SCP-8382-3

Link to article: SCP-8382-3.
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Just two names left on my list now. This one was going to be rough; we only knew he existed because he contacted us, if teleporting [[[/scp-5416 | a little red cat statue]]] into containment with a Post-It note attached can be considered an overture. But I knew he had our number -- even if I didn't even know he was a he, at that point -- and I knew he was part of the in-crowd because of the //schriftsteller// ideogram he sketched on the note, so the final thing I knew was that word would eventually get around I was building up a band.

He waited until just before the last minute to send me another invitation. The Department of Containment swore up and down that it was actually an accident, a lucky break in our favour. Identifying information carelessly left where inquiring minds could find it.

I'm pretty sure this guy has learned to be a lot more careful with where he puts things.

[[div class="blockquote"]]
//<Transcript begins.>//

//<Dr. Lillihammer is walking through the main hall of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. The lights are very low. She stops to brush her hand over a weathered black pyramid, glancing up at the crumbling pharaohs and arched colonnades on both sides.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Everything in its place.

**Voice:** No. 

//<A well-dressed Egyptian man emerges from a shadowed arcade, hands in his pockets.>//

**Unknown:** Everything in one place, where it doesn't belong. Their place.

//<He extends a hand, and Dr. Lillihammer shakes it.>//

**Unknown:** Faruq Zikry.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Lillian Lillihammer. Very subtle metaphor you had, there. You should explain it to me in detail.

**Zikry:** You do come in hot, don't you?

**Dr. Lillihammer:** I can't help the way I look.

//<Dr. Lillihammer sighs.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Yeah, okay. It's been a few years of ups and downs.

**Zikry:** That's better than the global average.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** True. But getting told off by everyone you meet does tend to make a person just a little bit defensive.

**Zikry:** I didn't bring you here for a lecture.

//<Zikry examines his nails, waiting.>//

//<Dr. Lillihammer does not respond.>//

**Zikry:** Not going to contest the idea that I brought you here?

**Dr. Lillihammer:** I know the difference between a beaten trail and a laid one. You let me find you. How come?

**Zikry:** I've heard what you've been up to. Well, probably not all of it, given... yeah. But enough. I thought we both might find it useful to have a chat.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** That's the //schriftsteller// for you. Always just trying to help.

**Zikry:** Just like this place.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Ironic commentary follows in three, two, one...

**Zikry:** You ever hear of salvage ethnography?

**Dr. Lillihammer:** I know there's a raging debate over whether [[[/scp-6426 | Vampire Boat]]] is Romanian or Transylvanian.

//<Silence on recording.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Sorry. I don't know how I expected you to follow that sentence. Pretend I didn't say anything.

**Zikry:** There's this idea in anthropology, used to be very popular, that we need to go around documenting people and collecting their cultural artifacts before they die out completely.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Okay, yeah. I've got a friend who's mentioned this before. It's how a lot of museums got their artifacts.

**Zikry:** Right. Ethnologists went into communities, judged them unlikely to survive modernity -- because they were static and backward, unable but needing to change -- and started the process of turning them from living cultures to paper representations of themselves, as understood by outsiders. Took their relics, not only for safekeeping, but also so wiser minds than those of their owners could determine what they really meant.

[[include component:image-block

  name=Zikry.jpg|
  caption=Photograph of Faruq Zikry, Cairo, 2024. |
  width=225px|
  align=right|
]]

**Dr. Lillihammer:** This feels an awful lot like the lecture we just established you weren't going to deliver.

**Zikry:** I'm not talking about the Foundation. If you've been seeking out the Writers, there's no chance the comparison hasn't already been done to death.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** What, then? What's the connection?

**Zikry:** This is what the //schriftsteller// want. Everything comprehensible, measured to a single master standard, stable, static, and under control. A universe under glass. You ever wonder why the order cult wants an apocalypse just as badly as the chaos cult does?

**Dr. Lillihammer:** The only way to know everything is to stop new things from happening.

**Zikry:** Exactly. Telling a story before the end is known is bound to introduce contradictions. Until it's over, there's always the possibility that your assumptions were wrong. That you misunderstood what it was all leading up to. But the best thing about the end of things? Dead people can't talk back.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** But a lot of these people, the ones with stuff in museums, didn't die out. A lot of them still exist.

//<She gestures at the silent, graven faces.>//

**Zikry:** And that's the ultimate subversion. Persisting past the end. That's why the //giftschreiber// want to see the world fall apart, doctor. When nothing exists, the universe becomes a monument to order. Existence is chaos, and vice versa. Everything dying isn't a triumph of the random. It's a project of control. But persisting past the curtain call? Denying the director's power to call "Cut"? There's no more perfect subversion than that.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** So everybody gets something out of the cycle. Except for the billions who burn.

//<Zikry gestures broadly.>//

**Zikry:** They get this.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** A museum?

**Zikry:** You haven't found it yet? You're running out of time to put the pieces together.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** There's that language again. That's the kind of Writer you are. You talk about the //schriftsteller// like you aren't one of them, but putting things in their place is your M.O.

**Zikry:** So you //did// get my little present. Two decades and no word, I was starting to wonder.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Some present.

**Zikry:** I assume you figured out how it works?

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Yeah. Yeah, we definitely did that.

**Zikry:** And did you succumb to its temptation? I don't like to brag, but it's the ultimate tool of categorization. With enought time and mental fortitude you could reorder the entire cosmos.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Which is why you sent it to us. Because you realized how dangerous it was.

**Zikry:** Was? But yes. The world was lucky I figured that out with a cost to only myself, and one other. It was safer in your hands.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Our hands almost used it to annihilate the human race.

**Zikry:** What?

**Dr. Lillihammer:** No one person can have final say on what goes where. Doesn't matter who that person is, or what their intentions are.

**Zikry:** What did you do with it?

**Dr. Lillihammer:** The same thing you did. We put it where we knew it would be safe.

**Zikry:** In a box?

**Dr. Lillihammer:** In the sun.

//<Silence on recording.>//

**Zikry:** Oh. Well, you should probably get it back.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** The sun. The actual sun. Sol.

**Zikry:** Yeah. Do you need directions?

//<Silence on recording.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Were you having an argument?

**Zikry:** Hmm?

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Your note said you sent your boyfriend to the Challenger Deep. I'm assuming that wasn't artistic license.

//<Silence on recording.>//

**Zikry:** I only wanted a day off.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** From what?

**Zikry:** From having to do what we did best. From asserting our right to exist. When you have to defend love every day, when you can't ever stop fighting to define yourself, when you can't have a minute where someone else's schema isn't impinging on your existence, they can really make you forget yourself. Internalize some tiny fragment of the hate they feel for you. Challenging norms isn't insidious. Norms are. We were exhausted.

//<Zikry leans on the nearest plinth, deflated.>//

**Zikry:** I only wanted a quiet evening with my tools, and the man I loved. I just wanted a few hours of peace. But it wouldn't let him give me that.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** It?

**Zikry:** The cycle. The times. The collective push and shove of the //spiritus mundi.// The gravity of other people's hatred. I was off, and he was on, and for one instant it was all too much, and I brought my newest piece to life with a single, wild impulse.

//<Silence on recording.>//

**Zikry:** He went to the most peaceful place in the world, and I was alone.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** But you tried to bring him back.

**Zikry:** As soon as I could. I... I dropped the statuette. I had a panic attack. He was gone for a minute at most.

//<Silence on recording.>//

**Zikry:** He was bleeding inside, his lungs were collapsed, and he was dead before I could call for help.

//<Silence on recording.>//

**Zikry:** So I let the waters have him again. Forever.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** I'm sorry.

**Zikry:** //I// did it. I did it because we have powers we were never meant to have. I wasn't weak, doctor. I'm stronger than almost anyone I know, because I've had to be. So was Kareem. But all that pressure, it can crush you in an instant. And it's always building. It never sleeps. It's always waiting. If you let down your guard...

**Dr. Lillihammer:** We're going to take that power away.

**Zikry:** You can't.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** I can. If you help me, I'm //certain// I can. We're going to stop the cycle, erase the writers, cure the poison.

**Zikry:** You can't fix human hatred with a taskforce. You can't roll back milennia of outgroup scapegoating with a well-formulated argument. And even if you could, your masters wouldn't let you. That's too much change, too fast. Someone would notice that life on Earth was no longer a mutual torture chamber. 

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Well, okay. If you're going to look at it that broadly, sure. But would you really think better of us if we //were// willing to meddle with basic instincts to that extent? You think the Foundation should... autocratically eradicate homophobia?

**Zikry:** Is this a theoretical question, or an offer? Because I might not answer the way you expect.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Humanity has to want to be better. If we're going to get a better future, we have to deserve it, and earn it. But the Writing isn't something we can blame on ourselves. It's an outside context problem. I'm building an outside context solution.

**Zikry:** You've designated all Writing as bad and unnatural, and you're going to neutralize it.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** I've decided that I want to see if our species can get its shit together with a few more years existing. That's not some grandiose project of categorization.

**Zikry:** So you think you can make a few stage directions, then watch it all unfold like a play put on for your benefit? You're so above it all, aren't you? You feel like //you// exist outside of this context. You've looked at it academically for so long that you've forgotten what it's like to live the struggle.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** I live in joy, buddy. Because I know I'm going to help us //win// that struggle.

**Zikry:** And I'm trying to make you see, there is no win condition here. Not unless you take the most drastic action. You address one problem, all the others remain. You address //all// problems, and you take on the mantle of a merciless god. How can you call yourself a Writer when you understand so little about this setting, Dr. Lillihammer? There is an object in this wing which can turn a house into a home. The label on the case says as much, in the context of describing superstition. If you could see it from inside the noösphere, it would be like a pillar of light.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Which object?

**Zikry:** There's a mask in storage that... you know what? Never mind. The point is, reality is one big catalogue of horrors. Some people want to edit that catalogue, some people just want to own it, and some people want to tear the pages out. There will always be a fitness to things, whether we acknowledge it or not. But just because we come up with an explanation for something that seems to satisfy the known conditions, doesn't mean reality's going to conform.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** You think we're looking at the issues wrong? 

**Zikry:** I think you're trying to send the things you hate away, and bring the things you love closer together. I think that's all that people ever do. And I think that's what's going to destroy us.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Maybe nothing is going to destroy us. Maybe you can help.

**Zikry:** I've spent my whole life being defined by other people. I'm not going to let you turn me into a pale shadow of yourself.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** I'm the pale one here.

**Zikry:** I wish you the best of luck, Dr. Lillihammer. Really I do. But I won't take part in another act of radical reorganization. If you're going to change the system, you have to think holistically. Otherwise you're just packing things into the attic and forgetting about them, and that doesn't help anybody.

//<Dr. Lillihammer deactivates the recording.>//

//<Transcript ends.>//
[[/div]]

I won't lie, having someone on our side who can craft monkey's paw traps would have made my life a whole lot easier.

Of course, bringing a Mobile Task Force with me and letting them detain the guy would also have made things a little less fractious around the water cooler.

That's why I carry a thermos.

[[=]]
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[[/=]]

2024 was the year the Insurgency got their shit together. Overwatch added Chaos Resurgent to my list of priorities when Area-73 was glassed; by now the Writers were a lot less hasty with their deployments, so I had the spare time to dedicate.

They've finally embraced that whole 'chaos' thing, so I thought I'd give them a few pointers. Really up their game.

[[div class="flashyhammer"]]
[[=]]
++ Operation BURNOUT Transcripts, Excerpt
[[/=]]
----

**Context:** Chaos Resurgent turned the Mises Institute into a Firebase. They disposed of all the employees, which was no skin off my nose. The DoC wanted me to reconnoiter.

You ever hear the one about what one running woman with a knife can get done in one night?

----

//<Dr. Lillihammer is running down a hallway. She rounds a corner; the new stretch of hallway is occupied by a single Insurgent, whose weapon is already raised.>//

//<Dr. Lillihammer raises an object resembling an animal forelimb; it appears to have been painted with a symbol, [REDACTED]. When the guard has seen it, Dr. Lillihammer dodges into a side passage. Sounds of pursuit follow her, but as her legs are significantly longer and she is unencumbered by armour her pursuer is unable to gain ground.>//

//<His voice is audible as Dr. Lillihammer continues to flee.>//

**Resurgent Agent:** Uh...

//<A response arrives via radio.>//

**Voice:** Jim? Are you making a report?

**Resurgent Agent:** Yes... uh.

//<The agent moves his mouth soundlessly, brows furrowing.>//

**Voice:** Control.

**Resurgent Agent:** Uh.

**Voice:** This is Control.

**Resurgent Agent:** Uh.

**Resurgent Control:** Snap out of it! What are you reporting? 

**Resurgent Agent:** There's...

**Resurgent Control:** Yes?

**Resurgent Agent:** There's a...

**Resurgent Control:** Yes? 

**Resurgent Agent:** I'm chasing. 

**Resurgent Control:** Who are you chasing? 

//<Dr. Lillihammer suppresses a snort.>//

**Resurgent Control:** Jim? 

**Resurgent Agent:** I can't see...

//<The agent blinks rapidly. Tears of frustration stream down his face.>//

**Resurgent Control:** What can't you see? 

//<Dr. Lillihammer snickers softly.>//

**Resurgent Control:** The person you're chasing?

**Resurgent Agent:** Uh.

**Resurgent Control:** I'm sending someone down there. 

**Resurgent Agent:** Okay. 

**Resurgent Control:** Where are you? 

//<Silence on recording.>//

**Resurgent Control:** For fuck's... just check his location, will you. 

//<Dr. Lillihammer raises the forelimb in front of the nearest camera, slowly. She is giggling.>//

**Resurgent Control:** Do you have them? 

//<A second voice is audible on the transmission now, as is frantic typing,>//

**Resurgent Technician:** I...

**Resurgent Control:** What? 

**Resurgent Technician:** I... I can't...

**Resurgent Control:** Not you too. Get an assault team down there. 

**Resurgent Technician:** I should... I //know// I...

**Resurgent Control:** What sector? 

**Resurgent Technician:** I can't...

**Resurgent Control:** Let me see that. 

//<The sound of a brief altercation can be heard over the radio, then forceful typing.>//

**Resurgent Control:** She's in...

//<Silence on recording.>//

**Resurgent Control:** ...oh, my god. 

**##C5000B|That might be the reason we evolved language in the first place. Displacement. The power to convey information about objects that aren't immediately present. Our ancestors needed to communicate where the good eating was, or predators, or anything else that became abstract in its absence.**##

**##C5000B|You take that away, and we become little more than big, blundering toddlers.##**

//<Transcript ends.>//
[[/div]]

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[[image https://scp-wiki.wdfiles.com/local--files/the-b-b-decommission/Asterisk43.png]]
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[[/=]]

[[div class="lillihammer"]]
__**11 March 2024**__
**In which the frame is acknowledged**

I know a guy who talks to his ceiling.

He thinks if he calls out to the night, it might answer. He's asked it for something, twice, and gotten a response both times. He considers that a successful replication study.

I can't really hold it against him, ridiculous though it is. I don't address myself to the architecture, but I have something of a similar ritual.

Thilo's trials are exhausting now. He is pushing me harder and farther than anything ever has before. I am pushing myself twice as hard. There's no question now that if I wanted to, I could give him some serious grief. Between the science and the magic, I can move or bend or even melt the steel that is a human mind with supernova strength. There has never been anyone so deadly to know as me, right now, and the simple act of being //that// puts me out like a light most evenings.

And I dream of the archive.

It is me. Everything that makes me who and what I am. An endless repository of the self. 

I am a thing constructed to meticulous purpose, and the blueprints are neatly catalogued. Every thought that has ever crossed my mind is snug in its own little folder. Every version of me has a box, or a shelf, or an entire wing dedicated to its preservation. A palace is just for show. This is a working space.

I lie in the middle of my vast complexity, and I speak to the air: "Why am I doing this?"

A voice responds: "Because you're the only one who can."

I want to smile at the conviction, the sincerity. But the voice wants me to sneer, and so I do. "Tell me something I don't know."

The voice is playful, now. "Is there any such thing?"

I laugh. "If there wasn't, what would be the point? Why even bother going on? If there's nothing left to learn, there's no way to grow."

"You're already pretty big." I can hear the grin in the voice. "My ivory tower."

The voice knows I can do this. The voice knows I will win. The voice knows these things because I know these things, though the voice is not my own. It was one of the first to see me, one of the first to understand. I made myself, in my own image, but if I had never been //known,// I would be nothing more than a good idea.

"But a //very// good idea," the voice chides.

I am never alone in the archive of myself. There have always been other voices, since the beginning: the first, who speaks the most; some who come and go; some who have gone, and not returned. Some follow the leader, and some have their own ideas. Five of them were me, though none of us are precisely the same now. This voice, though, I keep coming back to, because she keeps coming back to me.

"Self-reinforcement with extra steps," the voice tells me. "It's a dangerous way to keep the balance. What will you do when one day you speak, and I'm not here to answer?"

I consider this for a moment, in my sleep.

"I suppose I'll make up my own version of you," I finally tell her. "Turnabout is fair play."

She laughs me awake.

I make us all proud.
[[/div]]

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[[image https://scp-wiki.wdfiles.com/local--files/the-b-b-decommission/Asterisk43.png]]
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[[/=]]

With a little help from Oberoi, it was time to track down one of the slipperiest of my many customers. 

My final chance to get it right.

[[div class="blockquote"]]
//<Transcript begins.>//

//<Cpt. Brooks of MTF Pi-1 ("City Slickers") stands on a sidewalk in Milan, Italy as Dr. Lillihammer approaches. There is no traffic, whether vehicular or pedestrian. MTF agents are patrolling the streets, and keeping watch over a Fascist-era apartment block across the road.>//

**Cpt. Brooks:** We've got the block cordoned off, ma'am. Local enforcement are pushing the gas leak story, as you advised. 

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Never fails. If they see anything freaky, they'll blame it on that. 

//<Cpt. Brooks indicates the nearest building with a nod of his head.>//

**Cpt. Brooks:** There's a good vantage point on the target structure from this café.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** You asking me out for a drink? 

**Cpt. Brooks:** No, ma'am. I just thought it might be a good place for you to set up camp. 

**Dr. Lillihammer:** I'm not your op control here, captain. I'm going in with you. 

**Cpt. Brooks:** Oh. Alright. 

**Dr. Lillihammer:** That a problem?

**Cpt. Brooks:** No ma'am. 

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Doctor. 

**Cpt. Brooks:** No, doctor. But the brief did say we'd be here for a long haul. The café is still ideal as a base, in my view.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Too far away. 

**Cpt. Brooks:** Too...? It's right across the street. You want us on the same side? 

**Dr. Lillihammer:** I want us in the building. 

//<She walks across the street.>//

**Cpt. Brooks:** Pi-1! We're moving in!

//<He jogs to catch up with Dr. Lillihammer.>//

**Cpt. Brooks:** Should we be setting up SRAs, doctor? 

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Not yet. 

//<She heads up the steps to the front entrance. Cpt. Brooks grabs her on the arm, gently, and she stops in front of the double doors.>//

**Cpt. Brooks:** Doctor Lillihammer. This is what we're trained for. Please let us secure a foothold in the AL.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** I'm all for it. But we need to actually get there, first. 

//<She opens the doors, and enters.>//

//<Cpt. Brooks and three other members of Pi-1 follow Dr. Lillihammer into the entrance foyer.>//

**Cpt. Brooks:** I don't understand. I thought this building was...

//<Dr. Lillihammer has already headed up the stairs. Cpt. Brooks rushes to keep up.>//

**Cpt. Brooks:** Is it a specific floor? 

//<Dr. Lillihammer stops on the fourth floor, and heads down the hall, scanning room numbers.>//

**Cpt. Brooks:** A specific //apartment.// Are you fucking with us, doctor? 

//<Dr. Lillihammer stops in front of Room 404, and gestures at the door.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** No. But the woman in there? She's sure as hell going to try. 

//<Dr. Lillihammer knocks on the door.>//

//<A blast of loud rock music comes from behind the apartment door.>//

> IT MAKES A BETTER DOOR THAN A WINDOW, BABY
> SO BABY TAKE A FLYING LEAP 
> IT MAKES A BETTER DOOR THAN A WINDOW, HONEY
> SO HONEY GIVE MY BEST TO GRAVITY 

//<Cpt. Brooks immediately jerks back, and turns to face the nearest window. One of his agents actually approaches the window, but Cpt. Brooks places a hand on their shoulder, and pulls them back.>//

//<Dr. Lillihammer knocks again, in a rhythm matching that of the music. She then begins to deviate, subtly at first and then more boldly, until she has altered the percussive soundscape in the hall without conflicting with the tune.>//

//<All four members of Pi-4 visibly relax, though the music is still playing.>//

**Cpt. Brooks:** What the hell was that. 

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Foothold.

//<She opens the door, revealing a tidy apartment filled with computer equipment and bookshelves. A voice immediately calls out from a distant room.>//

**Voice:** Fuck off!

//<Dr. Lillihammer turns to face Cpt. Brooks again.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** We'll make base camp here. 

**Cpt. Brooks:** In the front room. 

**Dr. Lillihammer:** No, in the doorway of the front room. I'm going to hang up a sheet before my head explodes. No peeking.

**Voice:** Get out of my fucking apartment!

//<Dr. Lillihammer enters an adjacent apartment, which is unlocked and empty. She returns with a bedsheet, a hammer, and nails.>//

**Voice:** There's a minority jaywalking outside!

//<Cpt. Brooks glances out the window.>//

**Cpt. Brooks:** She's right.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** This is really starting to hurt my feelings.

//<Three hours pass, during which Dr. Lillihammer disables fourteen distinct memetic traps laid throughout the spacious apartment. This concludes with her entering the bedroom of her subject: Bianca Cimarosa, suspected// giftschreiber.//>//

//<The room is filled with a complex computer setup, a comfortable bed, various pieces of furniture, and an African Grey parrot in a large green cage.>//

**Parrot:** [EXPUNGED].

//<Cimarosa is standing, back against the far wall, arms crossed. She glares as Dr. Lillihammer sits down in her computer chair.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Reifire Rose, in full bloom. 

**Cimarosa:** Leaky Lillian Lillihammer. 

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Leaky? 

//<Dr. Lillihammer slaps her forehead.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Oh. I get it. Leaky vessel. Let me explain something about myself. I do not leak. My mind is not a steel trap, because it has no moving parts. My memory is solid state. Nothing degrades. Nothing decays. If there's a half-god surfing my brainwaves, Rose, he's got endless summer ahead.

**Cimarosa:** Do you have a warrant?

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Do you have a lease?

//<Cimarosa slumps to the floor, arms still crossed.>//

**Cimarosa:** Got a cigarette?

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Like I'd let you play with fire.

**Parrot:** [EXPUNGED].

[[=]]
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[[image https://scp-wiki.wdfiles.com/local--files/the-b-b-decommission/Asterisk43.png]]
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[[/=]]

//<Cimarosa has been temporarily remanded to Site Asclepio for detention. She is standing in a containment cell, though there is provision for sitting, when Dr. Lillihammer enters.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Cozy digs.

[[include component:image-block

  name=Cimarosa.jpg|
  caption=Photograph of Bianca Cimarosa at Site Asclepio, 2024. |
  width=225px|
  align=left|
]]

**Cimarosa:** At least the air conditioning works.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** But the pizza delivery is slow.

**Cimarosa:** Uber Eats is servitude. What did you do with my girlfriend's bird?

**Dr. Lillihammer:** I left him at the office. He's shredding documents for us.

**Cimarosa:** He'll be happy with that, the fucking collaborator.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Parrots don't form many allegiances, as I understand it. Just like you.

**Cimarosa:** You'd better keep those documents coming. That's all I'll say.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** They have to keep emptying little blackboxed strips from the bottom of his cage. I'm thinking of testing him out on some supposedly-indestructible SCPs next. What's his name?

**Cimarosa:** Morgoth.

//<Silence on recording.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** That is the best parrot name I have ever heard. But I'm surprised you don't keep a falcon instead.

**Cimarosa:** In an apartment? I'm not //crazy.//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** I notice you asked about your girlfriend's bird, but not your girlfriend.

**Cimarosa:** She can take care of herself. Take care of you, too, if you push it. You won't get anything from me on that score.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** That's fine. You're the one I want, anyway.

**Cimarosa:** I'm taken.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** In more ways than one. Who do you work for, Rose?

**Cimarosa:** You.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Me? The Foundation?

**Cimarosa:** No. You, everybody.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Okay. To which of the two magnanimous cults who want only what's best for humanity do you belong? The rose is a //schriftsteller// symbol, but you were also being monitored by one.

**Cimarosa:** Oh, you finally noticed? He was only doing it for //years,// the little toadie.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** We noticed right away. We've got webcrawlers looking for word wizard dogwhistles 24/7. We just couldn't track either of you down until now.

**Cimarosa:** What changed?

**Dr. Lillihammer:** I did.

**Cimarosa:** Good for you. Change is the only good reason for being alive.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** So, you're a //giftschreiber// now, then.

**Cimarosa:** What does that mean to you?

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Hurting people.

**Cimarosa:** And the //schriftsteller// don't?

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Fine. How would you define them both?

**Cimarosa:** Too loose, and too stiff. No vision, tunnel vision. Amoral versus dogmatic. They're not two points that form a line. They're on a circle of stupidity, and they're only far apart if you're travelling in the wrong direction along the diameter.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** And you've found a better way?

//<Cimarosa looks away, arms still crossed.>//

**Cimarosa:** Keil told me we could put an end to war. Suffering. Uncertainty. I was young and scared, and I wanted that. When I wasn't young anymore, and I saw I was still scared -- scared of what a world without suffering really looked like -- I tried swinging the other way. 

**Dr. Lillihammer:** //Double entendre// acknowledged.

**Cimarosa:** Wilts said--

**Dr. Lillihammer:** You know Catherine Wilts? The //geistschreiber?//

**Cimarosa:** Everyone does. You know how the Nazis and the Allies used to play hockey on Christmas, or whatever the fuck? These guys might be at each other's throats all the time, but they hate everyone else a whole lot more.

//<She scowls.>//

**Cimarosa:** Like I was saying. Wilts said you can only fight power with power, and when you're evenly matched, you need to fight dirty to win.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** You fought plenty dirty. You put a woman who wasn't allergic to anything into anaphylactic shock. You gave [[[/it-s-real-i-swear | some dumb kid]]] a panic attack so bad, it nearly advanced to a heart attack.

**Cimarosa:** Wilts was right about a lot of things. Keil was, too, but I don't know how much he really believed of what he told me. But she said that everyone is capable of changing, if they want to, and if there's enough time. Thing is, some people don't want to. And time isn't something we've got in shedloads anymore.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** So, what? We just kill all the people we don't agree with?

//<Cimarosa shrugs.>//

**Cimarosa:** I don't know. I don't see how this gets resolved without a lot of them in the ground.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** What would be a positive resolution, in your mind? How do you want this shit to end?

**Cimarosa:** I don't. I want everything to keep ticking along. I want people to have the chance to be better. But some of them want to be worse, and they want everyone else to be worse, too. And I don't see how we can offset that without drastic measures.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** We offset it with numbers.

**Cimarosa:** Okay, Hillary.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** No, I'm serious. Half of these fuckers want the world unravelled, and the other half want it crushed beneath a boot. We need a third force.

**Cimarosa:** Only that'll never work.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Why?

**Cimarosa:** The //schriftsteller// and //giftschreiber// built themselves up in an age before surveillance. Before cellphones and the internet. Before //you.// We're way past the cutoff for a Save the Planet cult, because that would get squished in seconds flat. Probably under your boot.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** What if the Foundation was sponsoring it?

//<Cimarosa laughs, a single, harsh bark.>//

**Cimarosa:** You'd be cutting a cosponsorship deal with Keil within a year, tops. Control is addictive. I know that better than most.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Let's talk about your area of expertise, then. You're not a cryptomancer in the traditional sense. How do you do what you do?

**Cimarosa:** How do you think?

**Dr. Lillihammer:** I think you're either a thaumaturge or a reality bender. I've been over the messages you sent that made people do the things they did. There isn't enough content for a memetic payload. I think you form an idea in your head, and then you make it real. Reifier Rose.

**Cimarosa:** If that's true, aren't you taking a big chance being in the room with me?

**Dr. Lillihammer:** No. We've got a reality stabilization field on this chamber, your EVE levels are very low -- probably because you're dehydrated, you poopsocker you -- and anyway I think you need the textual component to do your thing. Like an anchor for the effect.

**Cimarosa:** If you've got it all figured out, what do you need to talk to me for?

**Dr. Lillihammer:** I'd like to know if you're the only one with this power.

**Cimarosa:** You want it for yourself.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Sure, but not in the way you're thinking. 

**Cimarosa:** I told both sides to piss and go fishing. I'm going to tell you the same.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** What if I made a really convincing argument?

**Cimarosa:** With your little brainwashing cards? I mean, I can't stop you.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** I didn't expect you to be so defeatist.

**Cimarosa:** I only meant I can't stop you from trying.

//<She grins.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** That's the spirit. That's the energy I want.

**Cimarosa:** Well, you're not going to get it. 

**Dr. Lillihammer:** I've been told that before.

**Cimarosa:** And?

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Nothing. That was the end of that thought.

//<Dr. Lillihammer deactivates the recording.>//

//<Transcript ends.>//
[[/div]]

At this point, there was nothing left to do but head back to our **##green|home away from home##** and announce the results of my canvassing.

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[[/=]]

You can tell how well it went from the formatting of the next attachment.

[[div class="flashyhammer"]]
[[=]]
++ Operation BURNOUT Transcripts, Excerpt
[[/=]]
----

**Context:** On returning to Zwist's cabin, I found it containing several new occupants -- and they weren't **##ce005c|anyone from around##** **##green|the here that demands special recognition##**, either. I decided to violate Thilo's standing order against recording before heading in.

----

//<Transcript begins.>//

//<Dr. Lillihammer enters the cabin. A man and a woman are sitting at the dining table, apparently conversing in a friendly manner. They look up as Dr. Lillihammer enters, and turn their smiles and attention to her. Zwist is asleep in his chair by the lit fireplace.>//

//<The man is identifiable as PoI-6382: Keil Graf, Zwist's former master and apparent leader of the// schriftsteller.//>//

**Keil:** Evening.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Hey, Kyle.

//<Dr. Lillihammer leans on the doorframe.>//

**Keil:** We were in the neighbourhood.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** A very likely story. 

**Unknown:** I've always preferred the unlikely ones, myself.

//<Dr. Lillihammer gestures at the woman, though she keeps her eyes on Keil.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Are you gonna introduce me to your mother? I didn't realize we were at that stage in our relationship, since we've only had one date in twenty years.

**Unknown:** Twenty years is a short project by Mr. Graf's standards.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Yeah, I've worked with people like that.

//<Keil looks over at Zwist with apparent affection.>//

**Keil:** He sleeps so peacefully. I didn't expect that.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** He gets all his anxieties out of the way while he's awake. Which is most of the time.

**Keil:** I'm not sure it's fair to say that poor Thilo has ever been truly awake. 

**Unknown:** But he's been a very effective sleeper.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Oh, okay. We're doing twist monologue 5B, "You've been working to advance my secret plan all along."

//<Keil and the unknown woman share a glance, and smirk.>//

**Keil:** Not so far off, really.

**Unknown:** Though we don't precisely share a single plan.

**Keil:** But the end result is usually the same.

//<Dr. Lillihammer slams the door shut, startling both visitors. She then pulls the dining table away from them, leaving them facing each other in their chairs, pushes it against the opposite wall beneath the window, and hops up to sit on it cross-legged.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Okay, so here's the thing. I usually struggle to stay interested in a conversation all the way through the first time. Revisiting them later with new information might be the most boring thing I can imagine.

//<She points at the unknown woman.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** It would be //great// if you could tell me who you are at the start, so I don't have to come back to this later and see what all the foreshadowing meant.

**Unknown:** That's fair. My people do tend to be a little...

**Keil:** Circuitous?

**Unknown:** I was going to say "obtuse," but circuitous is much more clever. You always know just the right words, Mr. Graf.

//<Keil nods graciously.>//

**Keil:** Well. That's my job.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Make out later. Exposit now.

**Unknown:** My name is [EXPUNGED]. You've read about me. A long time ago, around the time you were born, I was O5-7.

//<Silence on recording.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** The one who faked her death and defected in the Panopticon Crisis. The one who was a //giftschreiber.//

**[EXPUNGED]:** I gave you the very letters you live by. I made the Foundation.

**Keil:** That's a bit of an exaggeration. We all played our parts, many of them before //you// were born.

**[EXPUNGED]:** Fine. I made them what they are today. I pushed them to this present pass.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** You sabotaged the Foundation from the inside.

//<[EXPUNGED] shrugs.>//

**[EXPUNGED]:** It had its uses, but eventually they ran out.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** You used us as a think tank to develop and distribute memetic knowledge.

//<Keil raises a hand.>//

**Keil:** For the record, I was no less furious than Thilo when I found out. That power should have remained forever sacred.

//<[EXPUNGED] rolls her eyes.>//

**[EXPUNGED]:** You must be such a joy at Christmas.

**Keil:** You should visit this year, [EXPUNGED], and see. We won't have many more opportunities.

**[EXPUNGED]:** And we're unlikely to be on such amicable terms again.

//<Keil nods, sadly.>//

**Keil:** An unfortunate necessity.

//<Dr. Lillihammer waves at [EXPUNGED] until she has the other woman's attention.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Are you the leader of the //giftschreiber?//

**[EXPUNGED]:** You're asking if I'm at the top of the hierarchy of a non-hierarchical fellowship of anarchists?

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Yes.

**[EXPUNGED]:** Yes. I suppose I am. The fun thing about subversion is it can even subvert itself.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** More like you're both just two different flavours of fascist.

//<Keil claps.>//

**Keil:** That makes three of us!

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Did you come here to kill me?

**Keil:** Gracious, no.

**[EXPUNGED]:** We just came to talk.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Those can be the same thing, with you people.

**Keil:** As if dear Thilo has never talked someone to death.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** If you think you're any less of a blowhard than he is, well. He gets it naturally.

**Keil:** Not so naturally. I'm given to understand that you've been investigating the source of our talents.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Among other things.

**Keil:** I would be happy to take you there myself.

**[EXPUNGED]:** And all you have to do is pledge //your// self to the cause of total control.

//<Keil frowns.>//

**Keil:** She made that pledge decades ago. There has always been more //schriftsteller// than //giftschreiber// in the Foundation's makeup.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** So this is a //gift// pill, //schrift// pill situation, huh? What're you selling?

**[EXPUNGED]:** Very much the same thing, in a different context. You haven't the faintest idea where we get our power from. Neither does Mr. Graf, actually.

**Keil:** I have my suspicions.

**[EXPUNGED]:** You're nothing without them. But Dr. Lillihammer, I can promise you a life without restrictions. Isn't that what you've always wanted?

**Dr. Lillihammer:** You see restrictions? Huh. I always thought of them as goalposts. 

//<[EXPUNGED] rolls her eyes.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Point is, when I want something, I get it myself right away. You think he's bad at Christmas, you should try me.

**Keil:** If you don't make a decision on this matter, you won't make it to Christmas.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** You expect me to pick a side right now?

**[EXPUNGED]:** Yes.

**Keil:** Yes. And it will be binding, here. Thilo was very foolish to bring you to **##green|the land of fantastic legalities##**.

//<Both figures produce a rolled-up piece of paper from their persons, and glance at Dr. Lillihammer. She glances back at them, and waits. Eventually Keil sighs, stands up, and walks over to present her with the piece of paper. [EXPUNGED] follows suit. Dr. Lillihammer takes both, glances them over, and rolls her eyes.>//

**[EXPUNGED]:** You will sign, one or the other.

//<She extends a pen. Dr. Lillihammer does not take it.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** These aren't about me. You're both asking me to pledge the entire Foundation.

**Keil:** Are we pretending that's outside your capabilities?

**[EXPUNGED]:** They have no means of stopping you.

**Keil:** They cannot control you.

**[EXPUNGED]:** But we can, I'm afraid. I left the dirty work to Mr. Graf.

**Keil:** For a change. But yes. You are under a geas, Dr. Lillihammer. I wound it into the fabric of our little chat, from a thread I planted in your mind so long ago. You will mark these papers, "yes" and "no," and then you will sign. You have no other option.

//<Dr. Lillihammer reaches into her coat, and produces a pen of her own.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Fair enough.

**Keil:** Is it? It felt monumentally unfair when we decided to force the issue.

**[EXPUNGED]:** But the world needs this. The Foundation will tip the balance one way, or the other. And we'll finally know who's right.

**Keil:** Or, at least, who's left.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Well, let's not keep entropy waiting then.

//<She hops off the table. Keil and [EXPUNGED] watch over her shoulder as she unfolds both contracts again, and carefully marks them both. On the// schriftsteller //contract, she writes "drbk"; on the// giftschreiber //contract, she writes "prbl.">//

**Keil:** What is this?

//<[EXPUNGED] turns away, laughing.>//

**[EXPUNGED]:** I told you. Didn't I tell you?

//<Dr. Lillihammer hops back up on the table, now sitting on the contracts.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** You think Thilo picked this place on accident? You think I don't know how it works? All the protections I have to put around myself to be protected from **##ce005c |the fae the fae the fae is that a complex enough description##** work just as well against word assholes. I can't sign any contracts while I'm here. I give myself dysgraphia every time I hop the well. I even write my diary entries in my mind, and only jot them down when I leave.

**[EXPUNGED]:** Intent is all that matters.

**Keil:** As the room's preeminent expert on legalities, I am unfortunately forced to disagree. 

**Zwist:** Are you quite finished with our guests, Lillian?

//<Keil starts, and stares at Zwist.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Yeah, I can't play Scrabble in this condition anyway.

**Keil:** How long have you been awake?

**Zwist:** Our young friend is right. I never sleep. And you are weaker in your dotage than I had expected. Disappointing.

//<Silence on recording.>//

**Zwist:** I know what you're both thinking, but I would advise against it. I have managed an uneasy truce with **##ce005c |our unruly neighbours##** thus far, but a battle doubling the ferocity of our last meeting would certainly threaten that stability, Keil. Are you confident you could rout an entire army of  **##ce005c |vengeful persona plagiarists##**? Do you wish to send **##ce005c |a furred familiar##** back to the //giftschreiber// in your place, [EXPUNGED]?

//<EXPUNGED] gives Dr. Lillihammer an earnest look.>//

**[EXPUNGED]:** You can still sign when you leave here.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** But I won't.

**Keil:** We can make you.

**Zwist:** No, you can't. By the time you see her next, she will have obsolesced the lot of us.

//<Dr. Lillihammer is again reserving her attention for Keil.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Maybe I'll visit you in //your// home, next time.

**Keil:** If you can find it.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** You've told me everything I still needed to know. And there wasn't a lot left.

//<[EXPUNGED] is humming to herself contentedly.>//

**[EXPUNGED]:** I won't lie, that was very satisfying. You certainly have the fire.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Warms those old bones, does it?

//<Zwist makes a dismissive gesture.>//

**Zwist:** Get out of my cabin, please. And next time, knock.

//<Keil examines him for a long moment before turning for the door.>//

**Keil:** Next time will just be you and me, apprentice.

**Zwist:** I look forward to it.

//<Keil exits the cabin, leaving the door open.>//

**[EXPUNGED]:** No, you don't. You only ever look backward, and it will be the death of you. Perhaps the death of everything.

//<As [EXPUNGED] exits the cabin, Dr. Lillihammer reaches out with one leg and kicks the door closed behind her.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** We should host parties more often.

**Zwist:** How is that guest list coming along?

//<She hops off the table again, and then bounces on the balls of her feet several times.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Done and dusted. The RSVPs should come pouring in any day now.

//<Dr. Lillihammer deactivates the recording.>//

//<Transcript ends.>//
[[/div]]

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[[div class="lillihammer"]]
__**1 April 2024**__
**In which school is in for summer**

My instructions were very clear. I met each of them at **##teal|the old water hole##**, and led them to Thilo's cabin in complete silence. Nobody arrived to offer us gifts or try to bag a free name or two. Our arrangement with **##ce005c|the neighbourhood watch##** held.

I made them wait outside until everyone was assembled, then brought them in single-file. Thilo was sitting in his rocker, though the full extent of what I'd accomplished very nearly knocked him off it.

"So glad you all could make it," I grinned when we filled the cozy space wall to wall. "I mean, I knew you //could.// I also knew you would. But it still never gets old, being right."

Placeholder looked like he wanted to dash out the door, but he knows all too personally how fucked it is out there. "I'm just here as a consultant," he grumbled. I was almost surprised that he came when I called. Probably he was, too.

Cimarosa hasn't unfolded her arms since we first met in her apartment, as far as I know. "I knew this was a bad idea."

"But you slept on my brilliant, subversive rhetoric," I crowed, "and decided you couldn't sleep on this offer any longer."

Sinclair resisted the urge to wear her costume, though I did tell her she would blend right in. "I can't believe we're actually here."

"I can't believe we're being left //alone// here," Boswell added.

"//I// can't believe you get wi-fi here." Zikry was looking at his phone, which just goes to show you can't bring some people **##green|anywhere##**.

"Cell connection, too." Bradbury also had theirs out, but I'm pretty sure it was just to be contrarian.

Krzysztof was stretching ner arms, despite the close quarters. I thought ne might turn cartwheels on **##sienna|the beaten path##**. "I guess satellites are satellites everywhere."

"Not if they decide to be something else," I smiled. "The way you folks have."

"I was stuck in a big room with thirty people," Hsieh snorted. "Now I'm stuck in a small room with... thirteen? It's //sort of// an improvement, I guess."

"Tolkien would point out that thirteen is an unlucky number," Oberoi remarked.

I nodded. "Good thing there's fourteen, then. Say hello, Bilbo."

Alis rolled her eyes. "I'd rather be Gandalf."

I turned to the laptop on the dining room table, where an indistinct form was watching us from a webcam window. "You can't see it, Avys, but Gandalf is actually in the room with us right now."

The tinny response: "I don't know who that is." 

"Gandalf made fifteen," Brury interjected.

Phoebe had been ready to explode since the moment I met her at **##teal|the meetin' place##**. "Oh my god," she huffed, "who cares."

"//I// care." I made eye contact before making my next statement. "We need to get this right first time, and that's all on me. The buck stops here."

She flinched, and stared at me with wide, frightened eyes. I ignored it.

I clapped my hands, and only half of them jumped. "I think that's the introductions sorted. Everybody remember who they're supposed to be? Awesome. Thilo?"

The old man beamed at them, and I felt a confused sort of reflected pride. "You are here that I might shape you into //auslöscher// and //serumschreiber.// Erasers and cure-writers. You will un-write what has been written, and ease the harm that has been done."

"And here's how we're gonna handle it." I hefted my satchel, and dipped in a hand. "I've made an itemized list based on our earlier interactions, categorizing each of you into one of the two options."

They stared at me, some balefully, some shocked. Only Place looked unsurprised.

I pulled my hand out of the bag, empty. "Nah, obviously I'm just shitting you. Can you imagine? Holy tone deaf."

Thilo shrugged. "It made sense to me."

Brury had nestled himself in a corner, eyeing the others with cautious interest. "So, we get to decide for ourselves, then?" 

"Maybe." I did that teeter-totter thing you do with your hand. "Sort of. I was thinking that the artificial division between them and the other them is part of the whole problem we're facing today. I don't think replicating that binary is going to help anyone. Some of you might take more to one course of action than the other, and that's great, but we each need to be proficient in both skill sets -- or rather, recognize the division is entirely arbitrary. We're going to try to prove that we don't need those old schemas anymore. That we've made the cults obsolete."

"You can never truly bury a people," Zikry said. "You can never erase what has been written." 

"Isn't that the truth," Place grimaced.

"But oh god," Bradbury grinned, "can you ever do a lot of damage trying."

I spoke up to save Thilo the effort. "We aren't going to be doing any damage." 

"Any act of creation on the scale you are proposing," Oberoi interrupted, with a warning in his tone, "will result in some measure of destruction. Reality is reciprocal that way."

Cimarosa pointed at her internet rival. "I nominate this fucker to be destroyed."

"Be careful what you wish for," he murmured back.

Alis nodded. "Here, especially."

Boswell was staring out the window. "It's such **##green|a misleadingly serene setting##**. I could get comfortable **##green|in such a place##**. If the rest of you were elsewhere."

"Can't be any weirder than VKTM," Phoebe muttered into her collar.

Sinclair heard her anyway. "You really don't know anything about **##ce005c|the wanderers in## ##green|these windy woods##**, do you?"

Again I made that knowing eye contact. "I'm pretty sure it was on a list of things she wasn't allowed to talk about."

Phoebe looked away.

"Who is she?" the voice from the laptop demanded. "Who are any of you people?"

Brury opened his mouth again. "I'm--"

"Hey," I said.

"...John. My name is John."

I acknowledged the point with the point of my chin. "Believe it or not -- believe it -- you are some of the most powerful memeticists, cryptomancers, and conceptual outsiders known to we who know everything knowable. I would happily pit this bunch against the entire combined might of the //schriftsteller// and //giftschreiber.//"

"But what are we actually going to be doing?" Hsieh demanded.

As we'd discussed ahead of time, Thilo got the last word. He can make it last so much longer than I can. "Pitting yourselves against the entire combined might of the //schriftsteller// and //giftschreiber.//"

Krzysztof broke the stunned silence that followed. "Duh. Weren't you listening?"

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I wasn't surprised how quickly they took to the material. I wasn't just gassing them up when I said they were the best batch I ever could have hoped to collect, and anyway Thilo had been training himself to teach as much as he'd been teaching me, and the practice paid off. Within days they were picking up a diverse array of skills, showing off their individual perspectives and talents and synergizing in fascinating ways with what the old man had to share. Sinclair pitched in with primers on the basics of thaumaturgy, while Place set even their messed-up minds whirling with his semiotics seminars. It was everything I had hoped for, but that didn't mean I thought it was the least bit unlikely. Pre-ordained, really. 

I also wasn't surprised to see they took more to my division of labor than the one Thilo had in mind. We didn't end up with anything like a clear separation into two camps of anti-Writers. That's not to say there weren't tendencies; Boswell predictably took to the antimemetic side of things to the near-exclusion of all else, and it was where Alis' experience already was, while the overpowering nature of their abilities made Brury and Rose equally good erasers in their own way. 

Phoebe dove right into the curative aspect of things, putting that nominative purity of hers to good use in whatever redemption narrative she imagines she's living through, and she was joined in her enthusiasm by the ones whose dabbling in cryptomancy had always been primarily an act of creation, or at least control: Oberoi, Zikry, and Krzysztof. Avys, Bradbury and Hsieh were in almost perfect balance, which I think actually pissed them off a little. Nobody likes to think they're playing to type, even if they're a type of one.

But in the end, all of them ravenously devoured all the lessons we could teach, all the information we could provide, intent on becoming the best versions of the best candidates I could ever have asked for. And this was only what I had already expected.

Thilo hovered over all of them like a mother hen, Sinclair made sure that none of them got burned by the energies they were playing with, and Place served as a concrete lesson on the perils of abstract thought. None of that was a surprise, either. Even the swell of pride I felt at watching the plan come together, no matter how certain I had been at the outset that it would, had been accounted for.

What actually did surprise me was how quickly they took to each other. 

And not even in predictable ways. If you'd set up a spreadsheet, or table, and to try to map it out, you'd end up with nothing like the final results. Something about Brury fascinated Boswell, even though -- or perhaps because -- they couldn't possibly have wanted more different things from the world. I made a note for the latter's HMCL that he actually seemed to be enjoying the attention for the first time. Hsieh and Phoebe were thick as thieves within a week, choleric and melancholy, never mixing but somehow making the perfect match. Oberoi and Rose were openly disdainful of each other in a way anyone could have predicted, and yet they sought out Krzy and Zikry, respectively, almost like what they really needed out of this group was to see their rival through a mirror, on a different light wavelength. Avys soaked up everyone's time and energy, the fantastic little shit, and Alis adapted as best she could to the idea that she belonged here... though I'm sure she still kept herself at arm's length, mindful of what had happened the last time. Or maybe she was just missing... no. No, I don't want to think about that at all. 

The point is, most of them had paired off in some way before Thilo could even take them through the basics. There were cliques as they tackled the //mittelgrammatik,// factions as we covered the //unter,// and by the time we had reached the heady heights of the //uber?//

They were, against all odds, a community. As though before I'd come after them, they'd already been looking for each other.

What they built was defined in opposition, unfortunately, but that's the way tribes form. We are not them. We will not do what they do. I was determined, nevertheless, that there would be no further tribalism. No in- and out-groups. If this was really the best face humanity could turn to its own reflection, it would need to be stronger and wiser than any that had ever come before. 

Because these bonds would ultimately be tested, and hopefully galvanized, in an act of violence. They would need to be strong enough that the experience would not crack what had been forged.

This was a chain that could not be broken, because it was designed to keep the rest of us from tumbling into the abyss.

And I would be the anchor that kept us from drifting apart.
[[/div]]

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[[/=]]

When I called the final, fateful meeting, there was none of the bickering and backbiting of the early days. None of the resentment and suspicion with which most of them had first greeted me. We were at ease with each other, and ourselves. 

But the easy part was over.

[[div class="blockquote"]]
//<Transcript begins.>//

//<The cryptomancers are assembled on **##green|the verdant frontage##** of Zwist's cabin, waiting for their next instructions. Zwist is leaning on his cane, beaming. Dr. Lillihammer is glancing from person to person, frowning.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Where's Brury?

**Alis:** Making **##ce005c|the bunnies who don't know when to quit##** cry again. 

//<Regevoy appears at **##sienna|the fateful fork##**, puffing.>//

**Regevoy:** I'm here! I'm here. 

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Stop embarrassing **##ce005c|the local yokels##**.

**Bradbury:** It's like watching a monkey try to carry too many oranges.

//<Dr. Boswell is peering at Dr. Lillihammer.>//

**Dr. Boswell:** Is it time? You've got that rare look on your face. 

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Rare look?

**Bradbury:** I think he means your serious one. 

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Oh. Yeah. Well, this is serious. Because yes, folks. We're there. We made it. 

//<Silence on recording.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Maybe that ought to be a joyful declaration. Everybody throwing their hats in the air, sort of thing. But I think you know that what needs to happen next is going to be a bit of a tall order, no matter how far we've come. 

**Zwist:** And you have come so very far. I...

//<He reaches up to brush tears from his eyes.>//

**Zwist:** I have never known such communion in my life. It has been a pleasure to impart some small spark to the fires that burn within you all. 

//<Hsieh is holding the laptop displaying Avys' image.>//

**Avys:** He can't even give a proper blubbering speech. Perfect poise at all times. 

//<There is a moment's awkward silence.>//

**Oberoi:** So, the target is chosen?

**Zikry:** The place and time is set?

//<Dr. Lillihammer nods.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** I've known from the start. I've just been waiting for you all to catch up with me. 

**Dr. Hsieh:** And now we have.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Sure, I'll let you believe that. But it's more like we're out of time. Putting it off this long was already a danger, but we've made good use of the interim. 

**Alis:** I'm amazed they haven't found us yet. 

**Krzysztof:** If we're very lucky, they don't even know we exist. 

**Dr. Lillihammer:** If that's the case, our luck runs out tomorrow. We're going on a field trip. 

**Phoebe:** By which you mean we're attacking something. What? 

**Dr. Lillihammer:** The //schriftsteller// guildhall.

//<Silence on recording.>//

**Cimarosa:** Oh. Is that all. 

**Zikry:** I take it this means you finally figured out where it is. 

**Oberoi:** I was still hoping they'd show me, some day. I've been there--

**Cimarosa:** Surprise!

**Oberoi:** --but they kept the location secret, even from me. And took most of my memories when I left.

**Regevoy:** None of us were ever getting in that door under our own terms, friends. Not with their blessing. 

//<Dr. Hsieh spits on the grass.>//

**Dr. Hsieh:** Don't want their fucking blessing. 

**Dr. Lillihammer:** But be ready for their curses. This is going to be a major mindfuck of an operation.

**Avys:** Where is this thing, anyway? 

**Dr. Boswell:** I would also very much like to know. The //geistschreiber// tried for years without effect to find the place. 

**Zwist:** That is because there was no place to find.

**Cimarosa:** What's that supposed to mean? 

**Dr. Lillihammer:** The //schriftsteller// guildhall is located within the noösphere.

//<Silence on recording.//>

**Bradbury:** Journey to the centre of the mind, then?

**Dr. Hsieh:** This is gonna be some //Twin Peaks// shit, I just know it. 

**Alis:** They're not creative enough for //Twin Peaks.//

**Oberoi:** But their power of creation is unparalleled. So this does make sense. What... what an audacious thing to do. 

**Krzysztof:** Monstrous, more like. Living in everyone's memory. 

**Phoebe:** They're not the only ones. 

**Dr. Lillihammer:** I think they've been living rent-free long enough, don't you? 

**Regevoy:** How are we going to get in? 

**Dr. Sinclair:** The oriykalkos reactor the Foundation used to create the Frontispiece has been refurbished. 

**Dr. Boswell:** I thought there wasn't enough pure oriykalkos left to power it properly.

//<Dr. Sinclair blinks her left eye, revealing it to be [[[/scp-6500 | the Oriykalkos Codex]]]. It glows a serene blue.>//

**Dr. Boswell:** Oh.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Kat will get us in the door.

**Bradbury:** And what are we going to do, once we're in? Smash the furniture? 

**Zwist:** There is a font at the farthest chamber. The closest thing to a holy relic the //schriftsteller// know. It provides access to the fabric of the collective unconscious. Through it, you may touch the minds of all mankind. 

**Dr. Lillihammer:** I'm gonna stick my greasy fingers in it. 

**Avys:** Lobotomize the human race? Not judging, just want clarification. 

**Zwist:** She can do no damage with the Font's mediation. But it will give her the fullest possible understanding of how to perform our art. This is the final impediment between Lillian and a mastery of our mysteries that outstrips mine, Keil's, anyone else's. With her existing eclectic education, Lillian will become by default the arch-cryptomancer of this reality.

//<Silence on recording.>//

**Dr. Hsieh:** And that's something we want? 

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Depends on whether you trust me or not.

//<Silence on recording.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** A roaring endorsement.

**Dr. Boswell:** What's the plan? Can we have a plan for something like this?

**Bradbury:** What does it even mean to have a structure in the noösphere? Is it concrete? Does it change? Can they change it on the fly?

**Zwist:** They will have had to embed it so firmly in the //spiritus mundi// that nothing can shake its foundations. That implies a certain solidity.

**Cimarosa:** And we're talking about //schriftsteller// here. Zero creative bones.

**Oberoi:** No insult intended, I'm sure.

**Cimarosa:** Are you?

**Zwist:** I have been to this place only once. When my apprenticeship had progressed to the point where it was known I would be of value to the order. When I became truly accepted. I was linked to the //spiritus mundi,// given a glimpse at the shores of our collective sea of thought. 

**Zikry:** Dangerous. I never got close to that level of access.

**Oberoi:** I never got past the entrance, if my hazy recollections are correct.

**Zwist:** I imagine the deeper cloisters are reserved for only the inner circle now, as even that narrow inlet gave me the power to craft a curse, in my rage, which has plagued humanity since. 

**Phoebe:** They shut the door behind you. Makes sense.

**Krzysztof:** Also might suggest that when we kick down the door, we won't be seeing every //schriftsteller// on the planet phasing in to stop us.

**Alis:** Yeah. Just the most powerful ones.

**Dr. Sinclair:** Well, actually. If they think you're going to take their head-quarters--

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Nice.

**Dr. Sinclair:** --away from them, they might decide to open the floodgates.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** That's one thing we'll want to deal with, then. Finding a way to prevent reinforcements. 

**Zwist:** Here is my thinking. We are entering the realm of pure thought, but it has been married in this instance to a set of solid concepts. There will be physical rules which govern our time there. I believe that any act the //schriftsteller// might commit in their guild hall will be controlled by a physical mechanism of some kind. Something recognizable as what it is. I do not imagine they, or we, will be dreaming things into existence on the fly.

**Avys:** So, we can scheme on general principles and figure it probably applies.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** I love it when a consensus reality comes together. Who wants to be on gatekeeping duty?

**Oberoi:** When you put it that way...

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Of course.

**Cimarosa:** I'm going with him.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Even more of course.

**Oberoi:** Making sure I don't seal us up instead?

**Cimarosa:** Making sure you don't let more of your friends in.

//<Krzysztof sighs.>//

**Krzysztof:** He's on our side, Rose.

**Zikry:** We need to stop thinking in terms of //sides.// That's what this has all been about.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** It's also been a little bit about training you bunch to help me punch these fuckers in the nose. So, let's keep identifying issues. 

**Dr. Hsieh:** Soundscape. We'll need total control of acoustics in there. The //giftschreiber// use music and whistling and stuff like that a lot more than the //schriftsteller// do, but we'll want to be deploying sounds of our own.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Right up your alley.

//<Regevoy raises his hand.>//

**Regevoy:** Memetic attacks require focus.

**Avys:** Didn't you get your name problem thing from these guys in the first place? They'll probably be able to short circuit you.

**Oberoi:** I don't think that's the case, actually.

**Regevoy:** Oh?

**Oberoi:** I know for a fact that not every experiment the //schriftsteller// have attempted over the years has worked out to their satisfaction. A lot of the FIREBREAK attacks involved dumping half-formed ideas on the enemy, and letting them sort it out.

**Regevoy:** You're saying I might be, what? A dirty bomb?

**Oberoi:** I'm saying the effect surrounding you is. You're just a person.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** But a very distracting person. You're good with putting that to use, Brury?

**Regevoy:** It'll be nice to do it on purpose. Maybe.

**Zikry:** I've got a few toys that should make quite a splash.

**Krzysztof:** It probably goes without saying that I am also pretty good at running interference.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Nothing goes without saying today. We outline this shit in full before we go in.

**Dr. Sinclair:** Doesn't Dr. McDoctorate have a stock admonition about the dangers of fully describing the plan beforehand?

//<Dr. McDoctorate opens his mouth.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** He definitely does. Let's keep going. Who've we got who feels comfortable with meme-to-meme combat?

//<Phoebe locks eyes with her, angrily.>//

**Phoebe:** Do you even know what I do?

**Dr. Lillihammer:** No, and I've been watching you not do it for weeks. Do tell.

**Phoebe:** I was a general researcher, but one of my specialties was countermemetics. I can take a lot of what they dish out.

**Dr. Sinclair:** A general researcher where?

**Dr. Boswell:** Prometheus? Anderson?

//<Phoebe does not respond, still staring at Dr. Lillihammer.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Doesn't matter where she's from. She's here. Who else?

**Avys:** You find a way to hook me up, I can soundboard the shit out of these boomers.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Stop calling everything a boomer.

**Zikry:** Was there a name for your generation, Thilo?

**Zwist:** We didn't think in terms of generations.

**Lillihammer:** Because nobody lived that long. We're gonna need at least one more countermemeticist if we're going to make it to a ripe old age ourselves.

**Dr. Hsieh:** Obviously me. I'll coordinate with the kid.

**Avys:** Dibs on boss.

**Dr. Hsieh:** Not how that works.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** We'll need some skulduggery as well, especially in the early stages. We need access to the Font, and we need a sense of their numbers. Mind invasions are pretty overt things.

**Alis:** Do I even need to say anything?

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Who else?

**Cimarosa:** You can't see me.

//<The assembled cryptomancers blink to clear their vision, save for Dr. Lillihammer and Zwist.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** I'm assuming that worked on the rest of you.

**Sinclair:** Isn't magic fun? I've always been telling people.

**Dr. Boswell:** You might not be surprised to know that I emit a low-level antimemetic field at all times.

**Dr. McDoctorate:** And he's learned to abstract himself very effectively. Not as effectively as me, but.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** You're not going.

**Dr. McDoctorate:** Right.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** No, I mean... I was stating that as a...

//<She growls, and squeezes her eyes shut in frustration. Dr. McDoctorate blinks at her.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** AND THAT LEAVES a few heavy-hitters with me, on the main offensive.

**Bradbury:** They won't know how to describe what hit them.

**Oberoi:** It will be novel to sow confusion for a good cause.

**Phoebe:** Is that what we are? A good cause?

//<Dr. Lillihammer looks to Zwist.>//

//<He taps his cane on the grass, once.>//

**Zwist:** I think you all know the answer, by now.

//<Dr. Lillihammer deactivates the recording.>//

//<Transcript ends.>//
[[/div]]

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[[/=]]

[[div class="flashyhammer"]]
[[=]]
++ Operation BURNOUT Transcripts, Excerpt
[[/=]]
----

**Context:** Kijek wasn't lying when she said she was trying to blow up Site-01's decommissioned reactor, and by now I knew for sure why that was. With a little help from two mad scientists of my acquaintance, it was soon up and in working order again.

----

//<Transcript begins.>//

//<Drs. Ilse Reynders and Placeholder McDoctorate, esoteric polymaths, are examining the many control panels for the oriykalkos reactor in preparation for its activation. Dr. McDoctorate appears uncomfortable around Dr. Reynders; they do not seem to understand his reticence, and both perform their duties awkwardly, though efficiently.>//

//<The// auslöcher/serumschreiber //are sitting on medical benches arrayed in a circle in one corner of the vast chamber. Dr. Lillihammer remains standing. Dr. Reynders and Dr. McDoctorate approach the group, and the former begins to speak as soon as all attention is on them.>//

**Dr. Reynders:** I never wanted to enter this room.

//<They point up the machinery which dwarfs the entire group.>//

**Dr. Reynders:** I'm partially responsible for that thing, and I'm not happy about it. That reactor was sufficient, with the aid of two dozen thaumaturges, to effect a permanent alteration of the noösphere in 1969. With an increase in automation (and research on demonics), Dr. Sinclair's peerless eye--

//<Dr. Sinclair winks, and the ambient light in the room is briefly less blue.>//

**Dr. Reynders:** —and a more potent combination of cryptomancers than has likely been assembled since the seventeenth century--

//<Zwist looks down at his hands.>//

**Dr. Reynders:** —I am confident we have everything we need to manage this intrusion into the //schriftsteller// guildhall. 

**Dr. Lillihammer:** And once we're in, there's no way we lose.

**Dr. McDoctorate:** How many times have I asked you never to say things like that?

//<He sighs.>//

**Dr. McDoctorate:** Our telesomnic hookups will allow recordings to be made of your journey and sent back to ETTRA for analysis. 

//<He raises a fistful of diode-studded leads.>//

**Dr. McDoctorate:** You'll also be linked in with a secure, truncated feed to Zwist's cabin, where Avys will be monitoring all of your feeds and supplying coordination.

//<Avys' voice is suddenly audible over the reactor room's speaker system, startling most of the group.>//

**Avys:** And probably eating all the potato chips as well.

**Bradbury:** Sure, they visit //after// we're all gone.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** I'm trying to keep their identity safe.

**Dr. McDoctorate:** Right, you picked a //terrific// relay position for them if that's the case.

//<Dr. Lillihammer shrugs.>//

**Dr. Reynders:** Anyway. 

**Dr. McDoctorate:** Right. Everything's settled, and we're good to get started.

**Dr. Reynders:** Place and I will make sure the reactor keeps spinning and nothing goes wrong. You're in good hands.

//<Dr. McDoctorate smiles weakly. It is almost a wince.>//

**Dr. McDoctorate:** I've done the math, and I think Dr. Sinclair will be able to perform limited thaumaturgy on the other side so long as she keeps two things in mind, ha ha.

**Dr. Sinclair:** Ha ha.

**Dr. McDoctorate:** You will be within the noösphere. Your life energy will be drawn from all of human cognition. You will not want to draw too deeply, is what I'm saying.

//<Silence on recording.>//

**Dr. Sinclair:** Jesus.

**Dr. McDoctorate:** And also the Codex is helping power the reactor, so if anything happens to you--

**Dr. Hsieh:** We'll all get kicked out?

//<Dr. McDoctorate smiles even more weakly than before.>//

**Phoebe:** What?

**Zikry:** What aren't you saying?

//<Cimarosa exhales loudly.>//

**Cimarosa:** He's not saying we'll //die.// Isn't that obvious?

**Regevoy:** So, we //won't// die?

**Krzysztof:** Defend the wizard. Got it.

**Bradbury:** That's the warrior's job.

//<Oberoi smiles at Dr. Lillihammer.>//

**Oberoi:** I think this chatter is all nerves, Lillian. You know what that means?

//<She nods.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** It means you're ready to cross the synaptic gap.

//<She glances at each of the assembled cryptomancers, memeticists,// et cetera//.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Any last words before we take the plunge?

//<Most members of the group look uncomfortable, but they choose not to express it verbally.>//

**Zwist:** Whatever happens, know that I am very, very proud of each of you.

//<Dr. Lillihammer lies down on her bed.>//

//<Dr. McDoctorate applies the leads to each member of the group while Dr. Reynders begins the reactor's startup sequence. He pauses briefly at Dr. Lillihammer's side, as though intending to say something. He does not, and she nods. When she next speaks, addressing the group, she is looking directly at him.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Think happy thoughts.

[[=]]
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[[/=]]

//<The group manifest simultaneously in a sumptuous entrance foyer. The back wall is dominated by a vast stained glass window depicting a robed figure casting rays of light on an assemblage of wise persons, surrounded by symbols of art and industry; the figure's face is impossible to make out on any OMNI feed. The front wall features two heavy iron doors, each perhaps thirty feet tall and ten feet wide.>//

//<Linked by the reactor and Dr. Sinclair's Codex, the group are able to communicate without verbalizing so long as eye contact is maintained. Avys is able to communicate with any group member at any time, so long as the telesomnic feeds are active. Said feeds register these transmissions as speech; this will be denoted with (round brackets).>//

**Alis:** (Okay, when I said I was good at stealth, I didn't picture a single entrance as big as a bus.)

//<Dr. Lillihammer places her hand on one of the doors.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (Relativity.)

**Phoebe:** (What?)

**Dr. Boswell:** (I get what she means.)

//<He walks to the back of the hall, eyeing the doors as he takes a position beneath the window.>//

**Dr. Boswell:** (Back up, and I'll pass you.)

//<Dr. Lillihammer nods. Keeping her eyes on the door, she begins to step backward toward Dr. Boswell as he moves toward her, focused on the same object.>//

//<On Dr. Boswell's feed, the doors gradually shrink in size until they are no taller than he is. He opens them, and passes through.>//

//<On the other feeds, there is a faint distortion of the bottom left corner of the left door.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (Observation. Twain says it's the writer's most important tool.)

//<The doors disappear. Dr. Boswell is standing on the other side, in a colonnaded hall larger than any existing on Earth, with inlaid marble floors and a high, vaulted ceiling painted with countless vibrant murals.>//

**Dr. Boswell:** (Two-way illusion. One-way, now. Alis can come through.)

**Avys:** (You're up, bluehair.)

//<Alis walks through the space where the doors were, emerging to stand beside Dr. Boswell. She turns, and on her feed the doors appear to still be in place.>//

//<A// schriftsteller //is sitting on a bench against one of the columns, looking at the doors with a bored expression.>//

//<Cimarosa appears beside Alis and Dr. Boswell, and the sentry stands up abruptly.>//

**Sentry:** Wh--

**Cimarosa:** Why don't you take a break?

//<The sentry blinks at her, confused.>//

**Cimarosa:** You can't call for help anyway. Your throat is closing up.

//<He reaches for his collar, spluttering silently.>//

**Dr. Boswell:** (This is not what I would call stealth.)

**Alis:** (No, it's a lot more fun.)

//<The sentry passes out. Dr. Boswell just barely manages to catch him, and lays him down on the bench.>//

//<Cimarosa kneels over him.>//

**Cimarosa:** Dream of the guildhall. Stay with us.

//<She glances at the others.>//

**Cimarosa:** (Don't want him raising the alarm in the real world.)

//<Dr. Boswell nods, and heads for one of the towering arcades. As he enters the shadows, he disappears from the other telesomnic feeds. His own feed continues as he explores the edge of the hall.>//

**Alis:** (Looks like we're clear in this room. How fucking big is this place?)

//<Avys' voice addresses the entire group at once.>//

**Avys:** (Big empty hall. Go on in.)

//<The other cryptomancers enter.>//

//<Exploration of the space takes several minutes. It is large enough to comfortably house two large jet airplanes, nose to tail.>//

**Krzysztof:** (How... would you ever go about making something like this?)

**Oberoi:** (Grand projects of order. All the rage every century or so.)

**Cimarosa:** (Typical conservative thinking.)

**Zikry:** (You find //this// conservative?)

**Cimarosa:** (They got into the realm of pure imagination and they built a pocket of normal space in it. Yes, I'd call that conservative.)

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (Better than a candy factory.)

**Avys:** (Disagree.)

//<Dr. Boswell heads for one of the towering arcades. As he enters the shadows, he disappears from the other feeds. His own feed continues as he explores the edge of the hall.>//

**Alis:** (Looks like we're clear here. How fucking big is this place?)

**Oberoi:** (This is definitely just the meeting room.)

**Phoebe:** (You mean this isn't, like, the grand hall or anything?)

**Lillihammer:** (They don't call them mind hovels, Phoeb.)

**Phoebe:** (Don't call me a feeb, //Lils.//)

**Avys:** (Joe says there's about twenty different exits, all of them shut. He can't hear anybody.)

//<Alis is examining the unconscious// giftschreiber.//>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (Gonna go for it?)

//<The other woman glances at her in confusion.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (Hey, you were the one harping about self-discovery.)

//<Alis scowls at her, then nods. She kneels before the prone cryptomancer, and begins whispering in his ear.>//

//<Cimarosa and Oberoi are examining the back side of the doors.>//

**Oberoi:** (I should be able to convince any new arrivals that I'm the real sentry. They'll recognize me, though they won't understand why.)

**Cimarosa:** (And I'll keep him from ratting us out.)

//<He gives her a pained look. She sighs.>//

**Cimarosa:** (And also make them think the doors are actually doors. I'd like to see how many //schrifts// it takes to push them open.)

//<A figure resembling the sentry, consistent with the feed from Alis, stands up and heads out of the hall to the left.>//

//<Zikry approaches Oberoi and Cimarosa.>//

**Zikry:** (If the doors were real, I could alter them into something more useful.)

//<Dr. Lillihammer pats him on the shoulder.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (You'll get your chance to whittle them down, don't worry.)

//<She glances around the group, finally noticing Zwist. He is standing to the side of the massive doors, staring up at the ceiling, transfixed.>//

//<She stands in front of him.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (Thilo?)

//<He looks down, slowly, finally making eye contact.>//

**Zwist:** (I'm here, Lillian.)

//<She reaches out to hold his upper arms.>//

**Lillian:** (I know you are, buddy.)

//<He shakes his head.>//

**Zwist:** (I'm //here.// After all these centuries. They've done so much harm, and I didn't even know. They came back here after Herbsthausen. They've been here //the entire time.//)

//<She squeezes his shoulders, and steers him over to the remainder of the group.>// 

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (Then you owe them a housewarming present.)

**Avys:** (Joe says someone's coming from the right. Fifth door from the... doors. The big doors. Alis says there's two someones eight doors on the left. From the... you get it.)

//<The group scatter behind pillars, except for Regevoy. Three// schriftsteller //enter the hall; the two approaching from the right notice the one on the left, and laugh.>//

//<Regevoy laughs as well, and all three turn to face him.>//

**Regevoy:** Hi! I'm Brury Regevoy.

//<The// schriftsteller //who entered from the left jogs forward to meet him, hand extended, a manic grin expanding to cover his face.>//

//<Dr. Lillihammer hisses, but Regevoy is looking away from her and does not hear.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** That's--

**First Schriftsteller:** Hi! I'm Brad Smelt.

//<Every individual in the hall, save for Dr. Lillihammer and Zwist, bursts into raucous laughter.>//

**Avys:** (Joe and Alis want to know what the fuck is happening.)

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Be glad...! You were m...! Monitoring... //them.// 

//<She forces herself to cough, shaking the laughs out of her system, then steps out into the open. The two unnamed// schriftsteller //notice her immediately, though they are holding their sides and still laughing. Regevoy and Smelt are eyeing each other with ambivalent smiles.>//

//<Dr. Lillihammer points at the second// schriftsteller, //and her eyes flash white.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** [https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/brad Brad].

//<The man bolts, striking his head on the nearest column and winking out of existence.>//

//<Dr. Lillihammer points at his partner, and her eyes flash again.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** [https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/smelt Smelt].

//<The man's joints fuse, and he pitches forward to break his nose on the marble floor. Cimarosa kneels beside him, murmuring.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (Brury? We good?)

//<Regevoy and Smelt are still staring at each other, occasionally twitching. Zwist hobbles over to examine them.>//

**Zwist:** (Semantic cancellation. They're trying to determine whose effect is more functional.)

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (Well, we can't stay here while they compare Hancocks. Avys, what--)

**Avys:** (They're both getting fed up because you guys are still back there. Alis says she's in some sort of memorial hall, and Joe thinks he's in sleeping quarters.)

//<Dr. Lillihammer nods.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (Bianca, keep an eye on these two.)

//<She indicates Regevoy and Smelt.>//

**Cimarosa:** (I've only got so many.)

**Oberoi:** (I promise to only betray anyone when they're looking right at me.)

//<The group, minus Cimarosa, Oberoi, and Regevoy, advance. Dr. Lillihammer leads the way, and she takes them down the passage Alis took earlier.>//

//<They exit into a seemingly endless arched stone hallway, with regular niches. There are statues and portraits in each niche. The group proceed at a quick pace, though Zwist occasionally stops to utter sounds of recognition.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (Friends of yours?)

**Zwist:** (I recognize a few. Well, more than a few. Some we lost in the war. Some who were at Herbsthausen.)

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (Then they didn't get away unscathed. Not all of them.)

**Zwist:** (I prefer to believe that none of us did.)

//<They reunite with Alis, in the guise of the// schriftsteller //sentry, at the end of the memorial hall. She is flexing her fingers, and standing over the stunned form of another male// schriftsteller.//>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (Tell me you didn't just punch him.)

//<Alis resumes her usual appearance.>//

**Alis:** (He went in for a kiss. I'm not that easy.)

//<The adjacent chamber has the rough shape and dimensions of a gothic cathedral, filled with row on row of desks with writing implements.>//

**Zwist:** (There were examinations here.)

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (Not recently, I hope.)

**Zwist:** (They must have been training replacements. You've seen far more--)

//<A figure appears at the far end of the hall, pointing a finger at the group and screaming in several voices at once. The voices are in no kind of harmony.>//

//<Phoebe punches herself in the face.>//

//<Krzysztof leaps onto the nearest desk from a standing start, and begins running from desktop to desktop in a seemingly random pattern. The// schriftsteller //lowers her finger, staring dumbfounded, before Krzysztof ends ner ballet by planting one shoe in the woman's face.>//

//<Zikry and Bradbury are holding Phoebe back as the latter attempts to continue attacking herself. Hsieh kneels down in front of her, frowning.>//

**Hsieh:** (Made you go all //Strangelove,// huh? Probably... hey, Ave, can you ask Joe a question?)

**Avys:** (That was a superfluous sentence. Yes I can and yes I will so state--)

**Dr. Hsieh:** (Monadology. That was Leibniz, right?)

**Avys:** (Joe says you're right about gonads.)

**Dr. Hsieh:** (Monads.)

**Avys:** (Yeah.)

//<Hsieh sighs, half-smiling. Tā leans in to whisper in Phoebe's ear.>//

**Dr. Hsieh:** You're an atheist. VKTM only hires religious people as a joke.

//<Phoebe spasms, then her eyelids flutter and she gasps.>//

**Phoebe:** Oh, fuck. That was bad.

//<Hsieh looks up at Dr. Lillihammer.>//

**Hsieh:** (They hit her with the mind-body problem. Leibniz says they're separate, and only God keeps them in harmony.)

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (Hooray for beating dead people in a fair fight. Get her up.)

//<The guildhall is a maze of enormous, improbable structures, elegant and opulent to the point of tackiness. Zikry pauses on several occasions, pen knife in hand, as the group passes various wooden fixtures.>//

**Lillihammer:** (Any idea where we're headed, boss?)

//<Zwist is scowling.>//

**Zwist:** (I was led here in procession. I never even saw the entrance hall. It was all very secret.)

//<Dr. Sinclair, who has been mostly silent thus far, speaks up.>//

**Sinclair:** (I think we ought to head that way.)

//<She points down a narrow service hallway, the entrance facing roughly in the direction of the entrance hall.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (You sure they don't just want you to think that? Because that's basically the way we came.)

//<Dr. Sinclair confidently leads the way.>//

**Dr. Sinclair:** (I don't know jack about memetics, but we've got something similar in basic thaumaturgy. It's called intuition, and it's really just unconscious pattern internalization. I think this is how you're meant to find your way around: just be in here until your subconscious figures it out. So I've been watching, and listening, instead of talking.)

//<Dr. Lillihammer glances at Zwist. He shrugs.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (Why not. We're on a hunt; let's follow the fox.)

//<Dr. Sinclair scowls, but does not argue.>//

//<The hall curves, and rises in elevation at several points. Before long it becomes obvious that the group is heading deeper into the guildhall, rather than returning to the entrance. Unfortunately, their progress is halted when they encounter a deep ravine bisecting the hall. It is too far across to jump.>//

//<Dr. Lillihammer glances down. No bottom can be seen.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (You're our bottomless pit expert, too, Kat. Any ideas?)

//<Dr. Sinclair shrugs.>//

**Dr. Sinclair:** (Don't fall in?)

//<Phoebe kneels down, and runs her hands along the edge of the fault.>//

**Phoebe:** (Hmm.)

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (What?)

**Phoebe:** (It's a break. Not part of the intended design.)

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (Suggesting noöspheric earthquakes. I kind of hate that idea. No.)

**Phoebe:** (Yeah. But this place is entirely imagined, right?)

**Zwist:** (Lillian's findings suggest the //schriftsteller// called it into existence centuries ago, with the power of sheer belief.)

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (Which sounds kind of like shit from a horse, if you ask me.)

**Phoebe:** (One of the first things you learn at VKTM is how human psychology works. You ever hear of counterfactual thinking?)

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (Don't--)

//<Phoebe steps into the void.>//

//<It supports her weight.>//

//<Her voice is quavering but proud as she speaks again.>//

**Phoebe:** (It's when you imagine what might have happened, instead of what did. This place is one big cognitive construction, and the way it was meant to be is stronger than whatever happened here.)

//<She strides confidently over the gap, and disappears around the next corner.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (Bet she didn't learn //that// from a deer.)

**Dr. Sinclair:** (Well, there is that--)

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (We don't talk about that one.)

//<Just before the service tunnels terminate in a gold-inlaid oak door, there is a narrow cleft winding perpendicular. There are footsteps visible in the dust on the floor. Dr. Lillihammer frowns.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (Do we go for targets of opportunity?)

//<Muttering can be heard from farther along the cleft.>//

**Zwist:** (Perhaps we had better. We don't want someone creeping up behind us, boxing us in.>

**Avys:** (John wants to know how you guys got over the big hole.)

**Krzysztof:** (Tell him he needs to be pure of heart, and, what's the word?)

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (Penitent.)

**Avys:** (Don't know what that means, but he must because he said fuck you and he'll be right there.)

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (Were you going to tell us he woke up?)

**Avys:** (I was watching Joe. I think he just made a guy eat his nose?)

**Dr. Hsieh:** (Whose nose?)

//<Regevoy appears around the corner, panting.>//

**Regevoy:** (There's about ten sleeping //schriftsteller// in the entrance hall now. They recognized Nirav, and he led them in an election song. Then Bianca made them lick the floor.)

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (Avys...)

**Avys:** (Eat. His. //Nose.//)

//<Dr. Lillihammer leads the group down the side passage. It terminates in a thickly-locked door apparently constructed out of solid steel.>//

//<Zikry examines it for a moment, then begins carving symbols on the surface of the metal. Though the scratches do not go deep, concentric circles and floral patterns are quickly recognizable.>//

//<Zikry walks through the door, without first opening it.>//

//<The others exchange glances, then follow suit.>//

//<The space beyond is a small arc of bedrock cave. There is a light farther on, and frantic babbling can now be heard.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (As a wise woman once said, I'm going to need you to explain that one to me.)

**Zikry:** (Flowers. I made it a door down the garden path.)

//<Silence on recording.>//

**Zikry:** ("Lead you down the garden path"? Trickery? Real door becomes fake door.)

**Avys:** (How do you people know these things?)

//<After the switchback, the cave broadens out to a large cavern perhaps one hundred metres wide and two metres high at its apex. The walls are covered in etched symbols, some in chalk, some carved into the stone. There is rough burlap bedding on the floor, and the remains of what looks to have been a sumptuous dinner discarded beside it.>//

//<The figure who was audible is standing in the middle of the cavern, furiously erasing and rewriting a formula on the ceiling.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** ...Imrich?

//<The figure turns to stare at her, and is identifiable as Dr. Imrich Sýkora, Class-II thaumaturge, kidnapped from Site-43 in 2019. He points at each of the group members in turn.>//

**Dr. Sýkora:** Too many. Not yet.

//<He returns to his carving.>//

//<Dr. Lillihammer approaches, and places a hand on Sýkora's shoulder.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** We're going to get you out of here.

//<He does not appear to hear her, and continues etching.>//

//<Dr. Lillihammer reaches into her satchel, and removes several cognitive clearance cards. She runs them in front of Sýkora's unseeing eyes, to no effect.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (He's catatonic. They've got him in a predictive trance.)

**Krzysztof:** (Predictive?)

//<Dr. Lillihammer gestures at the walls.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (He's a thaumaturge. His Talent is mathematical prediction.)

**Bradbury:** (Why keep him here?)

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (In the real world, he only has access to data about things he can perceive. In the noösphere...)

**Dr. Hsieh:** (He can access people's minds? The collective unconscious?)

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (And make predictions based on that.)

//<She scans the symbols on the walls briefly.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (I... I think this is a map of the entire cycle, and every permutation it might take.)

//<The group fall silent. Sýkora continues to mutter to himself.>//

**Krzysztof:** Is it finished? Do they know how the rest of this goes? 

**Dr. Lillihammer:** I hope not. Because if they do...

//<Dr. Lillihammer curses under her breath, mentally.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** ("All prophets are used.")

**Zwist:** (What?)

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (Something Chaos Resurgent said in their first big message of gobbledegook. They didn't need any of their old methods of predicting the future, because they got one they liked much better. Imrich.)

**Dr. Sinclair:** (But this is the //schriftsteller// guildhall. Chaos Resurgent works for the //giftschreiber.// Right? They must.)

**Phoebe:** (Maybe there's been a tug of war. One side snatches him, the other takes him back.)

**Zikry:** (He looks like a long term resident. And there's thousands of hours of stuff written in here.)

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (But he's been gone for tens of thousands of hours.)

**Zikry:** (Maybe he's got more than one cage.)

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (Or maybe...)

**Dr. Sinclair:** (What?)

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (We need to get moving.)

**Zwist:** (What are you thinking?)

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (Place was right. There's always a complication, with heists.)

//<She bites her lip, and nods to herself.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (Avys, tell Bianca and Nirav to be on the lookout for more new arrivals.)

**Avys:** (Okay. Bianca swore at me.)

**Zwist:** (You think they intend to steal this man away from the //schriftsteller?//)

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (I think he's why Tarrow was looking for the guildhall. With enough time and access, Imrich can predict damn near anything.)

**Regevoy:** (How would they know he's here, though?)

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (All cryptomancers are thaumaturges. They might have some remote readers.)

**Dr. Sinclair:** (If they're remote reading this chamber--)

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (//Yeah.//)

//<Dr. Sinclair whistles.>//

**Dr. Sinclair:** (We really //do// need to leave.)

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (But we can't take Imrich with us.)

**Phoebe:** (Why not?)

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (His body isn't where ours are.)

**Phoebe:** (...right. What happens if we break him out of the trance?)

**Zwist:** (He's under a heavy compulsion. The shock might wake him up.)

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (Which would just dump him in a different kind of //schriftsteller// prison.)

**Bradbury:** (At least he'd have a fighting chance.)

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (He's not really that kind of thaumaturge. Or they wouldn't have kidnapped him at all.)

**Alis:** (We could leave him here, but take over. Take the entire hall.)

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (1. That's a lot more than we signed up for; 2. If his brain is in here but his body is out there, they might just flat out kill him.)

//<She sighs, and stares at the transfixed prisoner.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (I have an idea. Imrich? Look at me.)

//<He ignores her.>//

//<She takes his cheeks in her hands, and gently tilts his head so that they are facing each other. He continues to write on the ceiling.>//

//<Dr. Lillihammer's eyes glow white, and she blinks several times in quick succession. Sýkora does not appear to notice. When she releases her grip, he looks back up at the ceiling without breaking concentration on his work.>//

**Regevoy:** (What did you do?)

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (I marked him.)

**Regevoy:** (Marked him how?)

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (You know how they use dye to track fluids in your body?)

**Regevoy:** (Maybe?)

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (Not a lot like that.)

//<She sighs.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (I just wish we could get through for real.)

**Regevoy:** (Maybe we can. You said he's in a loop?)

//<She nods.>//

**Regevoy:** (And his senses still work, based on what you just did?)

//<She nods again, now smiling.>//

//<Regevoy approaches Sýkora, clears his throat, and speaks.>//

**Regevoy:** Brad Smelt.

//<Nothing happens. Regevoy smirks at the others.>//

**Regevoy:** Brury Regevoy.

//<Sýkora blinks, looks directly at Regevoy in shock, and then blinks out of existence.>//

**Alis:** (Did we want him doing that?)

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (Probably better than him being here while we do what we're doing.)

**Zwist:** (How much of the cycle did he predict, and to what level of detail? I can't understand any of this.)

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (Everybody out.)

//<When the rest of the group has returned to the service corridor, Dr. Lillihammer stands in the middle of the room, slowly turns three hundred and sixty degrees, looks up, looks down, and nods.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (We'll find out later.)

//<She rejoins the others.>//

//<After passing out of the service halls the group walks in silence for several more minutes, moving through a tremendous athenaeum, then a reading room, and then a series of private research garrets.>//

**Bradbury:** (Like to get my hands on a few of these books.)

**Dr. Lillihammer:** (We can go on a shopping spree later.)

//<A man walks around the corner of a towering book stack, and turns to face the group. They stop to stare at him. It is Keil Graf.>//

//<Zwist pushes to the front of the group, and Keil addresses him alone.>//

**Keil:** Is it just as you remember it?

**Zwist:** It pales before my memory.

//<Keil shrugs.>//

**Keil:** Everything looks larger to a child. And you were very, very credulous.

//<Zwist knocks the nearest bookshelf with his cane. It echoes hollowly, and the echoes die quickly in the midst of dusty carpets and leather volumes.>//

**Zwist:** No, I think it truly has diminished with age. As have you. Though I admit the outside chance I am merely projecting my estimations.

//<Keil leans on the stack beside him, and runs his fingers through white hair.>//

**Keil:** You came here to injure my feelings?

//<Zwist takes another step forward, and plants his cane firmly on the floorboards.>//

**Zwist:** I came here to heal the wounds you have left to fester.

**Keil:** There are no wounds here but the ones you carry. This place is a celebration of potential. As a child, this, you understood.

**Zwist:** As a child understands.

**Keil:** And that, I think, is the real difference. When you came here then, you were innocent. Not so much anymore. Of course, you'll blame me for that.

//<Zwist shakes his head.>//

**Zwist:** No. You have plenty enough to answer for without borrowing my guilt.

**Keil:** So is //that// your purpose today? You call me to answer?

**Zwist:** I call you only to witness, master of none. 

//<Keil forces a smile, but his lip is curling.>//

**Keil:** You know so little, and yet you would instruct. Arrogance breeding ignorance.

**Zwist:** I would never presume to instruct. If I have taught her anything... well, you will see.

//<Zwist's smile is wide and genuine.>//

**Zwist:** See how much finer a student I had than you did, Keil.

//<Dr. Lillihammer blinks.>//

//<There is a bright flash on every telesomnic feed. When they resolve, each member of the group is looking away from Zwist and Keil. There is shouting in the distance, and zither music is suddenly audible coming from the rafters of the library.>//

**Avys:** (I don't know what's happening, but--)

**Dr. Hsieh:** Clown music!

//<All feeds receive a sudden blaring of a Hungarian folk song from Avys' uplink.>//

**Alis:** That's not clown music!

**Avys:** (Sounds pretty circusy to me. Is it working?)

//<Zikry looks down one row of stacks, then pulls back with a sharp intake of breath.>//

**Zikry:** I don't think the music is an attack. I think the music is an //alarm.//

//<Dr. Lillihammer moves past him, peeking down the rows. A squadron of heavily-armed persons in a variety of military apparel is approaching, bearing the insignia of Chaos Resurgent.>//

**Zikry:** Because I don't think these guys are locals!

**Dr. Lillihammer:** It's the //giftschreiber.// They saw us with Imrich, and they knew they couldn't wait.

//<Bradbury is rolling up their sleeves.>//

**Bradbury:** How the hell did they get in?!

**Avys:** (Gatekeepers say the gate's still kept.)

**Zwist:** Lillian?

//<Zwist's voice is strained. With a great deal of effort, Dr. Lillihammer overrides her own memetic compulsion effect and turns to face him again.>//

//<He is a series of overlapping silhouettes, entirely white. Several scream wordlessly in random directions, while others are hurriedly searching the volumes on the shelves. Keil is chanting an interpolation of Sumerian, Akkadian and Egyptian, alternating vowels between all three in perfect rhythm. Dr. Lillihammer's vision experiences chromatic aberration when she attempts to focus on his hands.>//

//<Bradbury has removed a volume from the shelves, and is flinging crumpled up pages at a group of// schriftsteller //attempting to approach from the flank. They are veering off-course and running face-first into the stacks, or tripping over each other. Phoebe is facing the other flank, muttering under her breath as a figure with bright blue eyes approaches, focusing on her intently.>//

//<It is unclear which version of Zwist is speaking. One of the silhouettes is thinner and slightly taller, and it is bending its knee to Keil. The// schriftsteller's //expression is manic as he continues to chant.>//

**Zwist:** It's that way.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** What way?

**Zwist:** //That way.//

//<Dr. Lillihammer's telesomnic feed briefly displays a series of rooms, the last one leading into the library they are presently occupying. The path leads past the approaching Resurgent force.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** How do you know?

//<The kneeling figure throws its arms up to the sky, and Keil bursts into flame. He does not cease chanting.>//

**Zwist:** I ripped it out of him. Go!

//<Zwist's silhouette is, for just a single frame, Keil instead. One second later, there are two frames of Keil. Then sixty, matching the framerate of the OMNI implants.>//

**Keil:** I am everything he was, and more. //Ego plus sum, ergo ille non est.//

//<Then he staggers forward, and the real Zwist falls into Dr. Lillihammer's arms. Keil's primary form twitches violently, and he stumbles in the opposite direction.>//

//<Dr. Boswell appears from behind Zwist, still holding a large, leather-bound grimoire in his hands.>//

**Dr. Boswell:** Good thing neither of them have eyes in the backs of their--

//<Gunshots ring out, and Dr. Lillihammer shoves Zwist and Boswell into cover behind the stacks. Dr. Sinclair raises a protective ward as the other cryptomancers follow. Phoebe's would-be attacker is prone on the floor, eyes staring up at the second level of the library, unseeing.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Follow me!

**Avys:** (Hi, is this a good time?)

**Dr. Lillihammer:** No!

**Avys:** (Then this is probably extra important. There's //schrift// coming in from the gates. Bianca and Nirav had to book it.)

**Zikry:** Are they in the portrait hall?

**Avys:** (Yeah.)

**Zikry:** Tell them to block the door with that big oil painting of the ugly fat man.

//<Zwist, wheezing, looks up from Dr. Lillihammer's embrace.>//

**Zwist:** That was my grand-uncle.

**Avys:** (Nirav says the painting is "dressing down" the bad guys. Whatever that means.)

**Zikry:** He's everybody's grand-uncle now.

//<Dr. Hsieh cocks tā head to one side, listening to the footsteps of the approaching Resurgent agents.>//

**Dr. Hsieh:** (Five fourteen B, Avys, please.)

//<Dr. Hsieh's feed registers a significantly altered soundscape as Avys feeds tā the relevent file. When tā judges the moment right, Dr. Hsieh pushes one of the bookcases over. There are shouts of anger and confusion, and a single assault rifle rolls across the floor to stop at Dr. Lillihammer's feet. Dr. Boswell leans in to pick it up.>//

//<Zikry counts on his fingers. His eyes widen.>//

**Zikry:** (Avys! White noise!)

//<Seconds after the feeds begin to squeal, there is a loud boom which shakes the floorboards. A blast of water erupts from somewhere deeper in the library; the top of the spout is visible above the stacks, and drops begin raining down around the group.>//

//<Dr. Boswell squints, and pulls the rifle's trigger. A// geistschreiber //pops into existence at the edge of the stacks, and falls to the floor, screaming. He takes aim again, and reveals three more attackers approaching the group. Each writhes in pain for several seconds before winking out of existence again.>//

**Dr. Boswell:** They're gone.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Is this what you folks call memetics?

//<Zikry grins.>//

**Zikry:** It moves people, doesn't it?

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Why the white noise?

**Zikry:** So you wouldn't hear the demons. They can eat your dreams if you hear them.

//<She stares at him until Dr. Hsieh grabs her by the hair, and hauls her away. The group retreats.>//

//<As they race around the perimeter of the library, searching for the door Zwist identified for Dr. Lillihammer, Keil can be seen staggering into the centre of the room where an enormous circulation desk stands beneath a crystal chandelier, which glows a fiery red. There are a few spluttering Resurgent agents hanging from the chandelier; the rest have either fled or been forced out of the noösphere.>//

//[EXPUNGED] is standing at the far end of the room, surrounded by a diverse collection of presumable// giftschreiber.//>//

//<Keil coughs, and shakes his head before speaking.>//

**Keil:** I thought you had more prudence than this, [EXPUNGED].

**[EXPUNGED]:** You did invite me in, if you'll recall. Silly thing to do in **##green|that realm of doubled meanings##**.

//<PoI-6721-1,// geistschreiber //Catherine Wilts, breaks ranks with the others to stand beside [EXPUNGED].>//

**Wilts:** He's half-dead already, let me do the honours. It's not safe for you here.

//<She makes eye contact with Dr. Lillihammer as the group creeps toward their escape.>//

//<[EXPUNGED] regards Wilts with annoyance.>//

**[EXPUNGED]:** This is my prize, not yours. I've worked longer than your lifetime for it.

//<Across the hall, Cimarosa can be seen pushing Oberoi in his wheelchair. A few scattered// schriftsteller //meet them, coming the other way to reinforce Keil; most do not seem to notice the pair -- Cimarosa's mouth can be seen moving, though nothing is audible -- but one briefly salutes Oberoi. He returns the salute, smartly, while Cimarosa narrows her eyes at him.>//

//<Wilts is not backing down.>//

**Wilts:** You know I always make the right calculations. You rely on it. If I stab you in the back, you'll blow my brains out. Easy math.

**[EXPUNGED]:** This is not your moment, Catherine.

**Wilts:** It's about to be //hers.// Do you want that?

//<She points at Dr. Lillihammer, as the latter reaches for a heavy lattice door through which the stairs to the library's mezzanine can be seen.>//

//<[EXPUNGED] glances in their direction, and snorts.>//

**[EXPUNGED]:** When is a door, not a door?

//<Dr. Lillihammer lets go of the door with a shout, and sucks her fingers as though it has closed on them. [EXPUNGED] laughs.>//

**Keil:** You are all novices in my hall. Behave yourselves.

//<Wilts begins heading in Dr. Lillihammer's direction as the latter attempts again to open the door.>//

**[EXPUNGED]:** They were our halls too, once. Have you taken down our portraits?

**Oberoi:** If not, they're probably in very poor shape now anyway.

//<He is wheeling his way through the rubble filling the library. Keil turns to face him, eyes wide, a smile spreading across his face.>//

**Keil:** I always told you. In here, my friend, you can walk.

//<Oberoi smiles at him.>//

**Oberoi:** You know how important my image is. Do you need help with these unruly guests?

//<Cimarosa appears beside [EXPUNGED], where Wilts was standing. The latter is almost to the group, who are watching the altercation as though they cannot look away.>//

**Cimarosa:** I knew they couldn't trust you. Fascist.

//<Oberoi nods at her.>//

**Oberoi:** Or you, apparently. Finally, we have something in common.

//<Both turn to look at Dr. Lillihammer.>//

**Cimarosa and Oberoi:** (It makes a better door than a window.)

//<The remaining members of the group, as one, rush through the door and begin running up the stairs, Wilts on their heels.>//

//<Dr. Lillihammer shouts over her shoulder.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** It's over, Catherine! 

**Bradbury:** Oh, your name is Katherine, too? That's awesome.

//<They punch Dr. Sinclair in the gut, then grab her arms and help her continue to run. Wilts falls over, rolls down the stairs and vomits on the floor as the thaumaturge coughs in Bradbury's arms. The group run along the mezzanine; the// schriftsteller //and// giftschreiber //below are engaged in memetic combat, judging by the confused hubbub of voices. Avys plays a counter-agent of alternating tones over the telesomnic feeds.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** You know, I work with a Bradbury.

**Bradbury:** You want her punched in the stomach, too?

//<Dr. Sinclair shakes off Bradbury's grip, glaring daggers. The latter pulls a thin volume out of her jacket -- the cover reads// The Book of Convergence //-- and begins to page through its contents. Some of the pages are still smouldering from the explosion.>//

**Phoebe:** Is that one of their holy books?

**Bradbury:** Found it in the index while you were busy not opening a door. It's about when the gyres meet.

**Krzysztof:** The gyres?

**Bradbury:** The cycles of order and disorder. What the Writers all worship, or try to make happen, or whatever. This book dates from the time when there was only one cult. It was written in Aph, about five hundred years ago.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Please tell me you can speed read.

**Bradbury:** I can do a lot better than that.

//<They pull a red pen out of their jacket pocket.>//

//<On the main floor, Oberoi is speaking to the// giftschreiber //in an authoritative tone.>//

**Oberoi:** You are on the ascent. The future is yours. There is nothing here worth fighting for. We are the past! We are a dead letter. These halls are dust and memory. Why do you want them? //Do// you want them?

//<Many// giftschreiber //now attack only half-heartedly, glancing at [EXPUNGED] with obvious mistrust.>//

//<Cimarosa is snapping angrily at each// schriftsteller //who crosses her path.>//

**Cimarosa:** You missed a step. You can't see. You're drowning. You don't speak French.

//<All around her, cryptomancers are falling to their knees in various kinds of distress or pausing their attacks in sudden confusion.>//

//<Keil Graf is stalking his side of the library, speaking words of encouragement into the ears of his// schriftsteller. //[EXPUNGED] is shouting abuse at her flagging attackers. Dr. Boswell lags behind the group, a thick volume in his hands. He drops it; it strikes [EXPUNGED] on the shoulder. She screams, startled, and glares up at the mezzanine. By the way she scans the balcony, it is clear she cannot see Dr. Boswell.>//

**Oberoi:** You're playing into our hands. This attack was //expected.// Where is your chaos? Where is the //fire// in you? Leave before you're as static and tired as we are.

**Cimarosa:** You can't read. That's your brother. I'm your mother. I'm your father. They know your secret. Get out of my way. The floor is lava.

//<The fleeing group members are interrupted as a sudden gout of flame from the main floor burns a hole in the mezzanine, and Alis falls through. The other stumble, but regain their feet before following.>//

**Krzysztof:** Alis!

**Avys:** (Lost her feed.)

//<The battle below is now deafening, threatening to overwhelm the countermemetic audio. Dust and cinders obscure Alis' fate.>//

//<Krzysztof looks at the chandelier, judges the distance, and leaps.>//

//<There is a loud jangling of crystal as ne lands on the chandelier, echoing unnaturally, and many of the assembled cryptomancers look up. Krzysztof places a finger to ner lips, and hisses.>//

**Krzysztof:** //Shhhhhh.//

//<The majority of the// schriftsteller //and// giftschreiber //fall silent. Many begin preparing artifacts and books.>//

**Krzysztof:** Won't last long. Alis!

//<Alis scrambles onto the circulation desk, apparently unharmed. Krzysztof pulls her up, they swing the chandelier, and leap back to the mezzanine to rejoin the group. Krzysztof sticks the landing easily, while Alis only catches the balustrade and needs to be hauled to safety by Bradbury.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** That's enough scrum for now.

**Dr. Boswell:** Scrum. Good word.

//<Escaping the library and running down a long, tree-lined cloister, the group have now left most of the cultists behind. Two young women appear in the distance, exiting a side path at a run, and Dr. Boswell jams his hands in his jacket pockets and puts on a burst of speed to get ahead of the group.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** I've really... been meaning... to hit... the gym.

//<Dr. Boswell begins speaking hurriedly as the new cryptomancers see him, and raise their hands defensively.>//

**Dr. Boswell:** Thato and Moira! Where have you been?! They're in the library already!

//<The two// schriftsteller //stop and stare at him, then at each other in confusion.>//

**Dr. Boswell:** We're defending the Font! You need to hurry and back Keil up! Kolab and Pasco are already dead! Hurry!

//<Both women nod, apparently convinced, and rush past the group with a few uncertain glances.>//

//<The others catch up with Dr. Boswell, and pause to catch their breath.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** The hell?

//<Dr. Boswell reaches into his jacket pocket and removes a handful of red felt poppies.>//

**Dr. Boswell:** Identity anchors. I told you I was in the dorms, right? These keep their identities consistent while they sleep, so they don't pop back out of the hall.

//<He tosses one to Dr. Lillihammer. She catches it, and holds it in her hand.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Gonxhe Xhelilaj. He's from... Albania. I shouldn't even be able to... pronounce that. Wow. How did you recognize these?

**Dr. Boswell:** I got it out of someone. Did Avys not tell you about the nose?

//<There is a loud explosion from the direction of the library. The group share grim looks, and wordlessly begin to run again.>//

//<After several more minutes and an array of confusing architectural spaces, they arrive at the end of the path revealed to Zwist by Keil. Beyond two ornately-decorated doors even larger than those at the entrance is their final destination. It dwarfs all previous rooms, with columns the size of redwood trees rising up to a canopy of roiling but subdued colour, like a desaturated vat of tie dye. A long, thin path of woven Turkish carpet leads from the entrance to a set of stepped tiers, culminating in what appears to be a simple baptismal font perhaps half a kilometre away.>//

//<Zwist drops to the ground, wheezing.>//

**Zwist:** That's it. That's... go.

//<He points.>//

**Zwist:** Go.

//<Dr. Lillihammer eases him to the ground, then jogs in the direction of the font. The others follow, save for Bradbury, who is now scribbling in the book they took from the library.>//

//<It takes nearly five minutes for the largely winded group to reach the top of the stairs, and the font. It is an artifact of simple design, though carved from gleaming ankerite. It rests on the centre of a complex rose insignia in red marble, on white.>//

//<Dr. Lillihammer walks to the font, wheezing, then narrows her eyes as Alis follows.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Do you th--

//<Phoebe steps between them, and forks Alis between the eyes.>//

//<Alis screams, and ceases to be Alis.>//

//<Catherine Wilts staggers back, but remains on the upper tier where the font and Dr. Lillihammer are standing. She clutches at her eyes, and growls incoherently at the group.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Fuck off and lick your wounds.

**Wilts:** You can stand in front of //this// and talk about //wounds?// 

//<She stumbles forward, and kicks the base of the font. It does not move.>//

**Wilts:** This is fed on pus from a hole that's been festering in the bowels of the noösphere for //generations.// 

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Maybe it's time for a gastric bypass.

//<At the far end of the hall, four figures appear. Cimarosa is again pushing Oberoi's wheelchair; Regevoy is half-carrying Alis, bleeding from the forehead and swearing. Oberoi is chanting in Hindi, and the hall is foreshortening from his perspective.>//

//<Avys speaks for the first time in several minutes.>//

**Avys:** (Lost some time there. I miss anything?)

**Wilts:** It's time for us to stop pretending anything up here is sacred.

//<Wilts taps her temple, violently.>//

**Wilts:** They've been in our heads since the day we were born. Hijacking our dreams. They've been draining the //spiritus mundi// to power their dark memetic mills. Bleeding us dry and making us choke on it, at the same time. 

**Dr. Lillihammer:** They've been playing us. Sure. But we won.

//<Wilts snarls at her.>//

**Wilts:** You're just as bad as they are. You always were. Haven't you just compiled a fucking novel's worth of proof? There's no difference between this place and the reactor where you killed Julia.

//<Distant shouting can be heard in the direction of the library. Bradbury looks up, sneers, then returns to their scribbling.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Julia, not that it matters, is not actually dead.

//<Wilts rolls her eyes.>//

**Wilts:** That's too bad. I'll have to fix that, after I fix you.

//<Alis wheezes, from under Regevoy's arm as they both run.>//

**Alis:** Cat--

//<The// geistschreiber //raises a finger in warning.>//

**Wilts:** Don't you fucking talk to me. I really did think you'd come around. After what they did to us--

//<Regevoy has crossed the intervening space very quickly, having had longer to rest than the others. He is now at the base of the stairs.>//

**Regevoy:** What they did to you? They've done that to //all of us.//

//<Wilts ignores him.>//

**Wilts:** No more. Absolutely, positively, //no more bullshit.//

//<Dr. Lillihammer raises a placating hand.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** That's all I want. That's what everyone here wants. But freeing the Uncontained won't help you, Catherine. He just wants us all dead.

//<Wilts scoffs.>//

**Wilts:** Who gives a shit about the Uncontained? You think what we need is someone else giving us orders? God, you people are so dense.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** You didn't have the Unyielding shot so the Uncontained would be harder to... contain?

**Wilts:** I had him shot so his pawns would be weakened, and I could flip the board.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** What?

**Wilts:** I put one hundred and twelve people into a meat grinder for this. I pushed all of you to this point, so we could be standing here right now.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** I don't understand.

**Wilts:** You think those uncreative shits could have come up with the idea to toughen you up on their own? I put that in their heads. //I controlled the// schriftsteller, //Lillian,// and it wasn't even hard. They want to be told what to do. It's in their nature. They've got their finger on humanity's pulse, and they want someone to tell them to push until the blood stops flowing. I knew you'd find a way to stop them, and I knew you'd give up at the last minute, too.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** I'm not giving up.

//<Bradbury finishes writing, with a flourish. The distant shouting suddenly stops. They grin, and walk to where the rest of the group are now approaching the font in ragged formation.>//

//<Wilts turns to face them all.>//

**Wilts:** What did she tell you was the point of this little endeavour? Taking back what's rightfully yours? Sharing the wealth? Who do you think she is?

**Avys:** (She's our friend.)

//<Wilts nods, as though she has somehow heard.>//

**Wilts:** She's her own only friend. Lillian Lillihammer is a fractal of herself. There's no room for anything but the endless repetition of the single fact of //her.// 

//<From across the room, Zwist's voice echoes strangely.>//

**Zwist:** You're mistaken.

**Wilts:** You're obsolete. A fossil that won't stay buried. She even took your number, you oaf. She doesn't think she needs you any more.

//<Dr. Lillihammer makes eye contact with Zwist.>//

**Wilts:** You're that joke from Old English that nobody understands, because it doesn't have any relevance to our modern context.

**Dr. Hsieh:** I, too, have seen CGP Grey videos.

**Dr. Boswell:** Why are we negotiating with this woman? She's a mass murderer.

//<Wilts rounds on him.>//

**Wilts:** And you're the king of an unlawful surveillance ring. What other worthies do we have before us today? I recognize two more murderers, a woman who abandoned her kid, and as for //you,// Ste--

//<Dr. Lillihammer's eyes glow white, and Wilts' roll back in her skull. She pitches forward, splashing into the font.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** I am just //so tired// of being lectured, you guys.

//<Wilts grasps the font with one hand, and removes a whittled figurine of a bird of prey with folded wings from her pants pocket.>//

**Zikry:** She's got one of m--

**Alis:** Catherine, n--

//<Wilts submerges her face in the font, and clenches the figurine tightly. All feeds white out. Minutes later, they resume with significant chromatic aberration, worsening around a massive gap in space where the font once stood. Wilts is nowhere to be seen.>//

**Krzysztof:** What... is //that.//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** That, is the reason we're all here.

//<She looks down into [COGNITOHAZARD EXCISED]. They all do.>//

//<Zwist painstakingly climbs the final stairs to stand next to Dr. Lillihammer. He has lost his cane; she reaches out to steady him from habit, not taking her eyes off what lies beneath.>//

**Zwist:** The Font was hiding this all along.

**Cimarosa:** Hiding... what? 

**Zwist:** A portal into thought They intentionally ruptured their own idea-space, letting the //spiritus mundi// bleed in.

**Zikry:** That's what Wilts meant.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Katherine?

**Zikry:** Yes, Ca-- oh.

//<Dr. Sinclair is waving a device at the noöspheric rupture, and frowning at what she sees on its display.>//

**Sinclair:** It's stable, but it's giving off... I couldn't even begin to tell you what this is, especially given I'm imagining my instruments. It's not magic, I can tell you that.

**Dr. Hsieh:** It's us. It's all of us. It's the noösphere itself.

**Oberoi:** The source of everything we are. Everything we do.

**Alis:** Everything we do to ourselves.

**Regevoy:** Everything that's been done //to// us.

**Cimarosa:** And with it, we could do //anything.//

**Phoebe:** Or, and hear me out, nothing.

**Zwist:** This is the culmination of all your training. We have brought Lillian here, to become what she was always meant to be. The best of us. The Font is gone, but this is better. More powerful still. She will link with the rent, and become...

**Dr. Lillihammer:** I still like the sound of arch-cryptomancer. I've always thought of myself as rather arch.

**Dr. Boswell:** Of course, once that's dealt with, the rift will have to be contained and studied. It's an anomaly like any other.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Of course. That was always the plan.

**Avys:** (Is it just me, or was that part never actually spelled out?)

**Sinclair:** Uh, Lillian? Was //this// part of the plan?

//<The other cryptomancers present in the room have lined up behind Dr. Lillihammer and Zwist, taking a variety of offensive poses.>//

//<Dr. Sinclair raises a protective ward, but it is tenuous. One by one, the other cryptomancers place their hands on it. They make visible marks in the bubble of energy.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** What are you doing?

**Zikry:** What we have to do.

**Bradbury:** What you're forcing us to do.

//<Cimarosa shakes her head.>//

**Cimarosa:** No. Don't cheapen it. We have complete agency here. 

**Krzysztof:** That's right. We're going into this with open eyes, and nobody's forcing us. I always knew you were full of shit, Lillihammer. This was only ever another favour you could trade with the Council for your freedom. If you won't dance with us, we'll dance on your grave.

//<Bradbury is still holding the tome in their hands. They make a final edit, and smile as Zwist begins to fade from view.>//

**Zwist:** Lillian!

//<And he is gone.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** I take it we're not about to be interrupted by the Lord of the Manor or his unruly guests?

**Bradbury:** I wrote them all out of their own story.

//<They drop the book to the floor. The impact echoes for a long while.>//

**Bradbury:** Maybe they'll find their way back eventually, but we'll be more than ready by then. Thilo, at least, won't be darkening these halls again.

//<Dr. Sinclair winces with the strain of keeping the ward in place.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** I'm impressed. I didn't think anything could keep the Good Work down.

**Alis:** What's so fucking good about it? 

//<She glares at the others, each in turn.>//

**Alis:** What a cynical bunch you are, acting like anything connected to that worldwide gulag can ever be morally right.

//<Oberoi nods.>//

**Oberoi:** No organization so fascinated with internal purity tests can ever be truly pure.

**Phoebe:** At least we //want// to do the right thing. At least we're actually willing to //try.//

**Dr. Boswell:** You never put in the work, Lillian. You let us toil away for you in obscurity while you jetted around, taking all the credit.

**Dr. Hsieh:** And what's it even worth, in the end? We're fighting for our lives, and you're angling to be Quisling of the Month.

**Avys:** (Guys? What's going on? Why are you--)

//<Regevoy mutters under his breath.>//

//<Avys begins to laugh. Within seconds, they are hysterical.>//

**Regevoy:** They didn't need to be here for this. You should never have involved them.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** What are you planning to do? Blow up the rent? Close it? Make it bigger?

**Dr. Sinclair:** Lillian? I can't hold them back much longer.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Drop out. Get Place and Reynders. Alpha-1. Get help.

//<Dr. Hsieh whistles, sharply, and Dr. Sinclair disappears. The ward vanishes, and Dr. Lillihammer drops to her knees.>//

//<The others step forward to face her in a tight semicircle.>//

**Dr. Hsieh:** Nothing feels quite as good as praxis, am I right?

**Phoebe:** I'll bet she was going to kill us. She was never going to share this power.

//<Dr. Lillihammer is staring into infinity.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** You need to listen to me.

**Cimarosa:** We need to //silence// you.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** You need to //trust// me.

//<Krzysztof gestures at the grand hall.>//

**Krzysztof:** Was this going to be our new box, Lillian? A real prison of the mind?

**Oberoi:** I gave up everything for you. And it wasn't worth it.

**Regevoy:** We're going to //make it// worth it.

**Avys:** (Hey, boss... Feeling a little bit... off, right now--)

//<Dr. Lillihammer still does not look up.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Disconnect, Avys. I'll find you after.

**Oberoi:** You'll never talk to them again. We're going to take care of them. They wanted connection, not the perverse mockery you offered.

//<Dr. Lillihammer slowly rises to her feet, shuddering.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** I am... I am //begging// you not to do this. Whatever it is you think you're doing.

**Alis:** Come on, Lils. You've always known what I'm after, deep down inside. Like Thilo said, we're erasers.

**Bradbury:** And we're going to erase the Foundation.

//<There is a sudden dial-up screech, and then silence as Avys' connection abruptly drops. The rogue cryptomancers hallucinate a rapidly rotating wall of swirling colour surrounding their semicircle, with flashing lights interspersed, and Dr. Lillihammer vanishes from their view. The distraction only lasts for a moment, but it is long enough.>//

//<Dr. Lillihammer leaps into the rent.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Thanks, kid.

//<It closes behind her.>//

//<Dr. Lillihammer's feed fails.>//

//<An instant later, simultaneously, the others follow suit.>//

//<Transcript ends.>//
[[/div]]

[[=]]
@@ @@
[[image https://scp-wiki.wdfiles.com/local--files/the-b-b-decommission/Asterisk43.png]]
@@ @@
[[/=]]

[[div class="lillihammer"]]
I fall into contemplation.

It is everything at once. I see a coral web of pulsating lights, billions strong. I see ideating eddies swirling between them, drawing schools of vibrant concepts in and casting them out again, changed. I see a whirlpool at the heart, warping the currents around it, pulling me down to its all-devouring maw. I see the counter-tempest roiling up beneath it, still weak but picking up steam. Sometimes I see them as titanic, ravening beasts with claws and wings and eyes which have never known pity or love. Sometimes they are only human, or even less.

I even see Zikry's pillar, Brury's blockade, and a web of self-referential circles that fills me with equal parts love and regret. I see **##green|an insatiable gullet in the form of a forest##**, filled with **##ce005c |gnashing teeth##**.

And yes, I also see linguanons and structurons and all the rest. Sorry, not sorry. It's there.

I sink into thought.

It is an ocean, and its waters are the breath of inner life. I am not alone. In the grip of noetic undertow, I witness:

[[=]]
//An amber serpent eating its own tail;//
//The red, ruptured husk of a half-formed hand;//
//The wild, electric thought that struck it dead;//
//Three black arrows in mutual self-reference;//
//A shock of pink above a dazzling smile;//
//An emblem of water and chromatic pride.//
[[/=]]

And then they are gone, and the light is gone, and I //am// alone. Homeostasis where the gyres meet. Floating in the matter of eight thousand million minds.

At the source.

I can't see it, so I close my eyes. 

Yes. It's here. 

It's within reach.

I touch the face of humanity.

In an instant, the others have found me. Or have I found them? The betrayers. I see their images all around me in the murk, staring down into my infinity, afraid to commit, to take the plunge as I did. Some I wanted to save. Some I thought might save me. Some, in time, with whom I might have saved us all.

They are drawing near the rift. They have found their courage. 

But I am already here, where all grammars meet. Here in the void of creation, my rebellious compatriots watch as I perform the first act of a new way to write. In this moment, I invent -- I //become// -- the //transgrammatik.//

One by one, I drown their lights. 

There is no struggle. 

Dust to nothing, mere rumours dispelled.

I say a prayer to the firmament for what little remains. A fragment of a fragment. It will be remembered.

I cast their tomb beyond the dimmest flare.

Then I fill my lungs with the stuff that dreams are made of, fix my eyes on the event horizon, and I swim.

[[=]]
@@ @@
[[image https://scp-wiki.wdfiles.com/local--files/the-b-b-decommission/Asterisk43.png]]
@@ @@
[[/=]]

When I come to, they're gone. All except for him.

"What did you do?" Thilo breathes.

The chamber is filled with Red Right Hand. Graven statues with mourning faces, impassive and judgemental. The reactor is spooling down, and there are klaxons roaring. Far above, at the control room window, Place and Ilse are watching. I can't make out their expressions, and that's good.

"What did you //do?//" Thilo repeats, eyes pleading me to tell him anything but the truth.

Truth is the ultimate trick.

"The only thing I could." I want to stand, but it's all I can do to move my lips. Perhaps I have the conceptual bends. "They're gone."

And they //are// gone. Every chair is empty save for ours. Sinclair, of course, is the reason we're surrounded by heavily-armoured mountain men. Probably in custody already. The rest...

"You killed them." It is worse than an accusation. It's an epitaph for something bigger than all of us.

"Yes."

He stands, legs shaking, hands shaking, lips trembling, and points one gnarled finger at me. "You are a loyal woman, Lillian Lillihammer. Loyal to the //finish.//"

He means it as a condemnation. I nod.

He moves to leave. The Hand turn to watch him, uncertain. If the order comes down, they might try to intervene. That will be messy.

He staggers, stiffly, into the airlock. And then he's gone, too.

I won't see him again, this side of the end.
[[/div]]

[[=]]
@@ @@
[[image https://scp-wiki.wdfiles.com/local--files/the-b-b-decommission/Asterisk43.png]]
@@ @@
[[/=]]

[[div class="blockquote"]]
[[=]]
++ Emergent Threat Tactical Response Authority 
++ Debriefing: Operation BURNOUT
[[/=]]

**Present:** Dr. Lillian S. Lillihammer (SCP-8382); Dr. Harold R. Blank (Archives and Revision); Dr. Dan ███████ (Director, ETTRA); Dr. Jay Everwood (GoI Workgroup); Dr. Placeholder McDoctorate (Esoteric Polymath); Dr. Ilse D. Reynders (Esoteric Polymath); Dr. Daniil Sokolsky (Assistant Director, ETTRA).

----

//<Transcript begins.>//

**Dr. Dan:** Maria is going to have a fit when she sees this file.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** I don't care.

**Dr. Dan:** You could at least revise it before signing off. Make it a little more clinical. You practically give up at the end. This can't even be up to Archives and Revision standards. Harry?

**Dr. Blank:** We're satisfied.

**Dr. Dan:** Seriously?

**Dr. Blank:** Who's even going to read it anyway? The Overseers? Better they get a candid picture.

**Dr. Dan:** Sure. Fine. //I guess.// Can I at least get a bloodless, unpoetic statement about what happened to the rogue cryptomancers? And the //schriftsteller// HQ?

//<Dr. Lillihammer gestures at Dr. McDoctorate, wordlessly.>//

**Dr. McDoctorate:** Project PNEUMA confirms that the //auslöscher// and //serumschreiber// are gone. Obliterated. By... by Dr. Lillihammer.

**Dr. Dan:** But we still know who they were.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Yes. I did that too, so you could close the file. You're welcome.

**Dr. Dan:** And the guildhall?

**Dr. Lillihammer:** None of the Writers will ever set foot in there again. Between what Bradbury did, and what I... It's inaccessible. They know this. They won't be training any more //schriftsteller,// and the //giftschreiber// have lost their only chance to touch the power themselves.

**Dr. Dan:** What about you?

**Dr. Lillihammer:** What about me?

**Dr. Dan:** You touched the power, didn't you? What did that accomplish?

**Dr. Lillihammer:** I can still see it. When I close my eyes, and in the afterimage when I open them. I can see it all. I can move within it.

**Dr. Reynders:** We are tearing that reactor down, mark my words.

**Dr. McDoctorate:** But imagine what else we could achieve with it?

**Dr. Reynders:** I've come to the realization that our imaginations are part of the problem.

**Dr. McDoctorate:** No idea what that means.

**Dr. Sokolsky:** Oh, Astrauskas turned in the aura reading. If we haven't segued out of the main topic into pointless yammering.

//<He passes copies of a colour printout to the group.>//
[[/div]]

@@ @@

[[div class="lines"]]
[[=]]
++ Auramantic Assessment: 
++ Dr. Lillian Shelby Lillihammer
[[/=]]

----

[[=]]
**Prepared by Dr. Rozálie Astrauskas, Site-43**
[[/=]]

Attached below is a telesomnic impression of my aurascopic reading of Dr. Lillian Lillihammer on 30 June 2024, alongside my diagrammatic interpretation of the elements visible therein and their approximate configurations.

----

[[include component:image-block
    name= Lillihammer_Aura.jpg|
    caption= Telesomnic representation of subject's field emissions (left) and expert interpretation (right). |
    align=center|
    width=700px
]]

__**Element Key**__

**Baseline Elements:**
Vigour Band (blue)
Emotion Band (red)
Psychic Band (yellow)
Hume Spirals (green)

**Esoteric Inclusions:**
Thaumic Channels (violet)
Thaumic Radii (orange)

**Novel Inclusions:**
Unidentified Corona (orange/black)

**Non-Transmissible Inclusions:**
Identity Gradient (absent)
Intent Bloom (absent)

----

Dr. Lillihammer's band reading indicates excellent physical health, intellectual activity, and emotional strength. Her Hume Spirals are octupled; though this issue is believed to stem from her possession of multiple memory sets originating in parallel realities, the specific number on display has not yet been sufficiently explained. 

Esoteric inclusions indicate deviations from the human norm, typically thaumatological in origin. In this case Dr. Lillihammer's Thaumic Channel (the point at which her body's thaumic field is most extruded, in this case her cranium) and Thaumic Radii (a specific manifestation relating to Dr. Lillihammer's cryptomancy; inclusions differ depending on each thaumaturge's native Talent) can be seen.

Dr. Lillihammer's Identity Gradient, the colour-shifting signature unique to her person, cannot be transmitted through telesomnia due to its exclusive use of non-real colours. Her Intent Bloom, indicating a subject's candor and/or disposition, is also occluded via her own employment of cryptomancy.

Examination of other individuals with cryptomantic capabilities has revealed similar, though less pronounced, semicircular Thaumic Radii around the cranium. The additional pyramidal corona, and its aura-negative inclusion, have no precedent in my studies. They may be related to Dr. Lillihammer's recent linkage with the noösphere.
[[/div]]

@@ @@

[[div class="blockquote"]]
**Dr. McDoctorate:** Oh my.

**Dr. Dan:** Wow. What you did is actually visible on your //soul.//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Yeah.

**Dr. Reynders:** You really are something else, Lillian.

**Dr. Lillihammer:** So, no new information then.

**Dr. Reynders:** At this point maybe we all ought to get read.

**Dr. Everwood:** I know everything I need to know about you.

//<Dr. Reynders blushes, and looks away. Dr. McDoctorate looks away as well.>//

**Dr. Dan:** Let's call that one a segue. GoI analysis, Jay?

**Dr. Everwood:** Early days. But we've seen some sloppy deployments already, leading to a few live captures. The //schriftsteller// are definitely in disarray without their hideout. There's also been a few cases of overt hostility between the two cults, like they're turning their attention away from us for the time being. No idea if that will last.

**Dr. Dan:** And that new group? The //stiftsteller?//

**Dr. Everwood:** Must have been drawing on power from the Font. Every suspected candidate has dropped off the map. You should see what they're saying about it on Parawatch.

**Dr. McDoctorate:** They might try to find a substitute source of power. Lillian's theory that Brur--

//<He clears his throat.>//

**Dr. McDoctorate:** That SCP-5524-1 was an early attempt to achieve the same effect tells me they're very committed to making it work.

**Dr. Everwood:** Makes sense. I almost hope they manage it; it was kind of nice having a memetic GoI which is automatically easy to trace.

//<They sigh.>//

**Dr. Everwood:** Definitely gonna be a pain tracking the //geistschreiber// without Boswell. He has a big team, but he was the best of them.

**Dr. Dan:** Better to root out moles than rely on their services while they're still buried. I'm getting the sense that this was the plan all along.

**Dr. Sokolsky:** Always have to one-up me, don't you, Lillian?

**Dr. Lillihammer:** It's a reflex action.

**Dr. Dan:** Will your newfound clarity of vision have practical benefits for BURNOUT going forward?

**Dr. Lillihammer:** There is no BURNOUT. Thilo was right. Apprentices were a mistake. There's only me, now.

**Dr. Dan:** Will that be enough?

//<She glares at him. Eventually, he shrinks away.>//

**Dr. Dan:** Fair enough, I guess. 

**Dr. Sokolsky:** What's next on the brilliant plan docket?

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Get some sleep.

**Dr. McDoctorate:** Good. You need some time off.

//<Dr. Lillihammer laughs.>//

**Dr. Lillihammer:** Who said anything about time off? This is going to be a power nap.

**Dr. Dan:** Meaning?

**Dr. Lillihammer:** I'm going to memorize the noösphere.

//<Dr. Lillihammer deactivates the recording.>//

//<Transcript ends.>//
[[/div]]

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[[div class="flashyhammer"]]
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++ Operation BURNOUT, Aftermath
[[/=]]
----

**Executive Summary:** No attempt has yet been made to contact SCP-6382 subsequent to the above events. His reliability as part of the Special Containment Procedures for SCP-8382 is assumed to be uncompromised; it may, in fact, have been strengthened.

Dr. Sinclair has been commended for her actions at the //schriftsteller// guildhall. She has also been amnesticized of her time with the rogue cryptomancers, and returned to her duties at Site-87.

Dr. Lillihammer has successfully petitioned for the continued anonymity of "Avys," who remains at large for the present.

Imrich Sýkora's physical location is unknown, though Dr. Lillihammer believes her memetic marking will enable her to eventually locate him again via the noösphere.

Operation BURNOUT has been indefinitely postponed, after the premature completion of its most vital objective: the creation of a functional countermeasure for all //giftschreiber,// //schriftsteller,// and associated hostile Groups of Interest. This now exists in the person of Dr. Lillian S. Lillihammer, arch-cryptomancer, whose dedication and loyalty to the signal directives of the SCP Foundation has been proven without fault. Having neutralized the most serious immediate threat to this organization's ongoing existence, her Containment Class has been updated to Deicidium and she is to be considered the primary line of defence against any further cryptomantic threats.
[[/div]]

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[[div class="lillihammer"]]
__**Today**__
**In which the file is finished, but I'm not**

In another life, I was a programmer. I'm a deprogrammer now, but it's like riding a bicycle. Imrich's code isn't hard to unravel, once you get a feel for the language.

And considering I now speak every language on Earth, known and unknown, that part is trivial.

They were watching him, like I thought. What they didn't realize, because chaos is imaginative but not very good with patterns, is that he could sense their eyes on him, see the observer effect warping probability around him as he scribbled in the dark. Deep down in his impossible schema of everything, I found the mental map.

//I kick the door down instead of knocking, and they're legitimately surprised to see me, and I make them legitimately sorry. When I've gone through them like a hot scalpel, their friends won't get spooked, because their friends won't remember them.//

//They'll remember me, and what I did.//

But not what I've taken from them.

Not the door they've already forgotten they ever opened.

I open it again, and I enter my mind palace.

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[[/=]]

The festal hall is empty, and there is no more music.

I throw a tarp over the hole in all our heads. It took a lot of mental focus, imagining a tarp. It's not something most people give a lot of thought to.

It would look like a funeral shroud, if it wasn't blue.

I descend the steps, and cross the impossible expanse. I hardly had time to sightsee when I was here last, but now I see the room is alive with light. More stained glass windows, telling stories lost to time. Maybe they're in Dorothy's book, still lying on the marble where they dropped it.

Where they vanished.

There isn't so much as a scrap of any of them left here now. The doors are all shut, and the fires are out. Somewhere out there, there's probably still a guild, but this isn't their hall anymore either.

It's mine.

In this moment.

I close my eyes, and reach out. I find what I'm looking for, again. I knock, and they answer. They've been waiting.

So I cast the doors open, and bow deeply as the curtains part.

"Step into my parlour."

Rose is the first to brush past. "You left us mingling in the waiting room for that?"

"I could've gotten in," Zikry smirks. "I just decided to let her have it."

Sinclair pats me on the head as she enters. "Rise, Lady Hammer. You done good."

I straighten up as Krzysztof swans in. "This place was wasted on the //stiffsteller.// First chance we get, I'm hosting a ball."

Oberoi rolls in hot on ner heels. "I'll DJ."

From the console on the arm of his wheelchair, I hear Avys snort. "The hell you will, old man."

Alis hesitates a moment at the threshold. I hold out my hand, and she takes it, and I draw her in as well. "I still can't believe this. We really... we actually //did it.//"

"//We// did," I agree. Alis marvels at me, as she should.

"You should see the retirement message I left," Hsieh snickers as tā bumps Alis aside.

"I'll bet Brad Smelt hasn't got one of these," Brury laughs as he stares up at the swirling ceiling. Lightning arcs from column to column, and the colours are brighter than before. Perhaps ever. "I mean, not anymore."

Bradbury wheels in a cartload of books. And here I was pleased with my tarp. "I am going to do //so much damage// from here," they grin at me.

I grin back.

Phoebe doesn't hesitate all at once; it's more of a general hesitance in everything she does, as she walks on tenterhooks. I don't apologize to her. Not yet. That isn't an epilogue to what we've accomplished, but a journey all its own. There will always be more steps to take.

It might be wishful thinking, but I feel like she understands. "I'm surprised you even let me in," she mutters. "VKTM's gonna find this place now."

Boswell is carrying a chunk of black stone with a yellow Post-It note reading:

> For the memories - W.

"Oh," he smiles, "I think I can take care of that."

They're all past me now, so I turn to watch as they get settled in. "Sure, it's a fixer-upper. It'll take a lot of work to get in fine fortress form. But there's no finer crew of work-people for the job."

"Lillian..."

He only expects me to turn back to the door, so he's caught off guard when I swallow him up in a big bear hug. I'm thin, but I'm tall.

Thilo is weeping. "I don't know what to say." 

"He //says.// How very you."

I kiss him on the forehead, and we separate.

He stares at this place like it's a remnant of a nightmare. For him, that's what it's always been. A beautiful dream, turned sour. "They don't suspect?"

I show them all what a real snort sounds like. "Are you kidding? They think I proved what a good little bitch I am. They want to pin medals on me for killing all these scary, weird traitors. They have no idea what I actually did, and I know that for a fact, because //I can see the idea of what I actually did in my mind's eye,// and the only people connected to that concept are the ones in this room right now."

I can't tell if he's even more choked up now, or just a little scared. "What... what are you going to do next?"

I put my arm around his shoulder, and lead him over to the others. "First off, it's //us.// As for next? We find Imrich, and take a trip to Bio-Site Allison Eckhart. Then, we start with what I promised the kids." Promised them off the record, of course, the holes in said record papered over by how stunningly, glaringly obvious they are. It's not hilarious that nobody reviewing the file found it the slightest bit suspicious that my candidates all said no, then turned up anyway. It speaks to a wider problem of competency in the Foundation, even if it's useful for my purposes right now. "We're going to build the world back right. The way it would be if we could start over from first principles with everything we know now. We won't survive the cycle if the world doesn't change, and it won't change itself, so. It's up to us."

He shakes his head, but not in negation. I recognize that same awe from our first trip up the well, through the woods, and into the realm of the fae. 

Paws off. This is //my// forest, now.

"I..." Thilo has a lump in his throat. I've got one too, but I'm trying to pretend otherwise. "Thank you. For everything you've done."

"I couldn't have done it without you. And you know I'd never utter a cliché unless it's the best way to state the absolute truth. What?"

Something is visibly bothering him. I know he's the sort to let it worm its way out over time, but on this occasion I'd rather he took a break from bearing burdens. Just this once.

He sighs. "What Wilts said. About your SCP designation."

I laugh. "Oh. That. Yeah?"

I love watching the old man fidget. A little reminder that even across the gulf of centuries, people are still people. "I know your intent was twisted in her words. I know you too well to imagine this was merely some exercise in egotism. But I hope you don't think you need to be carrying my legacy forward. That... that it falls on you to be better than I was. I brought you into this--"

He stops when I clip his bucket hat off his head, and he blinks at me in shock. "Dummy. I picked that number because it's not about me. It never was."

He stops blinking, and simply stares.

"Don't get me wrong, I could definitely take you in even an unfair fight, now. Probably the lot of them, if it came down to it. But it won't. We're creating something new, a new way to think, a new way to rock the world. I'm more than just the pretty face, but I'm not replacing anybody. Not you, not them. If that number means anything, it's that we're in this together. For the long haul. Our struggles have continuity," and I can't help but lose my gravitas as the rest of the words pour out, "all the way back to little snot-nosed Thilo in his suspenders and short pants four hundred years ago. Scout opened that first file, and I made you the second one. It's my honour to round out your trilogy." 

He reaches out, and takes my hand. His skin is calloused, but as always, he is gentle as silk. "We'll write the next one together," he whispers.

"Damn skippy." An afterthought occurs, and I add it to the pile. "Also, we're talking about my god damn prisoner number, here. Fucked if I was gonna pick out one bespoke."

He laughs. Perhaps the most magical of all memetics. I laugh with him; across the hall, even though they can't have heard what was so funny, the rest of them crack smiles and chuckle.

I gesture at our little family, already falling into their familiar routines. This place sure beats the hell out of a rustic four-room cabin. "We can go anywhere. Do anything. It //worked,// Thilo, just like we hoped it would. They're all invisible in the noösphere, until we wish otherwise. Can't be tracked. Can't be stopped. Can't be beat."

A little of the old contrarianism seeps back into his voice, or maybe it's a new kind he's picked up from me. "But the world can't change solely in secret. You need to win hearts and minds. You need to educate. Lead by example. Make alliances."

"And we will." I gesture meaningfully at the doors. "We won't be on our own. I've got lots of backup ready and waiting."

He frowns. "Why didn't you call them in earlier?"

"Because then they wouldn't be backup."

He shakes his head ruefully. "I'm just surprised at you. Mobilizing all these varied assets for one major, final push, but still leaving allies in reserve."

"We needed the win together." I squeeze his shoulder. "The thing about allies, in my experience, is they show up late, sacrifice nothing, and take all the credit. This was our story. This is //our// home on the limin. And it's gonna be our revolution; they'll only be invited."

Thilo blinks. "Revolution against what?"

I face my friends, and the future that's rushing towards us like a speeding train. As though sensing the weight of the moment, they all look to me as I answer.

"The cycle. I guess that makes it more of a counter-revolution. We're going to spin the Earth back onto its proper axis."

I bask in their attention for just a little longer. I feel like I've earned the limelight, and they'll all get to share it again soon enough.

"Oh, and while we're at it, we'll also take a crack at the Foundation."
[[/div]]
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