles and whispers of demonic creatures lurking all around. I could hear their swift footfalls and they darted by, their fettered hair occasionally brushing against me and sending me into a frenzy of terror. I couldn’t see them but I could tell that they were tall, since they would sometimes stand over me and I could judge by their wheezing that their mouths were at least a couple feet above me. They would get close to me whenever I stopped so I just kept moving as much as possible, trying to find my way out, find anything that could help me.
Eventually I collapsed from exhaustion, and as I lied defenselessly upon the soiled ground those damn maggots burrowed into every inch of my skin. Every last one of them had gorged themselves on my blood and I was so weak I could barely move. The demons took advantage of my helplessness, tormenting me until they grew bored and went off in search of a new plaything.
The maggots were worse though. They felt like a thousand burning and writhing needles had punctured my flesh, and every so often one would explode, sending its eggs flying out into the surrounding shitscape. Every time that happened it felt like being shot. I hated those bugs, but eventually I got so hungry that I’d eat the ones I’d sift out of the ground. I don’t know why I did that. I wanted to die and it didn’t ease my hunger, but I still ate them.
After a while I noticed the smell of burning shit, coughed on its rancorous fumes and heard the sound of fire crackling, yet still I could see no light. I tried my best to crawl away from it, but soon the flames overtook me. I was burnt alive, and the heat caused all the maggots in my skin to burst simultaneously, subjecting me to unthinkable agony, yet I felt some relief knowing that I was about to die.
But somehow, I survived. Though the fire consumed me for hours, I survived. There’s something about that place that forces life to continue, long after it should have expired. Though my body was starved and mutilated and burned and ravished by vermin, I somehow persisted and crawled through the endless fields of excrement, every instant a living hell that made death seem more like wishful thinking than eternal life.
After what felt like years, I started to sense a presence. Its thoughts radiated out from It like thunder from a storm cloud, and it was from these thoughts that I first truly saw the world I was in. I could see through Its eyes, not only see but understand. I knew what I was looking at as well as It did.
As I already knew, the ground was nothing but maggot ridden feces, bubbling and exploding in places where the fumes of decay had built up. There was no sun, only dark turbulent clouds that rained down wretched souls like myself, millions every moment, who would splat upon the rancid ground and be tormented by countless deformed monstrosities. The clouds were pierced by massive, gnarled roots that twisted down from the sky like snakes and plunged into the manure below to suckle its nourishment, and I knew that this was the Tree of Creation itself. But the monsters and the maggots gnaw at the roots and the muck is no longer fertile but polluted, and the Great Tree grows weak and sickly. I saw also that there were colossal skeletons, and I knew these to be the remnants of slain titans strewn about the roots. Innumerable mighty gods had tried to save this corrupted world, and all had failed and paid eternally for their naïve bravery. If even the gods themselves could not save us from this place, then there truly was no hope.
These visions were so terrible that I gouged my eyes out in a futile attempt to make them stop, and that's when I understood. Light does not keep the monsters away, but merely shows how monstrous the world really is. Consciousness is not a gift but a curse, for what is there to be aware of but misery? Existence is naught but suffering, and thus the only righteous thing anyone can do is put an end to all of Existence.
That's the purpose of that place, for souls to suffer so much and learn such horrible truths that they see it is better to be blind, better to know nothing then to know this horror. Existence itself is an abomination and we must fight to end it, War against Creation itself! Only then, when there is true oblivion, true darkness, can suffering be ended.
That's when the presence noticed me, saw that it had another disciple. I tried to learn more about what it was, but all I got where a few meaningless names. Kharahk, Khnith-hgor, Shormaush Urdal, and other such gibberish. Its name isn't important, what's important is its gospel, which is why I was sent back. I still had a body, which meant I could return to the world Above. It can see you, or rather It sees your minds, and distant though It is Its gaze still casts a shadow upon your souls. It knows you've felt It, and It wants you to know how much It hates you for letting even the tiniest sliver of light into Its world. I offered my body as a vessel, so that you all may know the truth. Soon the Great Tree will die and rot and all will be consumed by the Darkness Below, and that the Living will be no better off than the Damned.
Darkness comes for us all.
/collapsible
Item #: SCP-3xxx
Object Class: Keter
Special Containment Procedures: SCP-3xxx is to be confined to an LR-type, lead-lined humanoid containment cell in Area ██. The interior of the cell, along with all essential fixtures, are to be lined with a mildly electrified (approximately 100 µA) mesh of beryllium bronze to contain instances of SCP-3xxx/A. When possible, SCP-3xxx's cell should also be soundproofed to avoid unexpected sensory triggers.
SCP-3xxx is to be implanted with a device capable of immediately and automatically incapacitating it in the event of a containment breach. Should this fail, attempts are to be made to sedate it via aerosol incapacitating agents, followed by increasingly lethal methods as needed. In the event that all attempts at pacification or neutralization fail, Area ██'s on site nuclear device is to be detonated.
SCP-3xxx must not be kept unconscious for a period of more than 12 hours, as the longer SCP-3xxx has gone without generating instances of SCP-3xxx/A the greater the chances of a Nordström event.
SCP-3xxx itself should be provided with appropriate rations three times a day along with mood stabilizating medication prescribed by Dr. Whitfield. SCP-3xxx should also be provided with clean clothes, bedding, and standard humanoid necessities on an as needed basis. Toys, candy and entertainment may be provided at the discretion of Dr. Whitfield as an incentive for cooperation and good behaviour.
SCP-3xxx is to have daily psychiatric counseling sessions with Dr. Whitfield via video chat, as well as twenty-hour access to any available psychiatric staff in order to reduce the occurrence of psychotic episodes. SCP-3xxx is also to be tutored in general education.
Non-D-Class personnel are not permitted to interact with SCP-3xxx directly and may only do so via telepresence. D-class assigned to SCP-3xxx should be selected on the basis of non-violent behaviour and adeptness at following orders. All personnel interacting with SCP-3xxx must speak to it in only a calm, reassuring tone and avoid any subjects it shows an adverse reaction to. Threatening or ridiculing language or behaviour towards SCP-3xxx is forbidden.
Description: SCP-3xxx is a mute female human child of European descent, estimated to be 8 to 10 years of age. SCP-3xxx can, apparently at will, summon or create (it is not yet clear which) instances of SCP-3xxx/A, which she can control completely. SCP-3xxx/A are transparent, luminous pink spheres which begin as microscopically small (possibly at the Planck scale) but grow at a rapid exponential rate so that they are macroscopic within a matter of seconds. During the initial period of growth they are intangible and pass harmlessly through all matter. When SCP-3xxx chooses to reverse the growth of an instance of SCP-3xxx/A, all mass within will be instantly compressed to its Schwarzschild radius, creating a subatomic black hole which evaporates within fractions of a nanosecond.
The sudden loss of air volume within the SCP-3xxx/A instance will result in the surrounding air rushing in to fill it, and the evaporating black hole will emit a bright flash of light and a detectable but relatively harmless amount of Hawking radiation. The energy released by the black hole in all detectable forms is orders of magnitude smaller than what current scientific theories predict should be released, and it has been theorized that SCP-3xxx/A somehow mitigates the emission of radiation to safe levels.
The novel (and still poorly understood) quantum effects of electrified beryllium bronze has proven to be effective at containing instances of SCP-3xxx/A, and by extension SCP-3xxx itself.
SCP-3xxx is prone to mood swings, primarily alternating between states of depression and uncontrollable rage. Staff psychiatrists have diagnosed it as possessing moderate PTSD and borderline personality disorder. Medication and counselling has been somewhat effective in reducing the severity of its mood swings.
SCP-3xxx's muteness appears to be elective as medical examinations indicate that there is no physical or neurological cause for its inability to speak. It has also been observed to scream when upset. It understands spoken and written English fluently, and can communicate through writing when it is feeling cooperative.
SCP-3xxx will typically initiate the growth of an instance of SCP-3xxx/A by opening its palm, and then clench its fist to collapse it. Observations and limited testing suggests that this is predominately for dramatic effect as SCP-3xxx has created instances of SCP-3xxx/A without any visible movement at all. SCP-3xxx has also been known to hold instances of SCP-3xxx/A static for hours before further expanding or collapsing them.
SCP-3xxx will use instances of SCP-3xxx/A to destroy anything which upsets or displeases it, mostly when it is enraged. It will also generate instances of SCP-3xxx/A for its own amusement or to dispose of waste or unwanted objects during calmer moods. It is possible that SCP-3xxx may be capable of generating SCP-3xxx/A reflexively in response to a perceived threat. If caught inside an instance of SCP-3xxx/A, SCP-3xxx appears to be immune to its effects.
There does not appear to be an upper limit to the size or number of SCP-3xxx/A instances that SCP-3xxx can create.
If SCP-3xxx goes between 12 and 24 hours without producing any instances of SCP-3xxx/A, a Nordström event will occur. Nordström events involve the spontaneous formation of [REDACTED]. For this reason, keeping SCP-3xxx permanently comatose or otherwise incapacitated is not a viable method of containment.
Research into improving methods for containing instances of SCP-3xxx/A and Nordström events is ongoing and is currently Area ██'s primary focus.
Dr.████'s request to intentionally induce a Nordström event for the purpose of scientifically studying [REDACTED] is currently under review.
Recovery: SCP-3xxx was initially recovered when Foundation forces responded to reports of anomalous mass destruction in the town of ████████,██. The town had been leveled and SCP-3xxx was screaming and rapidly generating numerous instances of SCP-3xxx/A seemingly at random. Mobile Task Force Psi-5 "Of Course We Can Handle It" was called in to attempt containment. After several unsuccessful attempts using drones armed with tranquilizers, bullets, and nets, SCP-3xxx was neutralized by use of incapacitating agents delivered via gas canisters, which it either failed to notice or recognize as a threat.
The recovery incident has been covered up as the accidental igniting of an unusually large deposit of natural gas beneath the town. Survivors of the incident have been debriefed and given amnestics. None were able to provide any information regarding the identity or origins of SCP-3xxx. Official records have been equally useless, and SCP-3xxx itself has never given meaningful answers to this line of questioning.
SCP-3xxx was transferred to Area ██ and kept sedated while containment procedures were devised. After 16 hours and 43 minutes of unconsciousness, the first recorded Nordström event occurred, resulting in [REDACTED].
Selected Interview:
Interviewer: Dr. Emily Whitfield, Area ██'s head of psychiatric personnel.
Interviewed: SCP-3xxx
Notes: Interview is conducted via video chat with SCP-3xxx inside its cell. SCP-3xxx had been provided with writing materials in order to respond non-verbally. Dr.Whitfield has been instructed not to refer to SCP-3xxx by its designation to avoid upsetting it.
<Begin Log>
Dr. Whitfield: Good morning, sweetie. I was wondering if today might be a good day for us to talk?
SCP-3xxx: (attention remains on the screen, but gives no response)
Dr. Whitfield: Everyone's here quite confused about how there's no proof of your existence before we found you. Can you write down your name for us?
SCP-3xxx: (shakes head for no)
Dr. Whitfield: You don't know your name or you don't want to tell me? (SCP-3xxx gives no response) What about your family? Who were you living with before us?
SCP-3xxx: (shakes head)
Dr. Whitfield: I don't want to argue, but you hardly seem feral. You must have been living with someone before us. Who taught you how to read and write?
SCP-3xxx: (writes: School, I guess.)
Dr. Whitfield: You guess? Again, do you not remember or do you just not want to tell me? (SCP-3xxx does not respond) Okay, what about the town we found you in. No one there knew who you were. Were you from there?
SCP-3xxx: (writes: We never stayed anywhere for long.)
Dr. Whitfield: We? Who's we?
SCP-3xxx: (shakes head fervently and averts gaze from camera.)
Dr. Whitfield: All right, I'm sorry. Do you know how long you've had your…ah, how long you've been able to make your pink bubbles?
SCP-3xxx: (creates an instance of SCP-3xxx/A in its palm and writes: Always.)
Dr. Whitfield: And do you know what your bubbles do?
SCP-3xxx: (collapses instance of SCP-3xxx/A and writes: They crush everything into black holes.)
Dr. Whitfield: That's right. And that includes people too. Do you know that all the people who've been caught in your bubbles are dead?
SCP-3xxx: (nods head for yes, and while sobbing writes: Everyone and everything I ever loved has been swallowed by black holes. So many people are dead and it's my fault!)
Dr. Whitfield: If you know it hurts people, and hurting people upsets you, why do you do it?
SCP-3xxx: (writes: I get so mad and I can't control myself and I do bad things. When I'm not mad I feel sad about all the bad things I've done.)
Dr. Whitfield: That happens to a lot of people, and if you were an ordinary girl you would have gotten treatment long before you could have seriously hurt anybody. It's not your fault you have this ability.
SCP-3xxx: (writes: You don't know that.)
Dr. Whitfield: I think we should save that discussion for another time. I can tell this is hard for you. For now, we can put you on some medications that will help you not get so angry. Would you like that?
SCP-3xxx: (nods and writes: Can you stop me from hurting anyone else?)
Dr. Whitfield: We will certainly do our best. I promise that there will always be someone on the other end of this phone to talk to if you think you're about to loose your temper. Never hesitate to call.
SCP-3xxx: (writes: Thank you.)
Dr. Whitfield: You're very welcome. I'm going to write out your prescription right now and someone will be down with it shortly. Is there anything else you would like?
SCP-3xxx: //(writes: Orange soda. My mom would give me orange soda to help me calm down.)
Dr. Whitfield: I think we can manage that. You do your best to keep calm and we'll talk again soon. Bye bye.
SCP-3xxx: (waves goodbye)
<End Log>