• ADULT CONTENT

  This article contains adult content that may not be suitable for all readers.

  Sexual References: Features sexual themes or language, without the depiction of sexual acts.
  Sexually Explicit: Description of sexual acts.
  Sexual Assault: Features non-consensual sexual acts.
  Gore: Depiction of blood, gore or mutilation of body parts.
  Child Abuse: Features severe mistreatment of children.
  Self-Harm: Description of self-harm.
  Suicide: Description of suicide.
  Torture: Description of torture.
  Bespoke Content warning

  If you are age 18 or above and wish to read such content, then you may click Continue to view said content.

  Continue

  Back to Front Page
  
  

---

I am the jolliest of all possible jollies.

Karen Elstrom was not jolly. She wouldn't have ranked highly on a theoretical list of everyone who had ever been jolly; she was, she felt, most likely in the bottom percentile. But she couldn't shake the phrase, like it was burned into her brain. I am the jolliest of all possible jollies. I am the jolliest of all possible jollies. And it wasn't just the words. She had many techniques for calming herself down, for resetting her brain, but she kept falling into one in particular now. It wasn't the best one. It wasn't even a very good one. But she kept doing it anyway.

She kept counting to ten.

Well, nine. She kept counting to nine, in her head. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7… Actually, she could never get past seven. She kept starting over. It was like the metre to a song, and she didn't know the words…

Well, okay. She knew the words. I am the jolliest of all possible jollies. Was this a song she'd heard somewhere? It was driving her crazy. It couldn't be a cognitohazard, because it had been bouncing around in her head since yesterday, and there had been no further ill effects. She knew this for a fact. She'd been tested.

She'd been tested because in a series of events too embarrassing to even think about, she'd staggered out of her dorm room with the flu during the 5243 lockdown, nearly walked into AAF-D, and ended up in a pool of her own vomit in Archives and Revision. Sokolsky had found her there, had taken her to H&P himself, had administered memetic tests and confirmed nothing was wrong with her. No compulsions. No possession. Nothing was wrong with her brain. The tests were never wrong.

She sat up in bed, picked up her work tablet, and put the call through. Sokolsky picked up almost immediately; if he'd been asleep, he gave no sign of it. "Ayo."

"I'm having intrusive thoughts."

"Is that a pickup line?"

She smirked. "I keep hearing a phrase in my head. I am the jolliest of all possible jollies. Does that mean anything to you?"

"It means you lack self-knowledge." He yawned. "Doesn't sound like you at all. What were the words, again?"

"I am the jolliest of all possible jollies."

"Yeah, I think you just hit your head."

"There's also a numerical sequence. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7."

"I think I know that one." He yawned again. "It's an obscure mathematical sequence called the set of natural numbers."

"I'm just making sure it's not a problem." She laid back down on the bed. "I can't get it out of my head."

"Yeah, it's real catchy. Well, how about this." He sounded bored. "If you can't stop focusing on it in a week, we'll consider it a cognitohazard. If I don't hear back from you about it, I'll assume it's probably just that you bumped your pretty head. There's a ton of minor cognitive anomalies going around, thanks to the breach, and most of them are innocuous. I'll make a report, but don't expect anything to come of it."

"Fine." She flicked off the call. "Asshole."

She was certain it would still be there in a week.

---

She tapped the big green button which had appeared at the bottom of her terminal. "Elstrom."

"Hello, Dr. Elstrom." The technician on the other end of the line, one Winston Barkley according to the call log, sounded a little tense. Good. He knows who he's talking to. "It's credentials renewal time again."

She sighed. "Alright. Walk me through it, efficiently if you can. I'm deep in paperwork."

"Yes, ma'am. I'll need your date of birth first."

"11 March, 1966."

"Mother's maiden name?"

"Elstrom."

"Code phrase for the day?"

"Elstrom kappa forty-eight myu Lourdes facetious."

"Could you repeat that for me?"

She sighed more forcefully. "Elstrom kappa forty-eight myu Lourdes facetious."

"Sorry, ma'am. It's not that I'm not listening, we just need the codes repeated once. It's a memetic thing."

"Sure. Continue." She paged through her emails, multitasking. It wasn't enough multitasking for her tastes, because one of the tasks was from someone else's daily schedule. She hoped there weren't too many more questions.

"Last one. Can you tell me your 43NET password?"

She rattled it off more easily than she had her own birthday. "i1am2the3jolliest4of5all6possible7jollies."

"Thanks. And repeat it for me?"

She opened her mouth.

She closed the email window.

She closed her eyes.

She tried to open her mouth, and found it was still open. She said: "I, um."

The technician sounded confused. "Just need you to repeat it for me, doc. Just the way you did a second ago."

"I realize that," she snapped. Her fear reaction was irritation. "I… could you repeat it back to me?"

The pause made her angry. She knew what it meant. "Uh… I can't really do that. Protocol. You know."

Karen did know protocol. Nobody knew protocol like Karen. But that didn't matter. "It's just a temporary blip," she said. "I've got… I don't know. Having a mental gap moment." She would have withered the man to nothing with her eyes if she could see him right now, so much did she despise him for making her admit it. "I can't remember what I just said. If you could just repeat it… maybe even just the first part…"

Another long pause, and this time she didn't let him end it himself. "Look. Technician. Let me speak to your supervisor, okay? This is above your pay grade."

The relief was palpable. "Yes ma'am. I'll contact Chief Veiksaar."

"Wait," she said hurriedly. "Could you contact Dr. Sokolsky instead? In Memetics and Countermemetics."

She knew what had happened.

It wasn't that she couldn't dredge up the memory of her password.

It was that the memory simply wasn't there.

---

"It's not surprising." Sokolsky glanced over the new SCP file, then the recommendations from I&T. "Did we think 5056 was going to be the only knock-on anomaly? A whole Section essentially blows up, especially that one, it's bound to do more than conjure up a single mirror monster."

"Still, it's interesting." Eileen's voice had slowed to a drawl; she'd been burning the liquid crystals at both ends lately. "That whatever this is would come out in the form of a code. A code that can only exist in one mind, at one time. Orally transmissible. Very curious."

Most of the other Chairs and Chiefs had missed out on this meeting. The Sampis were there, of course, as this directly concerned them, and Skellicorne too since one of his senior administrators had discovered the effect, but that was it. It made for a cozier debriefing.

"It's not too late to back out of the proposal," McInnis told her. "If you have misgivings…"

She glanced at Sokolsky, then back at her boss. "None I can justify. Using it as a high-security password makes sense; nothing's more secure than something you literally can't make a copy of. And it's been months, so if there were loopholes to abuse we'd have found them by now. No, from a technical standpoint, it's a sound plan."

"Do you have non-technical concerns?" Harry asked.

She squirmed. "I don't know. It feels too similar to those overlays you guys were talking about, but… that's not it, actually. I just don't like making use of anomalies like this. It isn't standard practice, and I'm afraid it might be a slippery slope."

Sokolsky slung an arm around her shoulder. "We'll take care of it together. What could go wrong?"

  "We need to understand everything related to 5243," Lillian reminded her. "The puzzle's still all over the floor where it got dumped in '02, and we're still finding pieces under the couch and in the dog's mouth. A little stress testing is just what we need to get a sense of where this one goes."

She sighed. "Easy for you to say. It's not your stress."

---

Nascimbeni watched the first ghost carefully.

He knew what direction Wirth would be running from, and though he hadn't been looking that way back in 2002, well, it was like Reynders had told them: get it mostly right, and time would figure out the rest. He could afford to turn his head a few degrees, and see what he saw.

Was there a flicker of recognition in the other man's perpetually young face as he darted to Nascimbeni's side? Did he remember, somehow, that he'd done this before eight times over? Or was he just surprised to see the man who was charged with the safe operation of AAF-D standing in front of its electric light orchestra and not doing a damn thing about it except gaping like an idiot?

He managed to catch Wirth's eye in the moment before the tentacle broke his back, this time.

He didn't manage to decode the oscillating pupil size into an accurate emotional measurement. What governed this last moment of the young researcher's life? Fear? Confusion? Pain?

He managed to stay on his feet this time, as he waited for the agents to rush over. He ran through the script, as he always did, and watched them race bravely to their peculiar ends. Was it sweet how Radcliffe shot after Gwilherm when she plunged into the airlock, his protective instinct driving him to death after death after death, or given what they'd learned in the first alternate timeline, was it sad? Pathetic? Perhaps even revolting?

What was Mukami thinking as she watched him seal her in?

What was he thinking? It all seemed so abstract now, like a play he'd acted through a hundred times. Like he'd committed to watching the same terrible movie over and over and over again, and was simply trying to find new things to notice and keep his tired mind amused.

Going through the motions of murder, year in and year out.

Wouldn't Gallo be proud of him?

Wouldn't Flora?

---

As they always did, they gathered in Udo's dorm. She could have upgraded to something better by now, no longer a mere junior researcher, no longer lacking a doctoral degree, but they'd all become so accustomed to the space, its comfortable closeness, that she simply didn't bother. She spent most of her time in Harry's spacious accommodations anyway.

Lillian was leaning back in something resembling satisfaction, chair creaking under not very much weight. "Another year, another… nothing's suggesting itself. Hey. Human dictionary."

Harry yawned. "I got nothing for 'y'. It's a bum letter."

"I almost sneezed when the phone rang, this time." Delfina looked badly spooked. "Can you imagine?"

"As ways to end the universe go," Wettle pondered, "sneezing is pretty funny."

McInnis arrived late. He was wearing his best sweater, and his best shirt. His hands were clasped in front of him. "Friends."

Harry let go of Udo's shoulder. "I know that tone."

"Oh, god." Delfina stood up. "What."

Lillian slapped the top of Wettle's head. "What did you do?"

"I didn't do anything! No no no no!" He raised his hands over his head in self-defence. "I did what I was supposed to, and nothing else! Look! Look!" He pulled up his shirt, ripping the sleeve in the process. "There's the bruise."

"Show me the ones on your leg," she demanded.

"Friends," McInnis repeated.

"Just say it," Harry snarled. "We're fucked again. Right?"

"Yes."

"God DAMMIT!" Delfina howled at the ceiling.

"I am in the middle of the most important memetics project of my career." Lillian's voice was already almost robotic. She was shutting down with rage.

"I'm finally in shape," Harry grumbled.

"I was going to visit my parents next month." Udo looked guilty.

"I was watching The Rockford Files on DVD." Wettle was in tears.

"And now we're getting reset back to square fucking one again?" Ibanez kicked the table, and Nascimbeni recoiled in shock. "Great! Fantastic! Phenomenal."

"Melissa's texting me now." Harry didn't notice the look on Udo's face as he said this. "We talk every day."

"What if they don't have DVDs in the alternate timeline?" Wettle sniffled.

Harry pushed him over. "DVDs were invented before 2002, Willie."

"But Harry." Wettle stayed down, tears streaming down his cheeks. "These are pirated DVDs."

McInnis leaned against the kitchenette counter. "We will need to begin preparations soon."

Lillian suddenly stood up, towering over them all. "Who gaffed? What magic fuckers are still alive? And where are they?"

"Chief Van Rompay has already terminated the survivors."

Nascimbeni stirred again. "What?"

"Protocol is clear. They can't be left alive, not even for the day before the timeline shifts."

Udo was staring at Nascimbeni. "Chief?"

Delfina had given him a lot of sour looks since 2003, but this one was on a whole new level. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me."

"Chief." Udo's expression was sad, but sympathetic. "Are you okay?"

Ibanez swatted his cap off his head. "It was you?"

"Chief," McInnis said. "Please head over to see Dr. Ngo at P&P. She'll want to debrief you. Then head to your quarters, and get some rest."

He stood up, more or less. His shoulders didn't quite make it all the way. "You could just terminate me, too."

McInnis patted him on the back of his jumpsuit as he passed. "Don't be absurd. We'll see you tomorrow."

Harry hadn't stopped shaking his head since the revelation dropped. "I can't believe he did that."

"I can," Del spat.

Udo hadn't moved from the couch. "He's got it a lot harder than we do."

"That's what she said," Wettle muttered, still sprawled on the carpet.

"He's softer than we are," Lillian sneered.

"That's wh—"

"I have to murder someone who matters to me, too," she continued, raising her voice to drown him out. "I have to push the fucking button. All he has to do is stand on his mark and yell."

"That's just the first part," Harry reminded her. "He has to lock the door on the agents, too." He paused. "I wonder who handled that this year. Someone, obviously."

"The first time it was just a yell," Udo said to Lillian. "Every other time, it was murder. Because now he knows what's going to happen."

"We're all calling it murder now?" Harry sat down next to her again. "You're agreeing with that word choice? That's great."

"Harry," she sighed.

"It's easy for you to say. You don't have to kill anyone."

"I have to see my ex dead on the floor."

Nobody said anything for a few seconds.

He put his arm around her again. "I'm sorry. I knew it was bullshit as soon as I said it. I'm just freaking out."

She leaned into him. "I know. We all are."

"I'm not freaking out," Del shouted. She seemed to have lost the ability to use her indoor voice. "I'm pissed off. He walked away. Where does he get off?"

"Apparently, here." Lillian fiddled with the lever on the chair, and it stretched out horizontally so she could stare at the ceiling. "This is where he gets off."

"You don't get to decide you don't want to play anymore." Del sat down in her chair, then stood right back up and flexed her fingers. "We're all in this together."

"And yet there's only five of us here, now," Harry said.

"Five's more than a crowd," Udo murmured.

Lillian glanced at her. "You guys kicking us out?"

"I didn't say that," Harry said. He caught Udo's eye, saw something intriguing there, and reconsidered. "Uh, I guess I am saying that."

"Well hooray." The memeticist sprang back up. She pumped a fist in the air. "Go team."

Del kicked at the footrest until the chair sprang back upright again. "I'm not going to be able to sleep."

"So go crawl into bed with Willie again," Lillian suggested.

Wettle's eyes snapped open. "What? What did you say?"

"I'm going to murder you," Del told her.

"I thought you only did that professionally," said Lillian on her way out the door.

When they were gone, Udo nuzzled his neck. "I have a proposal."

He twirled a lock of her hair around his forefinger. "The timing is wrong, sorry. I don't want to miss my own wedding."

She snuffled out a laugh. "It's kind of the opposite of that."

"You're dumping me?"

She straightened up again, and looked him in the eye. "No. But I've been thinking about what happened in the last couple timelines."

"We don't even know what happened in the second one." His stomach felt as though he'd already started the reality-bending transition. He needed her to hurry up and say what she meant, needed it very, very badly.

"I know we weren't together by the end of it."

He wrinkled his nose. "I think we'd all stopped having sex entirely. It might have had something to do with the whole body welts? Just maybe?"

"The point is," she sighed, "relationships just interfere with the new situations. In 2003? You should have done what Eileen wanted you to. It would've made some things go a lot smoother."

"Maybe I did. You ever think of that?"

She looked away. "Once or twice."

"I'm offended."

She slid onto his lap. "You should be. I'm not very nice to you sometimes."

He patted her thighs. "You're very nice to me, sometimes."

She put her arms around his neck. "And I will be again. But for the sake of figuring out the new context, and trying out new possibilities, seeing if what we have here is really what we want…"

"You want an underhall pass in the alternate timeline." He was a little bit proud of himself for finding room in his confused conflux of emotional responses for wordplay.

"I want us to pause this. Because it will pause. For an entire year. And when we get back here, there'll be a whole year of experiences together to catch up on."

"So we won't be doubling our pleasure, lovers in two worlds at once."

"Or maybe we will." She kissed him, not at all perfunctorily, taking the time to get it right before continuing. "Maybe it'll still work out that way, where we end up. But it should happen naturally. And we can't let it endanger our trip back home. It's safer if we sever the connection ahead of time. Cut it clean, so we can put it back together later."

He held her cheeks, and held her gaze. "Promise you'll want to? Put it back together?"

"No." She waited, still pouring that amber glow into his eyes, to make sure the word really registered. "Who knows where we'll be in a year?"

He laughed in her face.

She made him stop.

He woke up early to the sensation of motion on the other side of the bed. They'd rolled away from each other in the night, but he could hear her pulling her underwear on behind him.

Hoping to slip out unannounced?

He decided to let her have it.

When he woke up again, the first thing he did was touch the depression that marked her side of the bed. Still warm. Her body rested at a much higher temperature than his. There was still the scent of hot sand in the air. A clean smell. Hers.

He reached onto his beside table, unlocked his tablet, and scrolled to the oldest of his new messages.

The last message had just been sent. Perhaps the buzzing had woken him up this time; it was still too early for his alarm. Only messages from Udo, Melissa and Lillian could buzz his phone.

As he stared at the words, wondering what to say back, the last message disappeared. She'd deleted it on her end.

He turned off the device, took a deep breath of strange desert air, and got up to face the rest of his long life.

It didn't matter.

He hadn't lost anything.

It had only been a dream, after all.

By common consensus, they were to meet in McInnis' office at six o'clock sharp. That left them an entire day at loose ends. Harry looked over his sketchbook, comparing the latest images to the earliest. He'd certainly improved since the first breach, particularly towards the tail end of 2003 when he'd gotten a little more frantic and hurried, and some genuine flourish had snuck into his otherwise mannered and cartoonish style. There hadn't been so much progress since, but he resolved to make the next set better still. He hoped he'd have fewer ghoulish scenes to render.

Perhaps he could make that wish become their reality.

He crossed paths with most of the others over the course of the day. McInnis was observing the repair efforts, listening with calm interest to damage reports and casualty complaints. Everyone he spoke to seemed to share at least some of his cool by the time he moved on. Lillian sat in her office and memorized everything in the M&C filespace. She said she was building up a library for later use. He didn't have the courage to ask what uses she projected for it. Ibanez went to check on her Foundation-provided home in Grand Bend, which she paid a housekeeper to look after since she'd never actually visited. Pensak went with her. They took all afternoon. Nascimbeni drove to Grand Cove to visit his son and granddaughter, on the Director's suggestion. He found their truck missing from the driveway; a quick call to Gallo's landline confirmed that they'd gone on vacation to the Côte d'Azur and wouldn't be back for a week. He drove back to the Site and spent the rest of the day trying to get as far ahead on the fixes as he could. Wettle went back to H&P and refused to leave the ward until the appointed hour. He'd had enough injuries for one day, he said.

Harry had no idea where Udo spent her spare time, but Rozálie Astrauskas said she'd seen her former friend headed for Theology and Teleology around lunch time. She seemed upset about it.

For some reason, he was too.

At six o'clock they congregated, every one distracted and nervous for slightly different reasons.

All except McInnis. "Whatever else happens," he promised them, "we'll find each other again."

"I'm not feeling the pull," said Lillian. "Maybe this is where we're supposed to be?"

"That'd be lucky. We're never lucky," Wettle observed sulkily.

"You're looking lively," Udo remarked. Del was rocking back and forth on her heels and humming. "Housewarming go well?"

"Very well," she smiled. "Very warm."

And so on, and so forth, until the moment of truth.

It hit each of them equally, the nausea and disorientation, but nobody threw up, and nobody fell over. Apparently Lillian had been correct. Their other selves had met here, too.

The office was unchanged. Del put one hand on her service weapon, and opened the door to Zulfikar's office.

The secretary was at his desk. He smiled at her, then peeked around the doorframe and beckoned to the rest of them. "Come on out!"

They filed into the A&O offices. Skellicorne was sitting on his daïs, reading a newspaper. Karen was taking a call. Outside the glass partition, people were going about their tasks either personal or professional in the northern dorms.

Harry headed into Operations Control, and they followed him wordlessly. The All-Sections Chief was standing in front of a bank of monitors, the stations all occupied by techs with cups of coffee and boxes of donuts, calmly paging through system reports. On the big board, all lights were green.

It was business as usual at Site-43.

The ASC turned around, and smiled at them in evident relief. "Well done as always, friends."

"Welcome back to baseline."