The Owl in the Abyss - Chapter 18

Feet thumping on pavement, labored breathing, the dull burn of muscles working harder and harder to keep up; that was all Shauna’s world had been reduced to.

She barely took in her surroundings, only understanding that she had to get away from people and away from anywhere that there could be cameras. They would take one look at her orange jumpsuit and know instantly that there was a prisoner loose and even if they didn’t immediately pick up the phone, the event would sear into their memories. The Foundation wouldn’t be far behind.

Fuck the Foundation.

The day had started like any other since she had been stripped of her normal life and turned into a number. She had woken up in her average bed in the cage that the Foundation had stuffed her in, did her ablutions and dressed in the only clothing that was given to people like her at Site 99.

She had barely made it out of her room… her hand on the door handle when the alarms had started going off. Then the door buzzed and locked itself, trapping her inside.

There were different alarms for different situations and the Foundation at least trained their prisoners on what to expect in certain scenarios. This was not a containment breach alarm… this was an external attack on the Site facility.

Shauna had paced back and forth, her mind racing about who could possibly be attacking the Foundation. Who had the intelligence, the resources, the sheer guts to attack an organization that had such a far reaching influence into practically everything?

Her door buzzed again and opened.

Standing on the other side… was death.

A soldier in black with a weapon raised, aimed straight at her chest.

She didn’t know if he had fired or not because the world had just become utterly black at that moment.

In the next few seconds, if it was even that long, she could not feel or perceive anything; no light, no air, no gravity, no feeling of anything… she just knew that she could think and feel emotion.

Then the world was seemingly born anew around her.

Blessed light and sound exploded around her and she belatedly realized that gravity had returned as well.

She gasped as she unexpectedly fell and was just as surprised when her feet thumped into hard metal abruptly. Her legs instinctively relaxed slightly to absorb the fall and shock traveled up her body.

It was a blue pickup?

Her heart was thundering as she whirled around. Taking in the long street, the closed shops, the fact that it was evening. Then the distant forms of people idly waiting on the street.

Shauna jumped off the flatbed and had just started running, with only one thought -  get away!

Clearly some SCP weirdness had brought her out of Site 99… seemingly saving her from certain death.

Her heart was now racing, breath coming in short harsh gasps and her legs refused to go further as it felt like her muscles had decided to vanish on her.

She came to a stumbling stop and immediately bent down and clutched at her knees, leaning on them, refusing the call to simply collapse onto the pavement below. Unwilling to show so much weakness. Her breathing was labored as she gasped in air and her saliva felt gummy and horrible. She gathered it quickly, before spitting it out…

It glistened like a long silvery rope that hung from her mouth in the dull street lighting overhead. It splattered on the dull gray, badly cracked, sidewalk pavement. That rope clung to her lips and mouth stubbornly and she hardly had the energy to even care to wipe it away.

Then a drop of red joined the disgusting puddle.

She belatedly realized her nose was bleeding.

Finally she raised her arm, dabbed with fingers at her nostrils and only now did the acrid copper smell hit her. Her fingers came away with red and she let out an annoyed grunt. What had caused this?

Her brain was struggling to process given that she was riding the endorphins of a post-adrenaline rush. Her body and heart were working furiously to repay the debt of oxygen in her bloodstream.

For quite a while, this was her world. The Foundation, the cops, anyone really could swoop down and she’d have no hope in hell of even running away or fighting back. Even as she fought to calm down her racing heart, the anxious anticipation was building for the other shoe to drop. A shoe that took the form of a helicopter filled with those bastard MTF assholes or nameless cops that were actually undercover Foundation agents.

After swallowing enough air that would probably fill a thousand balloons, some form of faculty and reason began returning to her mind and she regarded the… city around her.

How long had it been since she'd seen one? Two years, three? Five? The Foundation purposefully kept no clocks in view of the inmates of Site 99. She had no idea why and the asshole researchers who studied her would never give proper answers. Other inmates theorized it was to keep them adrift, making it more difficult to blend back into society and so it would make them stand out all the more in case they ever escaped.

She was on a two lane street, with buildings rising above her no higher than five floors, with signage of ground floor shops festooning the facades. Far in the distance, much taller buildings lit up the night sky with their rows and rows of lights. These were tall, but still relatively small compared to the kind you’d see in a truly big city like New York.

So this was a smaller city, the tang in the air and humidity meant that it was definitely on a coast. The signage was only in English, so at least that meant she was still in the US. There were no shops with major brands on display that she recognized except for ever ubiquitous red Coca-Cola signs at a few cafes.

There were a number of cars parked along the street, which promised to at least clue her in as to what state she was in.

She coughed up another wad of lactic acid laden saliva, wiped her mouth off before walking to the closest car.

It was a rather ugly yellow Toyota with a shape and model name she didn’t recognize, but she wasn’t exactly a car aficionado. She ended up having to kneel to get close enough to read the car plate’s finer details. The thing was dirty enough that she was forced to use the sleeve of her jumpsuit to clean it off.

Finally, she was rewarded with a familiar name… Massachusetts.

Shauna had no idea where Site 99 was but it had been no more than five or maybe six hours from LA. She had been bagged for the entire trip in that awful van.

So somehow she’d been transported across thousands of miles to the north-east coast in an instant.

Well, it wasn’t so weird… Rowan had a friggin planet for an abdomen and Stacy was utterly invisible and intangible.

She was pretty sure she didn’t just spontaneously develop the power to teleport, though maybe she could induce it in someone else, then they could move her around.

The notion was quickly discarded. Who’d want to be saddled with a useless dead weight like her if they suddenly had that power? They’d just as quickly use the ability to leave and there’d be nothing she could do about it.

Shauna stood up with a sigh, feeling her equilibrium starting to slowly return. Looking up and down the street again, she was struck with the odd notion that there was a distinct lack of people.

It was too quiet.

There was no way to tell the time, but even if it was hyper early in the morning there should be at least someone somewhere on a city interior street like this. Even the nearby cafe, which proclaimed it was open 24/7 on its exterior, was thoroughly closed.

She strained her ears and could vaguely hear the distant noise of fast moving vehicles, the power was on, the nearby overflowing bin had fresh trash in it, so there was at least more life in this city.

Was it a holiday?

Her head turned back to look the other way-

“Fuck on a pogo stick!” she swore reflexively and warily backed away from the car.

Her head had been turned for a few seconds, but suddenly she wasn’t alone.

Leaning casually against the car’s side was a tall woman.

Long black hair reaching beyond her shoulder blades and kind brown eyes regarded her.

The woman wore a smile and nothing else.

Her arms were folded under modest breasts and her legs just seemed to go on forever. They were slightly crossed, somewhat hiding her pussy but the stylized pubic hair made a nice landing strip. She was also fit as hell, reminding her of those female high jumpers she saw in the last Olympics.

Shauna mentally gave herself a slap to put the details of the nude woman out of her mind. Then struck again by how alien it was in this context. There had been no one visible in the whole street and then just as suddenly she was there. Either she was super fast, invisible or could teleport.

Either way, she was probably not normal… an anomaly as well.

How Shauna hated that word. A dehumanizing label that the Foundation slapped on all ‘SCPs’, just so they could keep them at arm's length and easily justify whatever sick experiments they wanted to do.

“Hello there,” the woman said pleasantly, her mouth widening into a thin lipped smile. “Welcome to Brockton Bay-”

“Are you here to take me in?” she interrupted. She didn’t want to hear what this Foundation stooge was going to say. Was this all some weird experiment? Threaten her at gunpoint, teleport her across the country, then confront her with yet another human SCP? Then to add the cherry on top, have that SCP try to shock her with nudity?

Fuck, I’d heard of some fucked up experiments on the inmates, but this one is really out there, she thought incredulously.

The woman’s friendly smile faltered somewhat at being interrupted like that, but she answered swiftly and matter-of-factly. “No, not unless you pose a danger to the lives of the people of this city.” Shauna frowned, that wasn’t right. “If you let me finish, I’ll explain exactly what happened to you and where you are now.”

She shook her head, “No, you Foundation freaks have done enough to me. Stop fucking around, I’ll not be your lab rat. Call in your goons! Get me back to my cell!”

The woman’s face twisted in pity and sadness. Shauna hated that! She could also see that the woman clearly knew about the Foundation, it was written in her eyes.

“The Foundation is… very, very far away from here.”

“Bullshit,” Shauna snapped. “There’s nowhere on Earth that they can’t reach, no nook or cranny they can’t see into!”

“Can they see across an uncountable number of universes?”

That question brought her building tirade to a halt. “What? What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Before you fell into the back of that pickup truck, did you experience a void, a lack of everything? That was you passing through the nothingness between universes, until you landed here on what we call ‘Earth Bet’.”

Shauna glared at the woman. How could she know?

“Did you pull me here?”

“No, but I assure you, the Foundation is not here. I can prove it to you and the fact that you are most certainly on another Earth.”

The nude woman pushed herself off the car and now in her right hand was a long length of inscribed iron pipe that gave Shauna the heebie-jeebies just looking at it. She backed off wearily, keeping her distance.

“Relax, I’m not going to hurt you and neither is ‘15.” The nudist pointed at the pipe she was now using as a walking stick, then gestured down the street and began heading that way.

The bizarre statement and scene…

Fuck this, she thought.

She turned around and firmly headed in the opposite direction.

Not ten meters later, the nudist popped into existence with a slight blood red gas effect emitting from her body. She was leaning against a street pole, not completely barring the way but was making it clear that would not just let Shauna go.

“You do realize you’re wearing what is clearly a prison jumpsuit. I was going to bring you something else to wear before I showed you the new facts of your situation.”

She walked past pointedly and didn’t reply.

The woman popped into existence at the next pole. “You’re being unreasonable. I understand the Foundation has probably done screwed up shit-” Shauna shut her out and kept walking. “Okay my mistake, you’re probably being reasonable.” She smiled in apology after reappearing at the next pole. “But sooner or later, you’re going to run into either a beat cop, a gang member or a civvy who will call other authorities. You don’t want any of that to happen.”

“Oh yeah, why not?!”

“Do I really have to spell it out for you?” she retorted, her face twisted in annoyance. “You get arrested, they’ll run your prints. It will not show up in the database as belonging to any inmate in the country. They’ll investigate your jumpsuit and that’ll send up a big red flag, because the authorities had to recently deal with an SCP train that spewed out clones wearing a similar jumpsuit. Clones that had to be put down, as they’re brainwashed agents of the SCP.”

Shauna stopped in mid stride as those words slammed into her brain. “You’re shitting me?”

“No, I’m not. A gang member finding you… well, that’ll be the Azn Bad Boys around these parts. They’ll see an easy mark. You get a gun shoved into your face. You’re decently pretty, so you’ll be shoved into one of their farms, addicted to drugs and whored out until you’re used up. Upon which your next stop is the bottom of the Bay.”

“Stop! Stop your Foundation bullshit. End the experiment already!”

“This is not an experiment,” the woman said with slow emphasis on each word. “This is as objective as reality can be.”

“Bull, where are all the people? There should be tons walking around us at this time of night for this big of a city.”

“That is because they are all at home, spending what might be their last night alive and free… together.”

Shauna blinked in confusion at the grim words. Then snorted, “There some war on that I don’t know about? Last I checked we had troops in Afghanistan-”

“The United States’s last troops abroad were recalled roughly a decade ago and no it’s not a war in the traditional sense.” The woman said these words with a low undercurrent of anger. “Explaining why the city is like this is completely out of your context. The history of the country and the world is different. However, I see you are not going to lend any credence to my words alone. The Foundation has burned you one time too many it seems, put you in many experiments, gaslit you and made you question reality. Probably because your own power can rewrite reality in a specific way…” She stared at Shauna intently and it was like ants were crawling up and down her spine. “Through your voice or something related to speaking.”

“Fuck off,” she snapped and turned around, her legs now carrying her into a jog.

“But it’s something that takes time or otherwise you’d have used it on me already.”

The nudist’s waist and legs had now disappeared into a misty red wisp that trailed along as she floated alongside Shauna, easily keeping pace.

“Buzz off!” she waved her hands as if shooing a fly and kept jogging.

“You also can’t use it on yourself otherwise you’d never have let yourself be captured by the Foundation. You’d give yourself the power to resist or escape.”

“Oh, so now you’re trying to figure me out? That’s a new one. Pretending that you don’t know exactly what my power is.”

“I don’t know,” she insisted. “The more I study you, the more I figure it out,” she said, staring intently in a way that was now making her even more uncomfortable.

“Sorry, I don’t swing that way, Casper. Stop staring.”

“Casper? Oh yeah, friendly ghost and all that. Yeah, I probably do look quite like a ghostly naturist at the moment,” she chuckled with amusement. “Let’s get that out of the way, my professional name is Escort if you want to refer to me in a public setting. In private, call me Taylor.”

Shauna found herself intrigued at that introduction, despite her resolve to not give the assholes an inch that would help their experiment. “Escort, professional eh? So how many clients do you fuck in a night?”

Far from getting offended, Escort smiled. “Oh, you are good. The first person to make that connection right off the bat.”

“Not that hard. Sure most hookers don’t prance about utterly naked, but your demeanor, body language, even as you stand still, tells me all I need to know about that. You tried to hide it, but I also spotted your pussy glistening and I smelt it. You’ve had sex very recently.”

“Correct, I was in the blue pickup with a client when you landed.”

Shauna stared at her for a long moment, “You’re also unashamed of it.”

“Completely. You see, it’s my SCP nature. I need what men have. I’m no more ashamed of it than you are of drinking milk harvested from a cow.”

“I’m lactose intolerant.”

“The point still stands. So what do I call you?”

She hesitated for a bit then groaned with annoyance. “Fine, it’s Shauna Carter.”

“Nice to meet you, Shauna. Oh, do you mind if we take a left here? That should give us a nice view of the Bay that I want to show you.”

“The goons waiting there to wrap up this shitshow?”

“No, anyone we see there will be entirely coincidental.”

Shauna slowed to an ambling walk. “Sure, whatever. This whole thing was getting old anyway.”

Escort’s lower body reappeared as she chose to look slightly less weird and walk like a normal human being. She also began idly spinning her pipe walking stick with dextrous flicks of her right hand. Suddenly there were a few rapid hollow honking notes that came from the pipe itself somehow.

“Ignore him, he pretends to not like it when I spin him like this, but I know he secretly finds it enjoyable. Oh, completely forgot. Shauna, say hello to SCP-015 or the Incredible Sentient Pipe.” There was a series of clear rapid honks from the pipe in a clear pattern.

What the fuck? Shauna thought.

“He says ‘Hello’ and approves of your frustrating skepticism in general.”

“You can tell that from a bunch of honks?”

“He and I both know Morse Code.”

Shauna looked at her textile challenged acquaintance like she had grown not just a second head, but a third and fourth one. “There are so many questions to unpack just from that alone.”

“That’ll have to wait,” Escort said as they turned a corner onto another street and she flourished her hand at the view beyond.

She found her jaw going somewhat slack as her eyes told her something that should clearly not be there or wouldn’t be there if the Foundation was on the ball.

There in the darkness of what was clearly a large bay and coastline, lit with the thousands of incidental lights from the city and from flood lights pointed at itself, was what looked like a gleaming jewel of partially transparent solid light, shaped in an ovoid that emerged from the water. Inside was a structure that looked like something out of a futuristic movie, yet it also had a rugged utilitarian feel as well, given that it was all built on the foundation of what had been an oil rig.

It had a number of landing pads, with a helicopter standing ready and something that looked like a fixed wing craft, that clearly had to be able take off and land vertically. She wasn’t the most informed on aviation or military aviation, but that was like no craft she’d ever seen. The design was almost artistic and not something that came from some government military contractor. Yet it wasn’t some hodgepodge amateur affair either. It was as if someone had taken a draconic inspiration to a VTOL aircraft and had the budget to be professional and functional about it.

Off to the side from the landing pads there was also a partially canted box launcher for missiles! It was just… there. Not on some Navy warship, but right there on a futuristic structure in the middle of a bay within eyeshot of hundreds of thousands of people. Her brain told her that the solid light had to be an actual energy shield like something straight out of fucking Star Trek, but another part of her rebelled at the idea. That was supposed to be impossible!

As impossible as a guy with a world for a stomach, Shauna? She thought miserably.

“What… what is that?”

“That is the Protectorate Headquarters for this region.”

Then things took an ever further turn sideways.

There was movement, a shape speeding through the darkness and approaching the structure. Then the floodlights brought into stark relief the distant form of an armored red human figure, just… flying in midair with no apparent jetpack or any technological assistance.

It just happened. In full view, with no Foundation goons swooping in to protect the precious public and normality from the impossible.

The figure stopped outside the shield briefly, just hovering for a moment, before the entire bubble of light flicked off, allowing entry for the flying man. Barely a second later, the shield flashed back into life abruptly.

So captivated was she by the spectacle, she didn’t even notice the car coming to a stop next to them until the slight squeal of brakes reached her ears.

It was a rather fancy blue sedan, with the logo of ‘Fortress LLC’ stenciled on the doors. Inside was a single driver, who just sat there and waited.

“This is our ride, Shauna. I offer a cozy little suburban home that has only my father and me living in it. You can take the guest room for the moment, until we can sort out the bureaucratic details of your new life. Starting with the basics.”

“New life?”

“Of course. Differences in power aside, we’re both SCPs, but we’re both human and I can see that you’re a good one, shitty circumstances aside. So Fortress, that’s my company, will help you to restart a relatively normal life here.”

“That can mean a lot of things,” she retorted.

“Shauna, you’ve landed in a world and universe, where seeing a man that can fly is a ‘Meh’ event. We have a very different definition of normal.”

She looked at the idling car and the unnatural still city around her.

“Fuck it.”

Her hand pulled on the door handle and before her paranoia could flare again, she rushed to put her butt in the back seat.

Escort appeared in ghostly red mist next to her, casually seated with crossed legs. “Thank you, Shauna. I promise you won’t regret it.”

“Don’t promise that.”

The nudist shrugged and turned to the driver, “Let’s go home, dad.” The driver, who did indeed bear a paternal similarity to Escort, nodded and put the car in gear. “Any problems?”

“No. Seatbelt please, Miss Carter.”

The polite request took a moment to filter through her muddled, astonished thoughts but she quickly complied even as she marveled at experiencing some basic human decency again.

He nodded in thanks and the engine growled to life as the car set off at a reasonable and legal speed.

She leaned her head against the chilly window and stared mindlessly at the sights of the passing streets, buildings tall and short, the endless black sky with stars drowned out by light pollution, though she could barely make out the brightest ones.

It was finally as they passed through a downtown area that she saw the first proper people of this city - just going about their night, talking, walking, coming out of restaurants, clubs and bars, just being normal.

Many minutes passed and there was no warning when something in her finally broke and she felt the tears begin.

She refused to sob and just… let… go.

After so many years of confinement, tests, experiments at the hands of the uncaring monster that was the Foundation.

She let go.

She had studied this at varsity. Seen it her whole career in therapy and now she was on the other side of the coin.

A soft tap on her shoulder brought her out of her own world of misery.

Escort, holding out a bunch of facial tissues with a sad smile.

“Thanks,” she said softly, taking them and began wiping away tears.

“A nice hot shower, curling up in a warm bed with a book would do you wonders, I’d imagine.”

“Just showered before I showed up here, don’t stink.”

“Really? Interesting.”

Something in the way Escort said that made her frazzled mind pay attention. “What’s interesting?”

“I have a good nose, Shauna. It’s telling me you haven’t seen a shower for nearly a week.”

“That’s-” She stopped herself wearily from saying ‘impossible’.

“Are you feeling hungry by any chance?” She shook her head, not willing to deal with this now and just waved off her interlocutor. “Ah, sorry.”

Peace of mind was the last thing the universe seemed willing to give her as at that moment a deep, howling siren pierced through the air. It was so powerful it reached her ears as if a wolf was right next to her and baying at the moon.

Escort slammed her hands over her ears and raw fear appeared in her eyes. Her father in the front seat grit his teeth and cursed, steadying the car’s course from the surprise induced twitch he’d given the wheels.

The siren stopped abruptly and left their ears ringing.

Despite herself, Shauna could see both of them were truly frightened of whatever this earsplitting alarm signified and they seemed to be holding their breath… waiting for something.

The city-wide alarm sounded again, but with a different pattern, giving three short bursts of wailing.

The tension left the father and daughter as if they were balloons and someone had poked them with a needle.

“Thank God,” Escort’s father breathed.

The nudist leaned back in her seat, staring up into the car ceiling and clearly wanted to let rip with relieved invective, given the way her mouth was twisting.

“What the fuck just tried to destroy my ears?”

Escort just shook her head, “You’re in no shape to hear this. Let’s just say that this planet is under siege and Brockton Bay just lucked out. We’re not the target this cycle. Welcome to Earth Bet, Shauna Carter.”

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I carefully closed the door of the guest room, leaving behind a clean, refreshed and now snoozing guest from another universe. We had found some of mom’s old pajamas that could generally fit her, so she at least wasn’t wearing the Foundation jumpsuit anymore.

Walking downstairs I found dad in the living room, with the TV on a local news channel that was simulcasting an international feed. The ever scrolling news ticker at the bottom of the screen flashed headlines and at last gave me the location for the latest Endbringer attack.

The Simurgh was deorbiting, her course and final destination calculated. The TV showed a running countdown of when she was expected to land based on models of her past attacks.

“Why would she attack Canberra?”

Dad was using the remote as a stress ball as he stared at the screen, perched on the very edge of the couch. He shook his head, “No idea, as usual it’s just a bunch of talking heads with only stock footage of the city. No reporters or cameramen want to get close to the Simurgh. Can’t blame them really.”

If there was one truly destructive vector for the Simurgh to manipulate, then it was through the people who were the eyes and ears of humanity. One mental memetic time bomb in a reporter and a news story would go out, true or not, that could set off a chain of events with a truly horrifying scope.

The attack in London in 2003, only her second appearance, when the world and the Protectorate was still trying to come to grips with the threat she posed, resulted in the first long term example of what the Endbringer could unleash.

A scandal of huge scope when a news story surfaced in the British press, where the UK chancellor of the exchequer was found to have abused a number of women in his office. The resulting investigation into his life revealed an even bigger problem. A financial catastrophe that stretched across three continents, dozens of banks, all relating to US home loan debts being consolidated and derivatives based on them resold as financial instruments in their own right.

Billions of dollars were wiped out in value from the largest financial institutions in just a few months. Thousands of suicides across the world. The largest streak of home evictions since the Great Depression of 1929.

It was only a year later, after crisis legislation, government intervention and the subsequent investigations that revealed that the original charges against the UK chancellor were totally fraudulent. It had been published by an editor from the British press who had been on holiday in Lausanne, Switzerland - where the Simurgh had made her debut.

Her other Rube Goldberg-esque weapons made out of people were swiftly traced, but it was inevitable that many would fall through the cracks. The strings of seemingly random suicide bombings all over Europe were the least of her weapons. A French nuclear engineer causing a meltdown on purpose was another famous example of her manipulations coming to fruit. Then finally, she became the Bane of Tinkers, when she took the most famous Tinker in the world at the time, who had been giving humanity the promise of easily building offworld habitats, and turned him into the monster known as Mannequin.

“By the way, are you sure about her?” Dad jerked a thumb upstairs.

“Yes, but let me get Henry on the line, he made me promise to brief him ASAP.”

I dialed my smartphone and put it on speaker, before placing it on the coffee table.

It rang loudly only once before the sentient statue picked up.

“Taylor, good of you to call so promptly. Encryption is on. Our guest indicates it should also serve to keep even your end of the conversation private.”

“You verified that?”

“As much as I was able to,” Henry confirmed. “Now I know we’re all on tenterhooks as the Simurgh descends but we need some reassurance on Miss Carter. What can you tell us?”

“She eventually opened up partially to me after I had essentially babied her a bit or from another point of view, just treated her like a fucking human being in need of a shoulder to cry on,” I blew out a breath as I tried to get my thoughts in order. “Okay, in essence, my read is she’s a fundamentally good person, who was truly fucked by the Foundation. She was essentially kept in a prison for human-like SCPs, Site 99.”

“I know of the place,” Henry confirmed. “It means that Miss Carter is considered a Keter-class anomaly.”

The general definition of Keter meant SCPs that were exceedingly difficult to contain consistently or reliably, with containment procedures often being extensive and complex.

“That really doesn’t make sense, she’s just a normal human who can be locked up.”

“In this case, it’s probably her ability’s effect that makes her Keter.”

“I see, yeah, got it. Sorry, the object classifications are still very iffy to me.”

“They’re nebulous for a reason, Taylor. Now please, what can she do?”

“She’s essentially a walking, talking creator of anomalous powers and ability but in a very specific way. You talk to her willingly about your fears and personal issues, then she can partially control what ability you get in response to that.”

Dad scrunched his face and he looked quite impressed, “That sounds incredibly powerful and useful.”

“I agree, but of course the Foundation just saw a huge mess to clean up and contain. She was a professional therapist and she’d helped all her patients in this way. Only problem is, now her patients were ‘instances of the SCP’ that needed to be rounded up and contained. As far as she knows, they managed to find and lock up over a hundred of her patients.”

“You’re thinking with the Earth Bet mindset,” Henry cautioned. “I agree it’s horrible. People coming to a therapist seeking help. They miraculously gain actual power over their fears, then along comes the Foundation and turns them into a number with zero human rights. However, you must admit the possible harm that can come from desperate people conquering their fears. Did she tell you of some of the powers her patients developed?”

“Well, one of them at least, this guy had lost his son in an accident. He came to her for therapy because he kept seeing hallucinations of his child. Afterwards, he developed the ability to actually create a fully interactable and tangible nine year old boy that looked like this son.”

“That strikes me as rather unhealthy for the mindset of the father in question, the ‘summons’ is not his true son and will never be. Did Miss Carter say what experiments the Foundation performed on her patient?”

“Yes,” I replied with a disgusted tone. “They decided to perform all sorts of ‘how to kill the anomalous boy’ tests. Of course, none of it worked as the guy could just summon the boy right back afterward. He eventually developed acute depression as he would at least know the moment the termination test killed the summoned boy.”

“So you can see it didn’t actually help him in the end.”

“Only because of the Foundation.”

“Taylor, I can’t believe you’re putting me in the role of defending the Foundation. Look, what would happen if one day this anomalous boy, who everyone around this guy assumed was his son, got publicly killed in some way? Then the next day, the kid shows up perfectly healthy. This happens in a world without the paranormal or superheroes.”

The question was quite hard actually. Imagine a world without capes?

“I can properly answer that,” Dad said with a self-deprecating grin. “They’d assume that the kid was actually a twin brother, but if they knew the guy didn’t have twins - that’s when things would get problematic. The religious would assume a divine miracle happened. Word would eventually filter to the press and it would spiral out of control from there. Then the extremists begin to pop up, declaring the anomalous boy a ghost or demon. Either way, any normal life this poor father might’ve had would be gone.”

“This is Earth Bet though and if we can help her with a fresh start here, the potential benefits of having her gainfully employed in Fortress are huge,” I argued.

There was a pause as both Dad and Henry considered it.

“You’re thinking of getting Miss Carter to give therapy ie. anomalous powers to the FTF members.”

“Unlike the bloody Foundation, we can’t draw easily from an entire planet’s worth of special forces soldiers when they die. When we go up against a completely hostile SCP, I want our employees to have a fighting chance and not just be cannon fodder.”

“There are problems, Taylor. There are no guarantees on the type of power expression, it could either be useless or be so overpowering that the employee becomes a danger to himself and others. The most common phobia is social. Imagine an FTF operator fears being awkward around women. He sees Miss Carter for therapy and manifests something like your own ability, except aimed toward females who are attracted helplessly to him and just wants to have sex constantly. It’s an ability he can’t turn off. He’s now a danger to women everywhere he goes and has lost any semblance of a normal life.”

“Okay yes, that would be bad,” I grumbled in annoyance. “Would a pre-screening work? We find out what their fear is…”

“It would still be guesswork and playing with an extremely dangerous dice, Taylor. In fact, the operator might not even know their own true fear, having not been exposed to it. I know it’s very unlikely but we must consider every possibility.”

Dad rubbed his jaw thoughtfully, “Now I’m imagining someone with claustrophobia, suddenly being able to erase matter with a touch. Useful, until he decides to go crazy with his power. Nothing would stop him from simply going anywhere and robbing places. You douse him with containment foam, he just vanishes it. You shoot him and the bullets vanish the moment they hit his skin.”

I gave him a look of annoyance, “Dad, I’m trying to help Shauna here. She’s been imprisoned for five years, treated as an object. Every person who spoke to her directly had to agree to become an experiment essentially. They also fucked with her mind to see if that had any effects on the abilities she gave.”

“Sorry Little Owl, I’m starting to see why Miss Carter has a Keter rating. We’re going to have to be very careful even when speaking to her. I agree though that we should at least help get her into some form of a normal life here, with the proviso that she not ‘therapize’ anyone willy-nilly but only under as many safeguards and precautions that we can think of.”

“We’re playing with fire, Danny.”

“Henry, we can’t and won’t be the Foundation,” Dad said with finality.

“I can at least perceive when her power is truly working, so I can ‘stop’ her if it comes down to it,” I pointed out.

“That’s something at least,” Henry allowed. “The Simurgh is entering the atmosphere.”

We looked at the TV and nothing had changed.

“Nothing on our channel… Oh, you’ve accessed the powers-that-be’s feed using our guest’s credentials?” Dad asked.

“Yes, I’ve also been helping myself to more select information and adding it to my research on the Endbringers. I’m even more convinced it’s the right thing for you two to never be within range of this one. There’s also the fact that I think they are sandbagging.”

I frowned, “Sandbagging? With all the destruction they can cause, you think they’re holding back?”

“Yes, with an ability like the macro-kinesis that the Simurgh employs and seeing actual footage of it… there’s nothing stopping her from using it directly on every cape that comes against her and turning them into mincemeat. Yet she only kills using heavy objects thrown with the ability. The only reason she doesn’t is because it’s inferred that she has the Manton Limit on it.”

“And you don’t like that explanation,” I grinned.

“The Manton Limit by its nature implies that a power is designed, that there is an intelligence behind it, which is regulating the effect. Others write it off as subconscious self-protection, I don’t buy it. In fact, now that I’ve looked at full high definition images of them, I am confident in saying that the Endbringers are not and have never been human. They are not some poor unfortunate Case 53 gone catastrophically wrong. All three have been designed purposefully to evoke human emotion and have elements borrowed from legend.”

“Wait, wait, Henry,” Dad looked at the TV with horror, which just happened to show an old public image of the Simurgh as the news announced her approach through the atmosphere. “Are you saying that someone… Tinkered or built those three?”

“I doubt it was a Tinker, I’d like to see a machine that could pump out those things. No, we’re looking at a more exotic method of construction. A directed artificial growth working on a femto scale or even atto, most likely driven by a power.”

“Why would anyone want to even do that? If they have that ability, then nothing is beyond them!” Just the sheer thought that it was possible was mind boggling.

“I can’t begin to guess, Taylor. I’m sorry. On the one hand, we have monstrously powerful beings who could easily depopulate the entire planet. Yet on the other hand, they only attack in predictable turns and give time for defenses to be organized from capes across the world. The Endbringer’s powers themselves also have distinct boundaries, limitations; Behemoth’s kill aura that bypasses the Manton limit at 32 feet for example. Rather amazing how quickly the Protectorate worked that one out. It’s as if I’m looking at a giant death game someone made out of the world. If I had hair I’d be ripping it out in frustration because that’s insanity! I’m trying to imagine the intelligence that has this kind of power but would impose such limits on itself and utterly failing!”

“Been holding that one in, Henry?” Dad asked lightly.

“Yes, I apologize. This contradiction in the Endbringers has been vexing me for a while now. I thought that having access to the information from the Protectorate and PRT would shed more light, but it’s just created more questions.”

“Henry, when did you last take a break?” I asked pointedly.

“Too long probably, the new job hasn’t helped.”

Dad stood, “Well, I’m going to try to fall asleep. Sitting in front of this TV is pointless. I’ll rather find out if this was a win or loss tomorrow. Good night, Henry, Little Owl.” He stepped forward to kiss me on the brow.

“Night, dad,” I said to his retreating back.

“I’ll go and read a book or something and not look at the PRT feed.”

“I’ll update my anomaly file and try to think of further ways to help Shauna. See you, Henry.”

“Good night.”

I tapped the phone to end the call, before walking over to the TV and firmly shutting it off.

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“So an entire city - Canberra - was lost?”

Shauna was eating her breakfast in the kitchen and staring at the tiny TV mounted on the wall. Her eyes seemed glued to it all morning, as if she was carefully scrutinizing it for any potential inaccuracy or she was just that interested in learning about her new world.

“Effectively. Only a section was damaged in the fighting but the rest and the people who couldn’t get out in time are going to be quarantined and walled off for the rest of their lives. Food and general essentials will be air dropped to them, but it’ll become a lawless, apocalyptic zone eventually. Everyone affected by the Simurgh for long enough becomes figurative bombs with a hidden timer.”

“That’s fucked up.”

The footage changed to a running montage of interviews with Legend and Eidolon, who were the primary reasons why the Simurgh had been driven off this time.

Scion, the first and most powerful cape in the world, hadn’t shown up at all. He had been last seen putting out wildfires in South America early yesterday. I had to wonder about the mindset behind not prioritizing any Endbringer attack. No one could control or even understand much about him. He had only said a single word since his appearance in 1982; his own name.

I put down a freshly brewed cup of coffee in front of her. “Yes, it is. Australia already practically lost Sydney due to Leviathan’s attack in ‘98, but with grit and a lot of help they managed to rebuild and it’s been a point of pride for them that they weathered that assault. Whether they can remain a cohesive nation after losing their capital in this manner, we’ll just have to see. They lost half more than half of their national government and odds are that it’ll be King Charles who has to personally sort the states back into some semblance of order.”

Shauna choked on her fruit loops.“King Charles? What happened to Elizabeth? She was still on the throne when I last checked.”

“Your Earth did not have the Simurgh drop on London in 2003. She landed right on Buckingham Palace whilst Elizabeth was there.”

She gave me an astonished look, “Tell me London is still there.”

“It is, but half of it is domed off and quarantined, much like Canberra is going to be.”

“Always wanted to visit there and see that palace, it was on my bucket list,” she said with a disgruntled air and resumed eating with a gloomy expression on her face. “I heard you all talking last night.”

“I figured you would, we weren’t exactly quiet.”

“Who is Henry?”

“You’ll be meeting him today. He’ll introduce himself, but I will say he’s an SCP who was also in Foundation custody before he was snatched up to be deposited on the shores of this universe. Just like you.”

“Fuck me, this is crazy,” she gestured to a shot of Eidolon using his powers to begin the main construction of the quarantine dome. “Look at that. In the open, on TV, for the entire world to see… superheroes; Superman, Spiderman, Batman, at the moment that guy is looking like a souped up version of Doctor Strange and he’s just… moving and creating tons of material out of thin air.”

“Only vaguely familiar with Strange, comics of superheroes pretty much died out in the 90s here. Why bother with fiction when we have the real thing happening every day.”

“You’re shittin me? No comics?”

“It’s only done these days by niche publishers and with very limited runs. Those who are still fans from the pre-1980s, pretty much relies on our dimensional cousin, Earth Aleph, for imports on comics and movies, since information trade is the only thing allowed.”

“And of course, you talk about dimensional trade as if it’s a common, everyday public thing for you lot.”

“It is.”

Shauna pushed away her finished bowl, “So what’s on the agenda for me today?”

“Dad is going to take you shopping for a minimum amount of clothes that actually fit you. My mom was not as blessed as you are in the chest area, so you can’t mooch off her old clothing forever, unless you want to display extreme cleavage at all times. After that he’s going to take you to Fortress and no, we will not lock you up. Not unless you start going crazy, evil or some other variation of being a danger to yourself or others.”

“Not about to look a gift horse in the mouth, Escort.”

“Good.”

I really hoped she would pass the test we had set for her, to see if she was worthy of any trust. Far from being alone, I would always be there, hovering invisibly over dad and we had made no mention of him having any powers. He would tag her with a few gnats on her clothes to keep track of her at all times.

If she could at least behave during the shopping trip then things would move forward.

I really needed some actual anomalous muscle in my corner. An anomalously empowered FTF team would give me that in spades. Shauna had the potential to give me that.

Henry, for all his strength, was just too big and too slow.

This just… had to work.

It had to.

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SCPs mentioned only:

"SCP-007" by Unknown Author, from the SCP Wiki. Source: https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-007. Licensed under CC-BY-SA.

"SCP-126" by Unknown author, rewritten by Aelanna, from the SCP Wiki. Source: https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-126. Licensed under CC-BY-SA.

SCPs featured in this chapter:

"SCP-3811" by OthellotheCat from the SCP Wiki. Source: https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-3811. Licensed under CC-BY-SA.

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A/N:  Next chapter, have an awesome weekend