Postdrome

Link to article: Postdrome.

```
#page-title {
  display: none;
}
```

:root {
--header-title: "UNGOC";
--header-subtitle: "SURVIVAL, CONCEALMENT, PROTECTION, DESTRUCTION, EDUCATION";
--lgurl: url('https://scp-wiki.wdfiles.com/local--files/scp-8484/goc_logo');
}

(none)

```
blockquote
```

[[include :scp-wiki:theme:black-highlighter-theme]]
[[include :scp-wiki:theme:jakstyle]]

[[module css]]
#page-title {
  display: none;
}
[[/module]]

[[module CSS]]
:root {
--header-title: "UNGOC";
--header-subtitle: "SURVIVAL, CONCEALMENT, PROTECTION, DESTRUCTION, EDUCATION";
--lgurl: url('https://scp-wiki.wdfiles.com/local--files/scp-8484/goc_logo');
}
[[/module]]

[[div class="blockquote"]]

[[>]]
__RAISA Director Shaw Clay__
So, you're the GOC?
Let me guess, you killed Kinsey?
[[/>]]

__Supervisor Kinsey Aishatu__
Your supervisor is fine.
I'm simply using her clearance.
I see you got SCiPnet back up.

[[>]]
__RAISA Director Shaw Clay__
Like you'd care.
[[/>]]

__Supervisor Kinsey Aishatu__
We're open for talks.
Just letting you know.

[[/div]]

------

There was a knock against the acrylic plexiglass. On the other end, Kinsey flinched, dazed from her nap. She looked up and found a scarred, hardened face glaring down at her. A wrap of bandage enveloped his right forearm.

"About time," Kinsey mumbled, slowly sitting back upright. The handcuff attached to her hand jingled as she leaned back. She looked weird in an orange jumpsuit but figured it was comfortable enough to sleep in.

"Visitor for you," he grumbled, stepped away from the window, and gestured to someone out of Kinsey's view.

Her heart jumped, watching the person nod gingerly at Nize and hastily sit down in front of her.

------

"You. You used me."

"Kinsey," Jack stuttered, his palms toward her defensively, "they're going to treat you well. I was promised they would."

Kinsey scoffed, chuckling. "Promised. A word I threw around a lot with you, didn't I?"

Jack frowns as his eyes soften. "Remember what I said about another choice?"

"We had no choice," Kinsey hissed, leaning against the window. Jack put his hands between him and her. Nize walked up to the glass, hands curled into fists, and shook his head at Kinsey. She rolled her eyes and laid back.

Jack nodded to Nize and leaned on his forearms. "We did. We could've denied the deal it offered. We could've united."

"Right, and kill everybody?"

"Even so, at least we'd leave with a conscience knowing we tried empathy rather than cruelty."

"You're a fanatic," Kinsey laughed, her mouth open in putrid incredulity. "What kind of idealistic bullshit is this? I thought you were with me here."

"I am," Jack asserted, his eyes glistening.

"You're blind."

"And you're deaf," Jack stammered, his voice breaking. "What happened? We were supposed to make the world safer. Save it the sight of terrors beyond harrowing. Not perpetuate the red tape it uses to justify some sick sense of necessity."

"But instead," Kinsey muttered, "you want rainbows to shit out of your asshole and make everything—"

"NO!" Jack screamed. Nize held him back by his shoulder. "We could've stopped it. You could've tried. When you became a supervisor, I was so ecstatic. It meant we could finally change the status quo." He covers his eyes, gritting his teeth. 

After a moment, Jack lowered his hand, looking back at Kinsey, who stabbed back with a demeaning stare of disbelief.

"I cared about you. You were the only friend I truly confided in. You were there when I needed someone to just... You filled my mind with a thought other than the truth that I'm meaningless. I just don't believe the person I'm talking to right now is that same exact friend."

"I'm done talking to you," Kinsey curtly said.

He shook his head. "You've become deaf." 

Jack stood up, shaking away Nize's hand. He turned quickly but stopped mid-walk. "Take care," he muttered, then left.

------

His doorbell chimed. Nize turned his head back to the door, his leg propped up on the other facing the window.

"Door's unlocked," Nize said. He turned back to the view from his second-story apartment. He watched cars drive by and pedestrians stroll the sidewalks. Breathing in the sharp, brisk air of Seattle made his lungs feel anew as if crystal mountain water had cleansed his airways. Enduring stiff, suffocating air—or no air at all—made him a stranger to clear blue skies.

Next to him was a pot holding a variety of different yellow flowers, such as roses, daisy poms, and bright white lilies. He wasn't sure if they had enough or too much water, so he decided to give them a little, bit by bit, every hour. It was the first time he got flowers.

He listened to the door being gently opened, the latch snapping. There were the sounds of fur boots stepping gently onto his mat, the shuffling of different layers of clothing, and the soft breathing that followed with each moment of silence. They were all familiar to him. The light jingling of her car keys, the exasperated yet mellow breathing of someone who can strut across an entire city, and the occasional tongue clicks from minor inconveniences.

The sounds spoke her language. But it was her lavender perfume that flooded the rims of his eyelids.

"Hey, querido. You've been busy, haven't you? I told you to call me at least once."

"Yeah," Nize said, pushing through his trembling voice, slowly standing up. "My bad."

"I almost thought you died at some—"

Nize's legs couldn't support him. He collapsed onto the ground, colliding with the table next to him. The pot shattered, water pouring across the oak plank floors. When he broke out of his daze, he realized a white lily lay before him on the ground, its petals ruined.

He stared at it. There were specks of dirt between its blossomed petals, the stem broken and bent askew, and its—

"Clint!" Rio exclaimed, rushing to his side. Nize only now realized she'd been hurrying to take off her boots, having called his name several times already. "What have they done? Are you okay?"

Nize only looked at her. He wasn't sure what expression his face was wearing, but it made hers fall into despair.

"It's okay. I'm here now."

It was the first time in seven years that he could fully shut his eyes.

------

Azrael slipped the note into the bottle. He took the cork in his jacket's pocket, screwed it into the neck, and tightened it. Inspecting the bottle, he took a final look at it. He smiled. He stepped back and then chucked it into the Acheron River.

"Polluting?" Visage asked, walking to his side.

"Nah. Just hoping she might be able to read it."

"That's not how this works."

Azrael rolled his eyes. "Then why do we visit graves?"

Visage smiled through her chained mask. "What will you do now, Found One?"

"Remember that Strike Team project?"

"Hellraisers?"

Azrael nodded.

------

D.C. al Fine stood before thirteen tall podiums. Standing atop each of them are silhouettes obscured in darkness, gesticulating as they shouted at her in tandem, their words entangling in the space before them.

Al Fine yawned, her eyes watering.

"This is an invasion. A complete, unprovoked, brazen invasion—"

"What the hell is wrong with you?"


"What happened to communication? You've been backstabbing us?"

"All this time, we've been offering you a hand, and you threw it all away."

"How do you explain the deaths you've caused?"

Silence elapsed as if the councilors wished to collectively retract that last statement. Al Fine grinned.

"So," she said, her voice echoing, "I guess I could ask you the same question?"

"We had no choice," the elderly, brusque man said. A placard on their stand read, "O5-2."

"No choice? May you elaborate?" Before the man could speak again, Al Fine interjected, "Or tell me the entire story? I would love to hear it."

"Listen, al Fine," a delicate voice proclaimed, identifying themselves as O5-3, "this was for the sake of humanity. If we did not oblige by their terms, we all would've been evaporated."

"I find that odd from you. I didn't know you had this so-called humanity in you. Surprising."

"It was not a choice we made easily," O5-3 muttered.

"Of course! I believe you. I just need you to prove it to me."

"We cannot give your organization those records, Cassandra," O5-1 boomed, his voice distorted. "It would be too dangerous."

"Well, Frederick—" The room hisses, the councilors glaring at al Fine in discontent. She could care less. "—if you're incapable of divulging information I have a right to know, then that stunt my people pulled wouldn't be the last time your security gets challenged."

"I don't mean offense—"

"And I certainly don't!" al Fine cheered sarcastically. O5-1 grumbled.

"If I provide you the details, and only to you, you must keep it at the highest level of confidentiality."

"Right," al Fine smirked.

"I'm serious. I know it's difficult to take me seriously, especially now Cassandra, but I solemnly swear."

"Solemnly? Wow, I appreciate that, Your Honor." Al Fine earned herself more looks of resentment, but for every passing second she spent with these sheep in suits, it felt easier to ignore their factitious significance. "Let me get this clear: you kill my people. Then, you offer your "help," you offer assimilation, asylum, resources, all to pervertedly repent a mistake you never bothered to truly amend? I'm sorry, Your Excellencies or My Lords," al Fine chuckled between her words, spinning on her heels with arms splayed out, "for being so ignorant!"

"It is a reminder that you are in a sacred—"

"Shut the fuck up," al Fine growled, pointing at the person who spoke. Some gasped, others enraged, and a few remained steady. "Let's be honest here. This is the fact of this little shindig: We are all tyrants. And in every reality I entrench in, I will always clash against other tyrants. Regardless of benevolence or malevolence, idols, and dictators, we all relate to //power,//" she gritted, clenching her fist. "I am a shepherd, and you are my flock."

After a brief pause, the chamber explodes in protest.

"I look forward to seeing what killed my people, Frederick," al Fine sneered. "Otherwise, you've been warned."

Somehow, behind the shadows, al Fine could see Frederick's frown.

She couldn't help but smile back.

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[[[https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-8484/offset/5 |► UPDATED SCP-8484 DOCUMENT ◀]]]

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