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Lazarus Taxon
Part 1
July 9th, 2021
Sloth's Pit, Wisconsin
Claude Mattings was thirty-eight years old, a new father, and sick to his stomach.
He held his daughter in his arms. Rose Mattings looked like… well, like an infant. She wouldn’t look like her mother for several years, and he would be lucky to survive to see the time when she did. A week ago, his wife had named her, and then she had become catatonic.
Cassandra Pike sat up in her hospital bed. Claude turned to face her, but she still had the same dazed look on her face, extending her hands out to him. Whatever had happened to her, it left her with enough presence of mind to let her realize when her daughter was hungry. Claude handed off Rose to Cassandra, and sat by her bed as she nursed Rose.
He put his head in his hands. For a week, his wife had held that same dull expression. He hadn’t taken Rose home yet. He hadn’t left the hospital yet. They elected to do it in St. Francis de Sales instead of at Site-87. While it was warmer, and there was a view, Claude felt that every second he spent here was taking time off of his life. He couldn’t tell anyone what was happening, they wouldn’t understand. Those who lived in Sloth’s Pit knew the basic gist of Site-87, insofar as ‘a research organization monitors the town’, but the details were… were…
He nodded off, snapping back to consciousness as Rose started to cry, reaching for her mother’s face. She just stared into the distance, ignoring her entirely.
Claude put his hand on the armrest of the hospital bed. He looked out the window, towards the woods. He had yelled at this city, at magic itself, at the very concept of stories, and at the woods, for so long his throat hurt at the thought. And he would never do it around Rose; the last thing he wanted was her to be scared of him.
“What kind of story is this?” Claude sighed, looking down at his daughter. The thought of him raising her as a single parent had… occurred to him. Site-87 wasn’t as dangerous as an Armed Containment Area or, god forbid, Site-19, but in the Foundation, there was always a risk of something going awry.
He looked through the window, towards the woods, and then back at Cassandra. How many fights had they fought, how many bitter words and backhanded compliments exchanged? How many counseling sessions and threats and last chances? How much of that had he forgotten, because he…
Claude’s phone rang. Rose began to cry, and he shushed her as he put the infant in a small, clinical crib before he picked it up. “Hello?”
“Do you have every number at the Site blocked, Mattings?” On the other end was the voice of pataphysicist Kimba Laslow. “Literally everyone has been calling you to try to check on Dr. Pike. We heard—”
Claude tried to hit the ‘end call’ button, but fumbled it and put it on speaker. His hand trembled as his phone fell onto the tile, and Laslow continued.
“—about her condition, and we’re all worried. You and Pike have done—”
“Shut up.” Claude picked up the phone. “I don’t want to hear about what we’ve done, Laslow. I don’t want to hear a damn thing that isn’t the words: ‘I can help her’. Until you’ve figured out what’s wrong with her…”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” There was a pause. “I know you don’t… put that much stock in the Narrative. Kind of ironic, seeing as Pike co-authored the 001. But… why not try asking it for help?”
“I’ve tried screaming at it. Does that count?”
A long sigh came from the other end of the line. “The Narrative is skittish, but it knows a good story can’t come from misery alone. You have to just… appeal to its better nature. See if you can’t coax an epiphany out of it, or…” There was a shuffling of paper. “Look, if we could get Sinclair over there—”
“No offense meant, but I’d rather not risk magic around my child, especially not with… what she’s become.” He shuddered. “You saw what she did to Yttoric’s goons in West Virginia.”
“That was an accident!” Laslow protested. “And she got their gravity back to normal in the end.”
Mattings shook his head. “Unless you can provide a tenable answer in the next three seconds, then I’m going to shut off this phone and throw it in the drink.” He rubbed his face. “…actually, wait, Laslow?”
“Hmm?”
“Are you… particularly busy right now?” He swallowed. “It’s just… Dr. R-Reese is o-out of town, an-and we don't have a g-godfather y-yet, so…"
“You need me to take care of her? Both of them?”
“Please.” Claude’s voice broke. “Please.”
“Tell me the room number and I’ll be there.”
Half an hour later, Claude Mattings drowned his sorrows at the only good bar in town.
The Black Garden was located on Main Street. At three stories tall and one-hundred and thirty-one years old, it was the oldest-standing building in Sloth’s Pit. It had the best onion rings in town, the second-best burgers, but sorely fell behind in the french fry department. The main attraction, however, was the mead; the Black Garden brewed their own through a process the Foundation knew about, but kept classified at a level that only Director Bailey and the O5s were cleared to know, and none of them were talking.
Claude was not a talkative drunk. He was not an angry drunk. He was, however, a somewhat sad drunk. He did not weep openly into his glass of mead, but there were tears under his coke-bottle glasses as he ordered his eighth stein of the night.
Instead, he was handed a cup of coffee. He looked up to the bartender, a man named Cecil. “The hell’s this?”
“From the woman in the fedora over in the corner.”
Claude looked towards the woman in the fedora. She was… startlingly nondescript, barring her clothing. A black Louisiana fedora with a wide brim, a black leather jacket (Claude couldn’t imagine how she felt in the July heat), black slacks, black boots, and a black shirt. She raised a cup of coffee to him and nodded.
Claude took a sip of the coffee, and frowned at the woman. He had the startling feeling he knew her from somewhere, but… that was impossible. She looked like Nobody he had ever known.
Claude took another sip, and frowned. There was something at the bottom of the cup, jingling around. “What did you put in here?”
“She sent over the cup herself. Some kind of chip, looked like an AA Thing.” Cecil picked up Claude’s glass of mead and drained it. “You know, I swear she looks like a regular, but I’ve never seen her before.”
“Did you catch a name—” Claude turned towards the woman, only to find a vacant seat. “…must be a town thing. Another one. As if the Jamburglar becoming a regular thing wasn’t bad enough…” He drank the rest off the coffee, enough that he wouldn’t burn his fingers retrieving what was at the bottom.
It looked like an Alcoholics Anonymous chip in structure, at least. It had an X on the front, inside a circle, rather than the characteristic triangle AA Chips had. It was surrounded by a starburst; at the bottom were the words ‘One Day At A Time’, and at the top, ‘Gamblers Anonymous’. Mattings frowned at the chip, unsure of its meaning.
Then, he stumbled back from his seat as an epiphany hit him square in the chest. He ran from the bar, back to Site-87.
Ryan Melbourne grumbled awake in his quarters. Someone was buzzing the intercom, which was the polite equivalent of drunkenly pounding on someone’s door. He got up from his twin bed and made himself semi-decent, clad in a plain white T-Shirt and plaid pajama pants. “Lights,” he grumbled.
The lights in his quarters slowly faded on as to not burn his retinas. He made his way over to the door as the intercom kept buzzing. “Activate intercom.”
A slightly-drunken and very nasally voice came over the intercom. “Melbourne, I need to talk to you!”
“Mattings, it’s 10:00 on my day off.” He made his way to the door. “I’m getting on a flight for a conference in fifteen hours. This had better be damn good.”
Next to his door was a small screen where he could see the outside from a camera. Claude Mattings was out there, shaking, eyes wide, holding up a Gamblers Anonymous Ten-Year chip. His Gamblers Anonymous Ten-Year Chip. He had lost it a week ago, and had to explain to his sponsor how he thought it may have been eaten by an escaped hodag. He opened the door and frowned. “You have my attention.”
“I think…” Claude swallowed. “I think the town sent me to you. I think you can help Cassie.”
That caused Melbourne’s right eyebrow to shoot upwards. Claude never called his wife by any nickname. It was always ‘Cassandra’. “How so?”
“What’s… what’s affecting her, it may be memetic. I don’t know how, but it might be.”
Melbourne scratched beneath his chin. “Is she… completely catatonic?”
“She… she responds to Rose when she’s hungry.”
Melbourne’s frown deepened as retreated into his room, getting on a set of shoes. “And when did this start?”
“Right… right after she named her. She said it was… for an old friend.” Claude swallowed. “I’ll do anything, if you can help her. Please.”
“Let me drive. You’re in no state.” Melbourne put on his coat and frowned. “And after this is done, I’m going to have words with every memeticist from here to Auckland about what the hell they were thinking.”
Melbourne explained what was happening as they entered the lobby of St. Francis de Sales. As the receptionist was about to say ‘Visiting hours are over’, Melbourne pulled out his credentials and ignored her. “In late 2020, the Foundation decided to institute a new form of memetic restraint.”
“A gag order?” Mattings frowned. “Cassandra… did have to sign one about a month before she was due. Why a new version?”
“People wanted to spend more time with their families due to COVID. The restraint was designed to reinforce existing ones, prevent people from blabbing to their families about anything remotely Foundation-related.” Melbourne sighed as he entered the elevator, looking at his phone; it had a bizarre-looking case on it that doubled its size, with what seemed to be handles on the back. “It was a slapdash job, and they didn’t test for every possible case.”
“Those cases including… pregnant women?” Claude swallowed.
“Close. New mothers.” Melbourne pressed the button for the floor PIke was on. “To make a long story short… naming a child is an emotional experience. And if you name the child after someone you already know, it amplifies that.” He rolled his shoulders. “Dad said he cried after mom agreed to name me after his old war buddy.”
“And… her naming Rose after someone in the Foundation did that?” Claude frowned.
“That alone wouldn’t do it. It would have to be someone who she worked with under a different gag order.” Melbourne looked through his phone with some difficulty, due to the size of the case. “There have been a dozen cases of this in the past month. The good news is that we developed a counteragent for this within a week of the first case.”
“So it’s treatable?” Claude’s eyes watered.
“No. It’s curable. But it’s going to wipe out any and all memetic restraints and geases that she has between her ears, so…” Melbourne chewed his lip. “It might get ugly.”
“If it brings her back? I’ll put up with ugly.”
The elevator dinged open.
Kimba Laslow was halfway through the second section The Color of Magic. She had been reading it aloud to Rose, who had no strong opinions either way on the works of Pratchett, and had fallen asleep. “Aww. We’ll start you on Gaiman next time, okay?”
Matings and Melbourne entered the room; the latter was on his phone, scrolling through images that Laslow recognized, at a glance, as countermemes. “Okay, bearing in mind I didn’t literally bet on this, but… I did bet it was memetic.”
“Long story,” Claude looked at the chair where Laslow was sitting; she vacated it and stood by Pike’s bed. “Melbourne, how long is it going to take?”
“Uh…” He looked in his pocket. “Crap, does anyone have a set of earbuds?”
“They sell them in the vending machines.” Laslow vacated the room. “Be right back!”
When she exited, Melbourne brought up a particular video on his phone, and began to unfold the case. The handles extended out into a pair of solid struts which connected to each other, with a third strut intersecting them at a right angle. He snapped down a pair of lenses on the screen of his phone, and pressed them over her eyes. The case, Claude now realized, had been a compact set of virtual reality goggles, with the screen acting as the display.
“All that, and you don’t have headphones built in?” Mattings raised an eyebrow.
“Older model.” Melbourne rolled his shoulders. “Pain in the ass to carry around, too.”
Laslow entered with a set of cheap headphones in one hand, and a bottle of water in the other; she handed the former to Melbourne, the latter to Mattings. “Okay, so… what does this involve?”
Melbourne unwrapped the headphones and plugged them into the jack. “Visual and auditory countermemes acting in concert are going to destroy all memetic geas and restraints she’s ever had put into her brain. She…” Melbourne chewed her lip. “Look, the treatment is safe, but—"
“But?” Claude kept his voice level, as not to wake his daughter.
“But there’s a chance that she’s going to end up blabbing classified information to us all. Did you… know anyone named Rose?”
Claude thought for a moment. “…no. Cassandra had been with the Foundation for a few years before she came to Site-87. Worked in California, went back there a few times to help with fieldwork.” He frowned. “She… never said anything about it, come to think of it.”
“Probably worked on a project there, then. That’s where the wires got crossed.” Melbourne shook his head. “Don’t know much about parazoological work there, but it shouldn’t be anything too egregious.”
At his feet, Rose Matting stirred awake. Claude picked up his daughter and smiled at her. “Say hello to mommy, Rose.”
Melbourne and Laslow both looked at Mattings as if his hair had vanished and his exposed brain was showing. Claude Mattings using the word ‘mommy’ was viscerally disturbing on the same level.
“Anyway.” Melbourne tapped a button on the top of his phone to begin the playback. “Here goes nothing.”
A dreadful amount of nothing occurred for several minutes. Claude bounced his daughter in his hands, and the clock in the hospital room ticked. Laslow looked around uncomfortably. “Should something be…”
“…ter…” Cassandra Pike swallowed as her dry mouth emitted the first word she had spoken in a week. “..ter…”
Claude hadn’t opened the water bottle. He didn’t know the procedure to giving water to someone who hadn’t had a drink in a week, so he tried to bring it to her lips.
Cassie’s hand grabbed at the bottle, and she brought it up, taking a sip. She choked on it, and tore at the headset. “Off! Off! Get it off!”
“Melbourne!”
The memeticist undid a latch at the back of the headset, and it fell into her lap. Cassandra Pike shook violently as she curled up on herself, sobbing and taking shallow breaths. Claude recognized it for what it was.
“She’s having an anxiety attack.” He looked at Melbourne and Laslow— they were already giving them privacy. He kept Rose close to him with one arm, reaching out to his wife. “Cassandra, you’re all right! You’re okay! You’re in the hospital!”
“Not all right!” She yelled. “Get away from me!” Her eyes turned towards her husband and daughter, filled with tears of grief. “Get her away from me!”
“W…” Mattings’s heart cracked. “Wh… why? Cassandra, it…”
“I’m a monster!” Those were the last words she said for over half an hour, before she curled up into a ball and began to cry. First loud sobs, then gentler ones, and finally, ragged, shaking breaths. Claude stood there the whole time, holding his wife’s hand, even as she thrashed about.
When it stopped, Cassandra looked up at her husband and her daughter with a sad, sallow face. She swallowed. “Let me see her.”
Claude brought Rose down to see her mother. The infant looked confused, but not afraid. She reached out with a hand, a toothless grin on her face. Cassandra put her index finger in the infant’s hand.
“If you’re a monster, could you have had a part in this?” Claude let Cassandra hold Rose. “You’re not a monster, Cassandra. You’re going to be a good mother, and—”
“This isn’t post-partum depression, Claude.” She shook her head. “This… this is something I did. Something I actually did.” She looked at her daughter, and tears filled her eyes again. “She’s been born into a world without wonder, because of me.”
“…what do you mean?”
Cassandra’s laugh sounded like something that should come from a hag born in winter. “The giant tusker. Hatzegopteryx. Darwin’s dragon. The locust lanes. They’re all dead because of me. And we’re next.”
Claude swallowed. “What are you talking about?”
Cassandra looked at him. Anguish stained her face. “The aeterns, Claude. I helped kill them.”
Lazarus Taxon
Part 2
July 10th, 2021
Sloth's Pit, Wisconsin
Several members of Site-87's staff had gathered in a small hospital room, long past visiting hours, to hear one of the most bizarre stories in their lives. There was no squeamishness as Cassandra Pike nursed her daughter while telling this tale, simply some curiosity and some looks of excitement shared between some researchers.
"There are six kingdoms of life recognized by the scientific community." Cassanrda held up one hand to count them off. "Animalia, Plantae, Fungi, Protista, Archaea, and Bacteria." On 'Bacteria', she held up a single finger once again. "Until 2014, there were seven."
"Seven?" Dr. Katherine Sinclair frowned, toying with a bit of hair behind her ear. "What are you talking about? How did the Foundation… scratch that, how did anyone miss a whole kingdom of life?"
"We didn't." Pike handed her daughter off to her husband and covered herself. "This seventh kingdom most closely resembled Animalia— most of them reproduced sexually, most of them were heterotrophic, and all of them were… amazing." She held herself close. "We called them aeternae. Eternal. An entire part of life that was entirely… immortal." She shook her head. "No, that's not accurate. There was predation, of course there was. And they could die from sickness, or from wounds. But… there was a creature in the Nile, the Hapi Serpent, who, as far as we could tell, had been there for over six-thousand years. Last of its kind, and it had survived that long."
"The Ancient Egyptians would have known about it." Montgomery Reynolds had an arm around Sinclair, and scratched at his dreadlocks. "How come we don't?"
"We made them forget."
"Sorry, 'them'?" Agent Seren Pryce had sat down on a chair opposite Mattings, and was fiddling with her ponytail. "Who's 'them'?"
"Everyone. The whole world." Pike chuckled. "It was a… gargantuan effort. Something we could never replicate, not even with a firing of—" She looked around, finding the man she was looking for.
Tristan Bailey had grown into his role of Director of Site-87 as well as a hoof grew into a high heel. The job had changed him, somehow, made him bitter in a way that the previous Director had never been. Stern. Sour. No-nonsense. He gave a nod to her. "You're all cleared to know about 2000, that's what she's talking about."
Pike breathed a sigh of relief. "We killed them all. Every last one. It nearly bankrupted us twice over, and we had to rewrite whole mythologies to account for it." She chuckled. "And nobody remembers it. Not even among the Foundation."
Dr. Sinclair pinched the bridge of her nose. "Cassandra, with all due respect… this sounds crazy. Are you sure stress from 6406 isn't getting to you?"
"That's what I figured you would say." Pike rolled her shoulders. "It isn't. If anything, it's his fault." She nodded at Ryan Melbourne, who was awkwardly standing in the corner.
Melbourne blinked; he had been picking at his teeth with some disinterest. "Huh? How is it my fault?"
"Whatever you fed into my eyes and ears… it destroyed the cognitomole in my mind." She tapped her forehead. "It was designed to cause immediate brain death if I told anyone about 6002."
"Impossible." Melbourne shook his head. "Cognitomoles like that are entirely theoretical. How would I have a counteragent for that in here?"
Pike shook her head in frustration, and drew a circle in the hospital sheets using her finger. "Might be a bit rusty at this magic stuff," she admitted. "Sinclair, can you guide me through some illusion stuff?"
Sinclair blinked. "Um. What kind?"
"I need to conjure a memory. Something that all of you can see. I'm only Class-1, but I think I should be able to manifest a little bit."
As Sinclair walked her through the process, Claude bounced his daughter gently in his arms, smiling. He trusted Cassandra on this matter. Even if what she was saying was impossible… he'd seen far stranger things than this. She had said stranger things. This, too, would pass.
"Okay." Cassandra had formed a ball of light between her fingers. "Uh, Doc— Director Bailey, could you please stand aside?"
Bailey nodded and made room for what Pike was about to do.
From her hands, a matrix of rainbow light formed, coalescing, little by little, into a solid form. The process reminded Claude of a 3D Printer, almost, as it started from the bottom and went to the top in individual chunks.
After several minutes of concentration, they were staring at a beast that was about five and a half feet at the shoulder, with light brown fur all across its body. The head vaguely reminded Claude of a creature he had once seen on a special about Devonian-era life, but it had a prominent, orange cheek pouch that reminded him of frog mixed with a chipmunk, ears that were large and looked like they were good at twitching around and fighting off flies, and a set of massive tusks. Its tail was long and muscular, but held parallel to the ground. The chest made it clear that the tusks were meant for digging into the ground for… from the beak, Claude judged that it probably ate insects, but it would have to be in massive quantities.
"Duro…" Cassandra panted. "Duro scrofa. Greater tusker." She fell back on the bed. "One of the m-most common species in the steppes. Had a herd of them here in Sloth's Pit, at one point." She grinned. "Claude and I w… went to the circus that had them on our second date."
Claude frowned. "I remember the circus. But… they didn't have anything too exotic there." He frowned. "I remember… a white tiger. Poor thing looked inbred. And…" He frowned. "There was something else there. I know…" He squinted. "What was it?"
"They were using them to haul the caravans." Cassandra explained. "You don't remember them because… because I made you forget."
This drew odd looks from all in the room.
"No offense, Dr. Pike," Pryce coughed, "But unless you have access to, like. Magical amnestics. I don't know how that happened."
"…the world found out about us. It rebelled, once we started killing the aeterns. I…" Pike sighed. "I asked Dr. Pickman to help."
2015
Site-87's Archival Wing
"We don't know if this is going to work."
Isaiah Howard Pickman shuffled around papers nervously as Dr. Pike set up a lectern. "Dr. Pike, this—" He waved at a cork board covered in strings and thumb tacks—"This is all just…. conjecture. Theory. The idea that there's some grand narrative force behind everything… it's absurd. A pipe dream. Pataphysics isn't a proper field, and it never will be."
"It's the only chance we have." Pike rubbed her face, turning towards the video call. "Rose, are you there?"
On the other end of the line, Dr. Rose Wildcat looked in in amazement at what they were doing. Behind her, Site-6002 shook with the force of an artillery shell. "You're mad, Cassie." She shook her head. "You're… insane. This can't work."
"It has to." She swallowed. "If… if only for Sloth's Pit. We… we've lost too many already."
"So you're just going to retcon reality over there?" Dr. Wildcat barked out a laugh. "Make aeterns not exist in your little corner of spacetime?"
"Maybe in a few others. I…" Pike picked up a tree branch that had been sent to her. "You're sure this is the right one?"
"Lesser hodag, like you requested."
"I always thought they were cute." Pike placed the twig atop the lectern, in an inkwell. "More importantly… hodags are largely separate from their aetern designation. I…" She swallowed. "If this works, we may be able to… to preserve some continuity. Rewrite them into stories. Let them live on, to a degree."
"It won't save them all," Wildcat sighed. "It can't. We've already lost the majority of aeterns in Canada. Site-43 is apparently fomenting a revolt over the panthers—"
"Those are part of the folklore here, too. Thanks for reminding me." Pike cracked her fingers. "Okay. I think… I think I know what I'm going to write. And make reality read."
Wildcat rubbed her face. "We're monsters, Cass. You realize that?"
"Yeah."
Cassandra placed the blank journal on the lectern, and opened it. It had been recovered from Sloth's bookshelf in a time of need. It would be gone by the time this was over. Pike began writing in it.
Now all things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
Shall enter our myths and pages
Cleansed from minds of all
From the mighty lords of water
To the apple shrike's wings,
All shall be forgotten
As aeternal things
Cassandra read the passage over and over, committing it to memory, and from there, committing it to reality. It wasn't an incantation, it wasn't a spell— it was a plea, a cry for help. Begging Sloth's Pit, the Nexus, the Narrative itself to help the Foundation, help mitigate the massive mistake they had made.
When she felt nothing happen, she fell upon the lectern, clutching its wood. "I'm sorry," She sobbed. "I'm sorry. It's our fault. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I…" Pike squeezed the lectern. "I… I just want to fix this. Please. I…" She picked up the branch, again, and scrawled on the journal the first thing that came to mind.
I, Cassandra Pike,
Forfeit all my happy endings forevermore
So that those I love can survive
Help us. For the love of god.
Help us write a happy ending for the world,
If not for me.
Reality tilted sideways, and Cassandra found herself, quite abruptly, in the break room on Site-87's biological studies sublevel. Her boyfriend, Claude Mattings, was staring at her oddly. "Cassandra?" He asked. "You're crying."
Pike looked at her hands. There was ink staining them, which quickly turned to smoke. It had worked. She didn't respond to anything Claude said for several minutes, and when he put his hand on her shoulder, reflex kicked in.
Cassandra Pike ruined her relationship with Claude Mattings, for the first time, with a literal gut punch.
"This is absurd." Montgomery Reynolds shook his head. "I'm sorry, Dr. Pike, but that… has to be a very, very elaborate dream. You… I don't even…"
"…you told me afterwards that you acted out of grief," Claude frowned. He had handed Cassandra back her child. "Hell of a way to show it. Bruised my rib."
"I deserved it." She shrugged. "You should have stayed away from me, Claude."
"Giving up your happy endings?" Pryce tugged on her bangs. "Place is going to want to hear about that, at least."
Melbourne frowned. "This is probably my fault. Who knows what the hell the memetics put in her. I can… probably amnesticize her. See about—"
"Tristan!" Cassandra pleaded to the Director, startling her child awake with a cry. "You know it's true! You know why Trevor did it! 'Waste of resources' my ass! He was trying to end its suffering! You know, all of you know!"
Tristan Bailey squeezed his hands together. He had been praying, silently, that Pike wouldn't turn this on him. But she had played just the right card. "God dammit Pike," He sighed. "This is why I hated playing poker with you."
"Always knew your tells."
Rose Mattings cooed in Cassandra's arms as she soothed the child. She stroked her daughter's hair and looked into her eyes. "She has your mother's," she pointed out to Claude.
After Rose was quiet again, Tristan Bailey stood at the center of the crowd, looking stern in his black suit. "Almost everything she has said is accurate." Tristan folded his fingers. "The Foundation, in its efforts to contain SCP-6002, was responsible for exterminating over 1.3 million species of the kingdom aeternae, over thirty billion individual organisms. She neglected to say… why this happened, which is a small mercy." He folded his hands. "As she has described, the aeternae were biologically immortal, but they could be killed. A member of the Foundation attempted to splice the genes responsible for aetern immortality into humanity. Instead, this resulted in a genetic blight that is spreading throughout SCP-6002, and is due to render all life on earth extinct within the next six-hundred years." He chewed his lip. "Humanity is scheduled to die within three-hundred."
By this time, everyone who had been standing was sitting down. Pryce had given up her chair to Sinclair, and all of them just stared in amazement at Bailey. "We drove them extinct in an attempt to hold off the blight. If anything, it seems to have sped its progression along. We believe 6002 is doing it out of spite."
"Since when can you hand out clearance levels like that?!" Melbourne sputtered. "We could be killed for—"
"I anticipated this happening when Pike called us all here. I overheard Mattings mention tuskers on the phone call." Bailey held up a finger. Simultaneously, a device on each of them beeped. "There. Full access to 6002's file. No cognitomole necessary."
"How the hell?" Sinclair pulled out her phone and started scrolling through it. "I… how?"
"I'm the Foundation equivalent of Old Money, Doctor." Bailey shook his head. "But… even with this knowledge, it's irrelevant. The blight is going to claim us. The best geneticists from three different universes haven't found a way to reverse it."
"They're working with incomplete resources."
All eyes were on Pike now.
"Bailey, you know what I mean. We have access to living aetern DNA. The branch is still on the tree because of it, even though it's not… here here."
"Out of the question. It knows what we did, and it absolutely hates us for it."
"You didn't talk to Hux—" Cassandra caught herself, before thinking 'Screw it' and continuing. "You didn't talk to Huxley as extensively as I did. Or as extensively as Trevor. It was one of only a dozen individuals of sapient aeterns, and I was able to be… be sociable with it long after it changed."
"Who's Huxley?" Reynolds frowned. "I'm sorry, but I am… terribly confused."
Before Pike could answer, Researcher Kimba Laslow entered the room. Tears were at the corners of her eyes. "Uh. I know you told me to wait outside, Director, but… I heard all of that. If I need to take amnestics or anything, I'll—"
Bailey held up his finger. Laslow's phone buzzed as well. "What Pike did was pataphysical. You deserve to know as much as the rest of us."
Laslow made her way into the room proper, feeling like a gnat among giants.
"All right, we're all part of the 'Foundation is a corrupt genocidal institution' club." Pryce laid back on the floor. "But I agree with Reynolds: who's Huxley?"
"…you know how we're really, really not supposed to name anomalies beyond their SCP designation?" Pike looked sheepish. "Huxley was our name for a female specimen of Draco darwinius. Darwin's dragon. They were native to the Galapagos. Charles Darwin classified them, and they helped form his theory on how adaptation could lead to evolution."
Sinclair sat upright. "How?"
"He observed how they adapted to the world around them— growing gills and fins when they hunted underwater, adapting their colors for camouflage when hunting on land… they were even bulletproof. They adapted bulletproof skin after being shot a few times. They were damn near unkillable, really—"
"Hard to destroy." Claude put his head in his hands. "Cassandra, no, no. Please, no, Cassandra, don't tell me…"
Pike looked to Bailey. He gave her a nod.
"There was a specimen of Darwin's dragon we discovered in the 1980s. She was fully sapient, but also completely sterile. We spent almost thirty years studying her, and it… gave amazing insight into how an aetern's brain worked." She sighed. "We classified it in the first available designation space we had. SCP-682."
Part 3
Site-19-A
Montana
Three Days Later
Site-19 was a far different beast from what it once was. After two assaults by the Foundation Elimination Coalition, it was decided that the Site-19 should be reformed in pieces. Site-19-A was the main administrative hub, and contained several low-concern anomalies, as well as the Department of Multi-Universal Affairs. The majority of the anomalies that were Euclid-class had been moved to Site-19-B in the Catskills, 19-C in Michigan, and 19-D in New Mexico. Site-19-E had taken in what Keters they could.
In her office, Director Tilda Moose's eyebrows were knitted together, half out of confusion, half out of consternation. The woman before her was describing details of project that could get them both killed if news of its existence ever leaked, and was doing so as if she was asking for increased clearance on an object that her spouse was working on. Moose was patient, but talking about 6002 was testing this.
"You honestly think it's going to be that easy?" Dr. Moose shook her head. "Dr. Pike, I'm not even sure how you can disclose these details to me. The cognitomole should have given you an aneurysm the instant you spoke the word 'aetern'. I'm thankful it didn't, but still…"
Pike folded her hands together. "Are you saying you're not going to help us?"
"I'm saying that if I do, the rest is going to be up to you. Site-19's assistance stops the instant the anomaly is out the front door. Not that I'm sure how you're going to get it off-Site. It was… highly uncooperative."
"Stick a sapient being in a tank of acid after exterminating the rest of its species, and it'll be hostile. Whoda thunk it."
Moose's fingers twitched. "The researcher who implemented those containment procedures did not have full knowledge of 682's… plight."
"How long have you been lying about this for?" Pike frowned. "How many people think that Huxley has always been some murder monster that we're trying to neutralize every time we dig up a superweapon that we're 80% sure won't crack the planet in two?"
"I presume that's a rhetorical question?"
"Of course it is."
Moose blinked and rubbed her thumbs across each other. "Dr. Pike, SCP-682 is not on this plane of existence. How do you aim to even retrieve it?"
"My Director's taking care of that."
"I'm still having a hard time wrapping my head around all of this." Dr. Sinclair admitted, standing in front of a coffee machine in one of Site-19's break rooms, pondering her order. "Think I could order 'a cup of comprehension' or somesuch?"
"I wouldn't chance it." Behind her, Researcher Kimba Laslow was reading through 6002's file again. "You ever read about that guy who ordered the 'perfect drink'?"
Sinclair tapped her chin. "I still can't believe 682 is—" She looked at the guards around the coffee machine, and sat down by Laslow, voice hushed. "Is female. I always thought it was a male."
"Seems a tad sexist, don't you think?" Laslow gave the doctor a wry smile. "Pataphysics has had theories about 682 since the field came into existence, and it's… disappointing to see it boils down to the explanation being entirely sensible, from an anomalous perspective."
"What was the pataphysical one?" Sinclair took out a notepad and began writing on it.
"…ever hear of 'plot armor'?"
Sinclair pinched the bridge of her nose. "You know, I actually got yelled at during a conference back in 2019 for helping write Pickman's proposal. Jackass claimed I'd 'helped legitimize Tv Tropes as scientific literature."
"That's awful." Laslow brow furrowed with sympathy. "What did you do?"
"Reported him to security and had to write an incident report after. Pretty sure he's working on one of those HALO facilities now."
"Ouch."
Sinclair pushed the paper over to Laslow. "Write down your order and I'll have them key it in."
Sinclair soon returned with two 'cups of butterscotch beer'. She looked at Laslow curiously. "I'd have thought you'd given up on Harry Potter, considering…"
"I… still have a soft spot. Those books are how I met my girlfriend." She sipped at her drink. "Besides, butterscotch beer existed long before she wrote about it."
Sinclair shook her head and smiled. "How long until Bailey gets back, do you think?"
"Trev, come on—"
"Nope." Trevor Bailey pointedly ignored his identical triplet, writing an equation on the whiteboard. "I scrambled those coordinates for a reason, Tristan— sorry, Director Bailey." There was just a hint of bitterness in his voice. "It was a waste of resources that I didn't want to put up with any further."
"Right." Tristan sat down on the opposite end of his brother's lab, stretching. "And there's nothing I can say that can convince you otherwise?"
"I don't want my old job back, I don't want to work with Tom in Antarctica" Tristan twinged at the mention of his other triplet, unknown to Trevor "and I don't want a transfer to 87 or 43 or wherever else. I'm happy being a theoretician now." He punctuated that last point by closing the parentheses on his whiteboard. "Beats the hell out of diplomacy."
"You're missing an exponent a few rows up."
"No, I'm not, stop trying to mess with me."
"Okay, no, you're not, but…" Tristan wrung his hands together. "Look, what the hell do you want? I… you know Pike's theory is sound. Your read over her proposal."
"A proposal that was written while she was driving halfway across the country to get here, kept awake by her crying child, which you've yet to show to the O5s for reasons I am still not entirely clear on…"
"What. Do you. Want?"
Trevor sighed. "I want to have a visit from one of my brothers that is, for once in my life, not accompanied by some kind of anomalous crisis, or some insane demands, or someone getting drunk off of Antarctic Wine, which I still don't know how you managed, considering that the alcohol they use in the Empire cannot interact with human blood."
"I still think Tom said that as a joke." Tristan pinched the bridge of his nose. "Look. If this works, I'll… I'll see if we can't arrange some kind of get-together on the way back. Right now, we have three people waiting in California for you to do this."
"Talk with the O5s first, then I'll consider it."
Tristan rubbed his face. "They're still reeling from 6500, Trev. They've not taken an audience, or issued a major edict, since May. We've effectively been under Protocol Ganymede since then."
Trevor thought on this for a moment, scratching his chin. "They… have been kind of quiet, haven't they?"
Tristan nodded. "Site-01's been radio silent. Nobody's really noticed."
"They're sure as hell going to notice this." Trevor sat on a stool and sighed. "What the hell are you planning to do, anyway? Do you seriously think you're going to bring back millions of species unnoticed?"
Tristan shook his head. "You and I both know that's impossible. We're going to just… pull back the blight. Maybe revive a species or two in the process. Something small and easy to deal with, like apple shrikes, or galvanic mice."
"Okay, but how are you going to do it? The proposal is entirely theoretical. Practically, how will this be accomplished?"
Over the course of ten minutes and several questions, Tristan told him.
"That's never going to work. It is never going to work. It has a one in a million chance of even coming close to working. If this would work, why didn't you try it before?"
"…because someone threw one of the last surviving aeterns into a pocket dimension."
Trevor sucked in air through his teeth, put his head in his hands, and wrote a set of coordinates on a piece of paper. "Punch that into the MUTA we have here, and you'll be able to get to it. We don't have any tests scheduled, so—"
"I'll meet them there."
Multi-Universal Transit Array Laboratory
The MUTA was a massive, complex machine. All white and gold, coils of wire were hidden behind layers of insulation, in a circular shape. At the very center was a speck that was barely perceptible— a suspended singularity, ready to be opened.
The only person in the room with the MUTA proper was Dr. Pike. Her daughter had been left with Dr. Sinclair, who had set up several glyphs of abjuration to escape in case something went wrong. Pike knew it wouldn't. It had been over half a decade since she had seen the lizard, but… she knew it wouldn't hurt her. She hoped it wouldn't hurt her.
«Coordinates Locked» a computerized voice announced. «Activating Portal Array in 3… 2… 1…»
The speck in the center expanded outwards, growing from a dot of black matter to a reflective surface. There was something on the other side, something Pike couldn't quite see, a brown shape of some sort…
«Destination Actualizing. 3… 2… 1.»
The shape grew into focus. There was a breeze as pressure equilibrium was reached between the two realities. The shape looked up and started for the aperture.
Nobody had actually seen SCP-682 in over half a decade. Everyone had a different idea for how it looked. The head had always reminded Dr. Pike of a Dimetrodon's skull, with the little crook in the mouth that made it look like it had Elvis Presley's lip curl. The entire dorsal side was covered in spines, and there was a frill around its neck— though in a female like 682, its frill was much smaller. Its tail was strong enough to hold onto trees or lift rocks, its claws could crush an I-Beam, and its eyes were black, and full of intelligence— and rage.
"Hello, Huxley." Dr. Pike stood before SCP-682. "It's been a while."
The lizard burbled as it once again adapted to the concept of language, after so long without hearing another talk. "Pyk……" It hissed. "hhhuuu… hyuu…" It shambled forward, snarling.
"Huxley." Pike stood her ground as what she was facing were an ornery mountain lion and not a thirty-foot lizard. "Listen to me. I have a plan, something that will—"
"Zhat vill vhat?" The aetern laughed, sliding towards her on its stomach, its brain still re-learning speech. "Undo all zhis? Make ahp for ze disgusting actions zhu committed?"
"I didn't do anything. It was all Mueller. I was—"
"Hyou vere what?" the aetern snapped. "Following orders? Don't lie. Hyu all relished in the zhance to burn the vorld down instead of jailing it ffffor once." It circled around her. "And now hyu're in here vithout even a guard."
Pike put a hand beneath her lab coat, drawing out a small, black can. "People think we need a howitzer to contain you, and not bear mace and small arms. You can adapt, but I'll be able to get out of here."
It laughed, standing upright and shrinking to accommodate the fact that the ceiling was ten feet shorter than it was. On two legs, SCP-682 reminded Pike of a man in a rubber suit, about to terrorize a scale model of Tokyo. "Hyu… you dare?" It snarled, language becoming natural to it once more. "After all you've done… I know I am the last. Is this some attempt to finally wipe me out? To preserve your damnable tree? A last-ditch effort by Mueller?"
"Mueller's dead." Pike spat on the ground. "Half the reason you were thrown in there was to keep him from getting to you."
"And nothing of value was lost." A growl rose in the lizard's throat.
"We can agree on that much." Pike backed away so she could look 682 in the face. "Huxley, listen to me. I think I know a way we can… maybe not reverse this, but at least stop it from getting any worse." She tilted her head. "Did you… go blank, recently?"
682 looked down at her, head tilting. "What do you mean?"
"There was… an event, here. Anomalous phenomena declined massively, dozens of SCPs were neutralized. A few of them have come back— some of them sapients, like yourself, who lost the ability to think. They said it was like going blank."
SCP-682 was pensive for several moments. "It… it was…" Its voice shook. "It was like being half-asleep and screaming to wake up the whole time. I didn't know where… where I was. It was cold and dark, and… when I got back…" It got on all fours once more, snarling at Pike. "I remembered how much I hated you."
"Not me." Pike shook her head. "Hux, I was always good to you. Made sure your cell was well-maintained. Made sure you were treated humanely, even after…" She swallowed. "Rose missed you, you know."
"Missed?" 682 laughed. "I suppose she got over it, once you blanked her mind, then."
Pike stayed silent, looking at the ground.
"And you, with your little martyr complex, couldn't bear the thought of forgetting all the pain you caused. She took her little pills, and is probably living the high life with that bitch Amara—"
"They're dead," Pike snapped. "Both of them."
The statement hit the lizard like a cannonball. It stumbled back several feet, its color changing to resemble something highly poisonous as a startle response. "How?"
"…we think that Mueller killed Amara. Rose… we don't know whether a security measure got her," Pike tapped her forehead, "Or if she…"
The implication hung in the air. "And Mueller?"
"Took the easy way out rather than face justice."
Silence reigned in the chamber for several minutes. Pike sat down, looking at the lizard. "Anything to say to that?"
After a moment, it admitted, "No." and then, after a pause, "They were always good to me."
"She tried." Pike shrugged. "Look where that got her."
Silence fell once again. Then, 682 asked a question. "Why now?"
"SCP-6002— the tree that started all of this, Vúluandsham, it… it's an anomaly, and it was affected by this… decline. SCP-6500, we're calling it. The blight slowed down to the point where we…" She swallowed. "We think we can treat it. Reverse it, even. But we need a living aetern to do it."
"Do you aim to stick needles in me?" The lizard laughed. "Slough off my skin? Decapitate me and glue my head to the tree, see if that helps?"
Pike held out her hand and concentrated. Sweat coating her brow, a wisp of smoke appeared in the center of her palm, briefly turning into a ball of fire, before extinguishing. Pike shook her hand to alleviate the heat. "Mueller tried to apply science to an anomaly and make humanity immortal. We tried to do the same to reverse it. The only way we're going to fix this is if we use anomalies ourselves."
"…and what do you aim to do, exactly? Bring them all back? Millions of species?"
"You and I both know that's impossible." Pike shook her head. "But… if you cooperate. We've made radical advances in cloning technology, and your branch is still on the tree." She rubbed an eye. "We could give you a family again, Huxley."
682 glared at her, lunged forward, and roared. The stink of its breath knocked Pike onto the floor. "Don't you dare," it snarled, looming over her. Half a dozen laser sights were trained upon its back. "Don't you dare promise me that. Not after what you did. Not after what I watched you do."
Pike backed away from the creature, sitting up higher. "You don't have to be the last dragon anymore." She shuddered, wiping her nose. The volume of the roar has ruptured a vein, and her sleeve came away bloody. "I can give that to you. Maybe even more. But we need your help." She swallowed. "Please."
It glared at her, stalking around the woman. "Back on the islands," it huffed, "I hunted tortoises. I did not relish in the feeling of their shells cracking in my jaws, nor did I enjoy the squirming they did as I broke their necks. It was simply something I did to survive." It stalked closer to her. "I do not enjoy killing, Cassandra. But if you are lying, if you go back on this lofty promise of yours… I will make an exception. Do you understand?"
Pike stood her ground, glaring at the beast, before giving a slow nod.
"Good." It kept stalking around her, growing smaller with each loop, until finally, it was at such a size that it could have been mistaken for a very large Komodo dragon. "There is one more thing I want from you."
"What?"
Several hours later, a white van pulled away from a butcher's shop in Portland, Oregon. The people driving it had bought every single piece of veal and lamb in the shop. The vehicle rocked oddly as it pulled away, but the butcher was too busy counting the cash he had been given to pay it any mind.
