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[[include :scp-wiki:theme:basalt darkmode=a|hidetitle=a]]

[[include :scp-wiki:component:anomaly-class-bar-source

|item-number= 9997
|clearance= 4
|container-class= esoteric
|secondary-class= archon
|secondary-icon= https://scp-wiki.wdfiles.com/local--files/component%3Aanomaly-class-bar/archon-icon.svg
|disruption-class= amida
|risk-class= critical
]]

[[include component:image-block name=https://scpdsandbox.wdfiles.com/local--files/secret%3A9k2/entrance_sign.jpg|align=center|width=100%|caption=A warning sign near SCP-9997, obscured by the anomaly's perceptive cloaking.]]

**Special Containment Procedures:** Targets for SCP-9997 consciousness capture are primarily selected by FBI-UIU representatives in coordination with the GOC. Where applicable, the SCP Foundation may offer input on captures, and is advised to do so in a timely manner to maintain good working relations.

Beyond this, the Foundation's main interest in SCP-9997 is contractually agreed maintenance and testing of perception-altering technologies jointly developed by the UIU-GOC-SCP working group. On-site personnel are to complete these tasks without unduly impeding the development and operation of the larger systems in place.

As the global blocking effect obscuring SCP-9997-1 is disabled in the vicinity of SCP-9997, visitors to the area are prohibited from looking at the sky.

**Description:** SCP-9997 is the Shattering, a computing and artificial intelligence engine occupying 450sq. km beneath the former Shattered Land National Park and Preserve in southwestern Utah, U.S., jointly constructed by the FBI-UIU and the GOC. While it has been put to a variety of uses, the main intended functions of SCP-9997 are:

* To maintain a set of simulated realities capable of re-housing real human consciousnesses from the material world.
* To generate artificial intelligences capable of replacing human minds re-housed within SCP-9997 simulations.
* To create, in pursuit of these goals, psychological phenomena capable of altering human behavior.

The collective goal of these functions is for the UIU-GOC working group to facilitate the disappearance, containment, or alteration of any living person at will, as well as to recreate any contained consciousness with alterations suitable to their operational priorities, and to effect necessary societal or humanitarian changes for seamless integration of newly-generated consciousnesses into the working populace.

Placement of SCP-9997's artificial minds within their host bodies requires the host's real consciousness to be maintained in simulated space. This has resulted in an increasing computing and power generation demands on the project, as each simulation can house a finite number of minds before reaching capacity. SCP-9997-1 is the working group's current response to these concerns (see below).

To assist in the development of simulated minds, the UIU-GOC placed their computing systems within a national park. This provided the working group several benefits:

* Easy access to a diverse group of minds for both testing and capture.
* Adequate solar and geothermal power generation for the testing phase of the project, due to Shattered Land's location and natural resources.
* An existing culture of both isolation and superstition that makes casting doubt on any unusual happenings in the area simpler. For example, park-wide mind and body scans during the testing phase were commonly dismissed as "hallucinations" without further interference.

(Note: Individuals captured and recreated during the testing phase of the project, roughly January 2026 to present, have experienced a prolonged adaptation period. SCP-9997’s perceptive insertion effects have greatly assisted the recreations in adapting to their surroundings by suggesting to their peers that their “eccentricities” were normal. Those subjects who could not be recreated to a suitable degree have been repurposed for continued work at the Shattering site, including as site guards, maintenance staff, and experimental subjects.)

[[include component:image-block name=http://scpdsandbox.wikidot.com/local--files/secret:9k2/caves_entrance.jpg|align=right|width=30%|caption=The entrance to Shattered Land National Park's subterranean caverns, 12 November 2026.]]

**The Foundation** maintains a position of official neutrality toward SCP-9997. However, the ability to digitize minds for long-term storage promises significant advantages for containment, as does the ability to "replace" an existing individual deemed hostile to our organizational mission. As such, our organization has contracted with the UIU-GOC working group for the purpose of containing the project as it develops, and are currently testing both the anomalous storage capability of the Shattering and several SCP-9997 technologies deemed potentially beneficial for containment efforts:

* Perceptive cloaking: the Foundation has contracted with the UIU-GOC to test its mass-perception alteration technology by scrubbing the existence of certain animal species, such as the Atlas bear, from collective human perception. Shattered Land National Park’s isolated nature and numerous endemic species make it an ideal location for the testing of such technology, which has so far shown promise for containment efforts.
* Perceptive insertion: the Foundation has contracted with the UIU-GOC to test its memory seeding technology by embedding memories of nonexistent species, such as the Constantine's warbler, into certain park visitors. This technology has been more difficult to implement on a large scale, but has shown promise among subjects susceptible to memetic suggestion, and has promise for containment also.

**Addendum: SCP 9997-1**

SCP-9997-1 is a gargantuan megastructure currently under construction at the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange point, built primarily with material from Luma, Earth’s second moon.

The goal of SCP-9997-1 is to capture solar energy en masse. At its intended capacity, the device will be capable of generating sufficient power to sustain 3.2 million complete simulated realities within SCP-9997, far exceeding the system’s initial capacity of 50 realities. Power will be absorbed via a solar array and transferred to Earth, where a large receiver device within Shattered Land National Park has been constructed at the site of the former Salt-Lick Arch to receive it. While the location of the arch was unfortunate, its destruction was ultimately necessary after analysis of existing UIU-GOC infrastructure at the site revealed this as the most efficient placement of the receiver device.

SCP-9997-1 has already increased SCP-9997’s capacity 100-fold in its first month of operation, with only a fraction of the mined material from Luma put to use thus far. Furthermore, the joint UIU-GOC-SCP-developed global perceptive cloaking system created to mask construction of SCP-9997-1 and the disassembly of the moon has exceeded expectations, with all three organizations eager to examine its possible application in further contexts.

To date, the UIU-GOC group has captured the consciousnesses of 1,512 individuals within SCP-9997, and recreated the consciousnesses of 98% of those individuals using AI technology. Consciousness capture is nearing the conclusion of Stage 1 (Testing) and the commencement of Stage 2 (Culling), which can proceed as SCP-9997-1 advances in energy output. SCP Foundation project liaison Jasper Daniels has registered our organization's interest in collaborating with the UIU-GOC on target selection for Stage 2.

 _
 _

[[div class="notation"]]

**[BEGIN LOG]**

//SCP-9997 liason Jasper Daniels enters the room. Researcher Pablo Torres is seated at a table, the unredacted SCP-9997 file open before him. His head is in his hands. Daniels sits down.//

**Daniels:** How you doing, Pablo?

//Torres is silent.//

**Daniels:** I’m actually here to ask for help, believe it or not.

//Torres glances up.//

**Torres:** Not. I pick not.

**Daniels:** That’s fair. I’ll give you a minute. But I need to talk to you about what’s next.

//Torres is silent while Daniels rises and pours coffee in the corner. He glances around the room.//

**Torres:** So what’s next, uh. Death? I presume?

**Daniels:** We’re not going to kill you, Pablo. You’re a good man.

**Torres:** Are you supposed to be the good cop here? What do you even want from me? Why did you show me the file? I’m barely level 3.

//Torres gestures at the open folder on the table, then buries his face in his hands again.//

**Daniels:** We wouldn’t have showed you if we were going to kill you, I’ll tell you that much.

//Daniels walks around the table to sit next to Torres.//

**Daniels:** Lots of people didn’t want to show you. But I did. Pablo.

//Daniels puts his arm on Torres's back.//

**Daniels:** Pablo. I want you to work with us.

//Torres doesn’t move, keeping his head buried.//

**Torres (muffled):** What the fuck do you mean.

**Daniels:** You knew if you could remember Luma, you were supposed to come to me. It’s because I need people like you, Pablo. People who can still remember. Who can resist it.

**Torres:** Yeah, so you can fucking wipe us!

**Daniels:** No, Pablo. So you can help me resist.

//Torres leaps up.//

**Torres:** I saw your name in the file, asshole. I saw what you’re doing! 1,500 people fucking zombified, all those kids!

**Daniels:** I know. Horrific. I think about it all the time.

**Torres:** Then why the fuck—

**Daniels:** And I want you to know that it would have been 10,000 by now if my team wasn’t here.

**Torres:** Oh yeah?

**Daniels:** Yeah.

//Daniels stands and walks to a cabinet in the corner. He produces a series of documents and hands them to Torres.//

**Daniels:** Project files. We knew about the Shattering from the beginning. We’ve had guys on the inside working with them. Thanks to us, it’s been kept small, limited.

**Daniels:** They wanted to test it nationwide, hundreds of sites. We convinced them to build at one national park, a place they’d have lots of traffic but it could be kept out of the way. They went for it.

**Daniels:** They wanted to start sucking in anyone they liked immediately. Criminals, political opponents. We convinced them to test it until we were sure the simulations were hospitable, sure they weren’t doing something inhumane.

**Torres:** But—

**Daniels:** When their systems couldn’t generate enough power, they wanted to redirect the whole eastern seaboard for it, cut off the supply for everyone. We convinced them to take Luma instead, with our help.

**Daniels:** All of this, Pablo, it could be so much worse if we weren’t cooperating. But it could collapse any time. We are hanging by a thread. We need people like you, people who can see through the simulations, to be ready to work with us. Not going off on your own and breaking in, getting yourself killed or worse. We need you on our team.

**Torres:** I…

//Torres sits back down.//

**Torres:** This cannot be the way to do this. We have so many resources, we have power.

**Daniels:** They have those things too, Pablo. We don’t get anywhere fighting it directly.

**Daniels:** But if we work with them, we still have a chance to make this batter for people.

**Torres:** I can’t—

**Daniels:** Come on, man!

//Daniels rises and strides to the window. Beyond it, the sun is rising, but both moons are still faintly visible. Daniels points to them.//

**Daniels:** We can both see them. Do you have any idea how few people can say that now? If you stay here, work with me, you can finally talk about it.

**Daniels:** I’m on your side.

//Torres looks down, silently.//

**Torres:** The warbler.

**Daniels:** What about it?

**Torres:** The fucking Constantine's warbler. You’re telling me it’s really… fake?

**Daniels:** Yes.

**Torres:** But it’s in my book! My book from when I was a kid!

**Daniels:** Our implantation is powerful. Just because you’re immune to some of it, doesn’t mean you won’t fall for the rest. People believe what they want to believe.

**Daniels:** If you work with me, I’ll give you the truth—on everything. No more lies.

//Yadama looks down.//

**Torres:** I…

**Torres:** …Ok.

//Daniels grins.//

**Daniels:** Ok?

**Torres:** Yes. Fuck. Ok. I just want to…

**Torres:** I just want to feel safe again.

**[END LOG]**

[[/div]]

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------
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[[div class="darkdocument"]]

**SCP-9997 Onboarding Documentation: Torres, P**

Dear Pablo Torres,

We are pleased you have elected to join our efforts at the Shattering Project. To facilitate your smooth transition to the UIU-GOC standard operating conditions, please read and abide by these governing documents in full. Failure to abide by the governing documents may result in suspension from your post without pay.

* Please arrive to your terminal by 06:00 each day. Your position is not eligible for remote work.
* Your primary work responsibility will consist of assessing and implementing procedures for the selection of targets for Stage 2 capture by the join UIU-GOC assimilation project. Per contract 9k.13.4.c, SCP project liaison staff have advisory authority over initial UIU and GOC targets, and may submit additional targets for the consideration of the other group liaisons.
* Please complete your assessment of targets in a timely manner. Artificial intelligence assistance is available to accelerate your work, should it be required.

Welcome,
Dodd St. Pierre
UIU Liaison to the SCP Foundation
Project Shattering Deputy Director for Personnel

[[/div]]

 _
 _

**Incident 9997-148**

On 2027-09-14, multiple emergency calls were placed to the Hurricane, Utah police department by families claiming their children had gone missing. Authorities investigated but could not locate any evidence that children had ever existed in any of the reporting households, and chose to disregard the claims as pranks. Foundation scanners intercepted the chatter and determined it to be the result of spillover effects from the Shattering project—the first time a non-target impact had been observed beyond the borders of Shattered Land National Park. Effect was later determined to be the result of an undeclared test by UIU personnel targeting particular households in Hurricane based on [REDACTED]. The discovering personnel, Researcher Pablo Torres, registered concern, and the incident was noted. Children were collected under cover of night the following evening.

 _
 _

[[div class="papernote"]]

**eBird Checklist 084509823408**

Shattered Land National Park and Preserve—East Gate
2027-09-14
Pablo Theodore Torres Pedilla

//16 Species//

3 Common Raven
1 Red-tailed Hawk
1 Ferruginous Hawk
4 White-breasted Nuthatch
2 Pygmy Nuthatch
2 Bullock’s Oriole
8 Common Grackle
2 Clark’s Nutcracker
1 Downy Woodpecker
1 Hairy Woodpecker
1 Williamson’s Sapsucker
11 Cassin’s Finch
2 Black-Headed Grosbeak
1 Townsend's warbler
2 Yellow warbler
1 Wilson's warbler

//Checklist comments: 0 Constantine's warbler, in the height of migration. Still can’t believe it.//

[[/div]]

 _
 _

**Incident 9997-153**

On 2027-10-06, the unauthorized stimulatory capture of [REDACTED] took place, rendering two-thirds of the town of San Polomar, California unpopulated. Researcher Pablo Torres raised a flag on the operation with the Utah field office, who inquired, and were told the capture was an error. However, as captures are presently reversible, no way to restore the town’s population is presently known. AI recreations of the citizens are presently being crafted with the assistance of Torres.

 _
 _

[[div class="darkdocument"]]

To: Daniels, J
From: Torres, P

2027-10-06

Jasper, these people are incompetent. I don't know how they built this system, but it's falling apart. It's only working this well because we're feeding them mind blocking tech so nobody notices the gaps. But they can't program for shit, they can't build a chatbot let alone a human mind. There has to be a better way.

And BTW, you can redact all you want, but we both know who did and didn't get caught in that "accident," and why they were picked.

PTTP

[[/div]]

[[div class="darkdocument"]]

To: Torres, P
From: Daniels, J

2027-10-06

Keep the faith, Pablo. We’re making a difference. Chin up.

Jasper

[[/div]]

[[div class="raisa_memo"]]

**2027-10-07**
**SCP-9997 UIU-GOC Reprimand File: Torres, P**

Pedro Torres,

Per our discussion at the site yesterday, please find attached a disciplinary record reviewed and approved by your supervisor, Jasper Daniels. Your delays in approving targets for Stage 2 capture have caused unnecessary backlog in the capture system. Your stated reasons for denying capture are deemed by command to be in disregard of standards and priorities of the UIU-GOC-SCP shared mission, and you are hereby directed to cease and desist from obstruction of the mission. Failure to comply will be met with suspension or reassignment.

Dodd St. Pierre
UIU Liaison to the SCP Foundation
Project Shattering Deputy Director for Personnel

[[/div]]

[[div class="darkdocument"]]

To: Torres, P
From: Daniels, J

2027-10-07

Sorry about that note, Pablo. Gotta play along. Try to walk it back a bit for now.

Jasper

[[/div]]

[[div class="jotting"]]

[[include component:image-block name=https://scpdsandbox.wdfiles.com/local--files/secret%3A9k2/logo.png|align=left|width=10%|caption=pttp]]

Commenting as: Pablo Torres, Researcher Level 3

Bull and fucking shit.

//[Comment deleted by author.]//

[[/div]]

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[[div class="smallmodal"]]

**BREAKING: “Mass psychosis” incident leads to seven deaths near Denver**

//DENVER, Colo. (AP)// — Fleeing crowds trampled a farmer’s market and left seven dead and dozens injured in suburban Denver Friday in what authorities are describing as an incident of “mass psychosis.”
According to a report from the Colorado State Attorney’s Office, the stampede began after several people in a crowd at an outdoor performance venue raised concerns about an apparent “second moon” visible in the sky. The paranoia spread rapidly in the assembled group, resulting in a collective panic as members claiming to see the moon accused those who could not of lying or tricking them.
As the altercation continued, physical alterations in the group broke out, and many in the crowd attempted to flee. This led to a mass exodus as nearly 200 people climbed walls and pushed each other to escape the area, demolishing equipment and stalls in the chaos. Authorities said the deaths likely resulted when the victims, seven older adults who were attending the event together, could not escape the crowd’s rush in time.
“Our hearts go out to their families,” Larimer County Sheriff Skip McDermott said. “We’re all just trying to make sense of how this could happen.”
Mass psychosis is a well-documented phenomenon in which fear of some unknown or illusory harm spreads through social influence, often resulting in real, physical symptoms of injury or illness even when no actual cause is present. Whether the “second moon” seen by crowd members was a result of such psychosis remains under investigation.

[[/div]]

 _
 _

**Incident 9997-206**

Researcher Pablo Torres was reprimanded after assaulting a pair of UIU operatives near their quarters, whom he accused of misusing SCP Foundation resources for personal gain. Investigation revealed that Torres had not been made aware of Project MINE, a financial endeavor between the organizations to use a portion of simulation space and captured consciousnesses within SCP-9997 to efficiently generate cryptocurrency, which has greatly increased the economic stability of the project and allowed for more rapid progression of SCP-9997-1. Torres registered personal grievance with the arrangement, but agreed to drop the matter at the behest of site liaison Jasper Daniels.

 _
 _

[[div class="darkdocument"]]

To: Daniels, J
From: Torres, P

2027-10-26

Hi Jasper,

I overheard some of the UIU guys saying the new operating goal is phasing out the simulations entirely by end of year. Is that your understanding? Not only would that break the entire project, since their tech can't support it, but it would give them an excuse to cut off power to everyone living in the sim right now and make capturing / recreating minds tantamount to killing people outright. I presume we're not going along with that?

PTTP

//[Alert: Sent five days ago. Receiver has not opened. Follow up? Y/N]//

[[/div]]

 _
 _

[[div class="papernote"]]

eBird checklist 084509867801

Shattered Land National Park and Preserve—East Gate
2027-11-01
Pablo Theodore Torres Pedilla

//9 Species//

12 Common Raven
2 Red-tailed Hawk
2 Pygmy Nuthatch
7 Clark’s Nutcracker
1 Black-billed Magpie
1 Downy Woodpecker
4 Mountain Chickadee
9 Black-capped Chickadee
1 Purple Finch

//Checklist comments: Gotta keep going.//

[[/div]]

 _
 _

**Incident 9997-258**

On 2027-11-19, a critical failure of the server algorithm overseeing AI requests to SCP-9997’s simulated intelligences took place, resulting in a cascading containment failure and brief, partial BK-class “Broken Masquerade” scenario.

That morning, routine atmospheric interference disrupted the link between SCP-9997-1 and the receiving mechanism at ground level, causing a power disruption lasting approximately six seconds. While such a disruption would normally be well within the parameters for overflow power management at the site, a hitherto-undetected programming error combined with the increased draw of SCP-9997’s new currency mining operation caused several core servers to fail in the site’s anomalous computing hub. In the time before they could be brought back online, AI simulations exhibited erratic behavior in approximately 60% of instances, calling functions which did not exist or reading code from undesignated sources. As a result, these instances automatically reset, leading to the apparent collapse of [REDACTED] in 49 major cities and seventeen states. Automobile collisions alone caused an estimated 439 fatalities in the first minute of the reset.

As ongoing fallout continued and SCP operatives struggled to reassert containment protocols, it rapidly became apparent that the total number of captured and simulated consciousnesses far exceeded that reported by UIU-GOC liaisons. Projected totals exceeded the Foundation’s approved number by ████%. When all AI instances eventually did reload, it was discovered that much of their learned social adaptations had been lost, leading to highly apparent discrepancies in the personality and actions of █% of the U.S. population.

In an attempt to restore the AI, UIU personnel on site redirected substantial power from the simulation banks housing captured consciousnesses, depowering several servers housing an estimated 904 minds. When the servers were repowered, it was discovered that 118 million years of simulated time had passed during the partial depowering, during which activity in the server had remained frozen in a holding state. As meaningful communication was no longer possible with the consciousnesses housed in these servers, the decision was made to terminate activity and reset the devices.

Social media reports of the personality alterations were spread rapidly, MTF Nu-42 “Inherit the Wind” was mobilized to begin mass disbursement of digital and atmospheric amnestics. However, UIU-GOC operatives, believing that traditional disbursement would not be swift enough to contain the incident, instead opted to alter the SMAS-class Luma suppression filter to block perception of 9997-AI-generated entities altogether. This decision, in turn, worsened the event and led to a more serious BK-class scenario, as it facilitated the apparent disappearance of █,███,███ people simultaneously. Furthermore, as the operatives hastily overwrote the filter without first backing it up, Luma and SCP-9997-1 were revealed to the global population for a period of seven hours before the filter could be fully recreated.

Fallout from the incident continues, necessitating full efforts from all liaison teams.

[[div class="notation"]]

**[BEGIN LOG]**

//Site Liaison Jasper Daniels is seated at his desk. The door opens, and Researcher Pablo Torres bursts inside. Guards at the door raise their weapons, but Daniels waves them down.//

**Torres:** Jasper!

**Daniels:** Pablo? What’s the matter?

**Torres:** I can’t. I can’t fucking take this.

//Torres drops a think sheaf of papers on Daniels’ desk. Daniels eyes it.//

//Daniels:// What’s this?

**Torres:** My report, and my fucking resignation.

**Daniels:** Now listen—

**Torres:** You said we were stalling them? Containing them, their impact? They’ve been lying to us the whole god damned time. And I think you know it.

**Daniels:** Pablo. Please calm down. You know as well as I do—

**Torres:** █,███,███ people, Jasper? And how many of them were b████, or b████, or q████, huh? How fucking many?

**Daniels:** Pablo—

**Torres:** This is not what I joined NPS to do. This is not what I joined the Foundation to do. I'm a programer, I'm a fucking bird researcher, I'm not a goddamn N—

**Daniels:** Pablo, listen to me!

//Daniels sighs, rubbing his brow.//

**Daniels:** Look, I know how this seems. And if you think I’m happy about it, you’re dead wrong. I feel like a fool too.

**Torres:** Then—

**Daniels:** But! These people are still our partners. We are colleagues, not enemies. The only way to make sure this project stays on the rails is to work together. We cannot allow incidents like this one to come between us.

**Torres:** ...Are you actually *shitting* me.

**Daniels:** Pablo. Don’t be this way. We were working well together.

**Torres:** I was working with you to— to—

**Daniels:** To protect mankind. To keep the veil safe. To effect containment so millions do not die in the dark.

**Torres:** To use the might of the most powerful organizations on Earth against the weakest—

**Daniels:** No. Pablo, you’re not hearing me, you’re not thinking.

//Daniels walks around the desk. Torres clenches his fists, but Daniels just smiles.//

**Daniels:** Please try to see my position. You know the work you’ve done just as well as I do. Yes, there were more people captured than we realized. But your rejections, your counsel, are taken seriously too. Your complaints are heard and taken seriously. We are doing the work.

**Torres:** I’m reprimanded when I so much as raise a finger.

**Daniels:** I’m so sorry for that. I have to have a word with the UIU about it. It’s against policy for them to treat you this way, and maybe we can get you some better accommodation or pay to make up for the lapse.

**Daniels:** But Pablo, we have to have you on board if we are to continue.

//Torres stares at his hands. He looks up at Daniels, then out the window, then over at the guards, and finally at his huge stack of papers on the desk. He sighs.//

**Daniels:** Are you ready to cooperate?

**Torres:** I don't know. Maybe? For a little while, at least? But I—

//Torres pauses.//

**Torres:** ...Say that again.

**Daniels:** Are you ready to cooperate?

//Torres pales.//

//He turns and begins to run for the door, dropping his papers and bag, leaving everything behind.//

//Daniels sighs.//

**Daniels:** I have made a mistake.

//He nods toward one of the guards, who raises his stick and hits Torres across the head. Torres collapses to the floor.//

**[END LOG]**

[[/div]]

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[[div class="document"]]

Pablo awoke in a white bed. Around him were green, blue and orange, sunlit drapes and trees. He was in a top-floor room in the Shattered Land park lodge, in the late afternoon, with warm, dry air blowing in from the open window. Birdsong drifted through the sky from pines across the way. He stretched himself. He felt good. Fantastic, even… How long had he slept? The last thing he remembered was—

Fuck. Pablo jumped from his bed, looking around frantically. He had been to Jasper Daniels’s office, been to confront him with the report, that they weren’t improving anything. He’d heard Jasper say… Something, something terrible. He’d made a run for it. Had he gotten away? He couldn’t remember. But he felt safe… Comfortable, even. Things seemed okay. What had happened?

There was a gentle knock, and the bedroom door swung open. Jasper Daniels was there, in his clean pressed NPS uniform with the Foundation insignia pin. Pablo stepped back, but Jasper just smiled with what seemed like genuine warmth.

“Pablo! You’re awake! Thank goodness. How are you feeling?”

“I, uh. Well, I feel great. What’s going on?”

“You had a bad fall. Something I said bothered you, I think, and you ran for the door.” Jasper furrowed his brow. “I’m really not sure what it was. But you slipped on the sill and hit your head. I asked the staff to bring you up here while you recovered.”

Jasper walked to the bedside table. There was a pitcher of water there, and a vase of flowers—Pablo recognized frost lilies. Jasper poured a glass and pressed it into the other man’s hands. The water was cold, pure, brisk. Its taste invigorated Pablo, and he felt more comfortable still.

“Now listen,” Jasper said, leaning casually against the doorframe. “I read your report.”

“Oh. Oh, shit, uh. You did?”

Jasper smiled genially. “Yes, Pablo, I did. And frankly, I think you’re spot on.”

Pablo felt the feeling in his knees going out. He leaned on the dresser for support.

“Y-you what?”

“Yes, man, yes!” Jasper shrugged. “I’d seen some of the other data, but the way you told the story, well, there’s really no denying it. We are doing harm. So listen.” 

Jasper walked over to Charles and put his hand on his shoulder. The touch was warm and reassuring. Pablo could practically feel his heart beating through the touch. It relaxed him.

“I’m going to take this to the O5 personally,” Jasper said. “I think we have a shot at getting 9997 shut down. But I want you to come along with me. If we appeal to them together, I bet we can do it. What do you think of getting on a plane with me in the morning?”

Pablo gulped. “I—yes, yes of course!”

Jasper grinned. “Oh, wonderful. I didn’t know if you’d be feeling up for it after your experience just now, but I should have known you were made of sterner stuff.”

“Do you really think it will work? You—ah, well they—seem very committed to it.”

“My friend.” Jasper grew serious. “I understand your concern. I’m staking quite a lot on this. But to be frank, I feel quite… changed by that report. I suspect the Council will see our point. If—“ here he paused, and grinned anew— “we can present it together.”

Jasper patted Pablo on the shoulder, and strode to the door.

“Now, I’m off! Much to prepare for. I’ll have staff by to collect your documents and things. We will leave at dawn, so rest up!” He paused. “And Pablo?”

“Yes?”

“I’m proud of you.”

The door closed. Pablo was alone again, with the warm wind.

He stepped to the window. He couldn’t believe it. Was it all, really, going to work out? Had it been that easy? COULD it be? But something in Jasper’s air filled him with confidence, too. After all, why not? The project had been evil, plainly so. Anyone with half a brain could see it, and the Overseers were the wisest among them. Perhaps it really would work out.

The sun was almost down, and the birds had mostly quieted. Pablo examined the nearest tree, counting familiar species. There were many gems at this altitude which he didn’t have the pleasure of seeing often at home. He spied a mountain chickadee, singing on a high branch, and a Steller’s jay. Then, deep in the foliage, he caught a delightful glimpse of pink, green and cream, and gasped.

A Constantine's warbler burst out from between the branches and flew toward the horizon, making for the rising moon.

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