I Didn't Forget Pt 17: Veronica Hall

Link to article: I Didn't Forget Pt 17: Veronica Hall.

(none)

(none)

(none)

=====
[[include component:preview
text= Evan questions high-ranking Fifthist Veronica Hall in hopes of learning more about the Church’s plans, but what she has to say raises more questions than it answers, and takes the investigation in an unexpected direction.]]
=====

[[include :scp-wiki:info:start]]
CW: This tale includes depictions of captivity, imprisonment, mind control, manipulation and emotional abuse. It also contains mentions of ritual human sacrifice.
[[include :scp-wiki:info:end]]
[[include :scp-wiki:component:info-cw]]

~~~~

[[=]]
**[[[i-didn-t-forget-hub|Series Hub]]]**

,,[[[xhawk77x|More by this Author]]],,
[[/=]]

**Evan**

Evan enters the interrogation chamber where Veronica Hall sits.

He needs to keep his head in the game. He needs to get the information that will save the world. He can’t allow himself to think about Jerry.

He steels himself and looks Hall right in the eye. She glares up at him. “So, you finally figured me out?” she asks.

Evan scoffs. “Don’t flatter yourself. We’ve known you’re a Fifthist for years.”

“Then why only come for me now?”

“Because we need to know what your people are planning.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I find that very hard to believe.” He sits across from her. “You’re an important member of the church, just like you were back during the Galaxy Plaza Disaster. I bet you knew what the church’s plan was back then, and I bet you know what it is now.”

“What makes you think the church is up to something?”

“You don’t need to know that. Both you and I know there’s something going on.”

“If I did know something, why would I tell you?”

“Because you can already feel your god’s grip on you slipping. You can feel my voice cutting you off from it.”

Her face curls. She glares at Evan.

“Your ‘religion’ is nothing but a mental virus, and at this very moment, you can feel my voice clearing it from your mind. Soon, you’ll be sane enough to tell me exactly what the church is planning, and how to stop it.”

“I don’t feel the slightest bit different!” she barks.

Evan affects a smirk. “Sure.”

Truth be told, he’s exaggerating his abilities a bit. Even without the Cosmic Starfish controlling her, she could have other reasons to remain loyal to the church she’s belonged to for years. She doesn’t need to be reminded of that, though.

“The Church is planning something,” Evan presses. “Something big. Something that involves Aster Sterling’s books. There’s a part of you that wants to tell me about it. Some part of the person you were before Fifthism twisted your mind. I bet you already feel her poking her head out.”

Hall is trying to project pure defiance, but Evan’s had this conversation hundreds of times, with hundreds of Fifthists. They’re not all the same—ones as high-ranking as Hall are usually rotten people even without the mind control—but underneath her bluster, he can see her getting nervous, a fear which only exists because what he’s saying is at least partially true. Some part of her remembers being human.

“There’s at least a part of you that doesn’t want to end the world,” Evan says.

“End the world? Why would anyone want to do such a ridiculous thing?”

“You’ve tried it before.”

“No, we haven’t.”

“What do you call //[[[SCP-1425|Star Signals]]]//? What was the church doing, if not trying to end the world?”

“‘End,’ ‘end,’ ‘end,’ you keep saying ‘end,’ as if you and I and the world we live in could somehow vanish into nothing. Star Signals was meant to bring transcendence. The transformation of all things so that they dance in tune with the Starfish’s song. Not an end; a beginning. A blessing.”

“Your cult does nothing but kill, torture, and brainwash. No one would be better off in a world rewritten in your image.”

She has nothing to say to that. She just smiles at Evan, as if to say, ‘you’ll see.’

“Star Signals isn’t the only time you’ve tried this,” Evan says. “You did it again at Galaxy Plaza, in 2017.”

That makes anger flash across her face. Good. Anger makes people stupid. It makes them spill their secrets. Evan smiles as smugly as he can. “Did you not know we knew about that? Let me tell you something else. //I’m// the one who stopped it.”

Evan says it hoping to anger her more, but it does the exact opposite. The anger melts from her face, and she laughs.

“You?” she says. “You think you stopped it?”

Evan doesn’t know what to make of that. For a moment, he’s the one who’s not sure exactly what to say. That won’t do. He needs to stay focused. As unexpected as her reply was, it was still a slip. She just admitted to knowing about Galaxy Plaza. He needs to get her to compound that error. Perhaps she will, if given further opportunity to be smug.

“Who do you stay stopped it, if not us?” he asks, doing his best to act as if her denial of his accomplishment wounded him.

Again, she laughs. “You Jailors were never anything more than a nuisance. It was that idiot rich kid who ruined our plans. The one who had the sacrifice moved from Los Angeles to that blasted hick town.”

“Callum Michaels?” Evan asks, trying his best not to betray that he has any strong feelings about that name.

“I don’t know how he convinced Horrace and Sterling that such a puny offering would be sufficient. We were all set to sacrifice //thousands// to the devouring pit. He just had to be clever, and it ruined everything. I told them. I told them that what didn’t work for Redwood wouldn’t work for us.”

“Redwood?” Evan asks. What’s she talking about? The first ‘Redwood’ that comes to mind is Redwood Labs, but that doesn’t make any sense. A moment later, the answer hits him, but it raises more questions than it solves. “[[[SCP-7046|Cassidy Redwood]]]?” Evan asks. “The Ortothan?”

A couple of decades ago, the Church of the Second Hytoth lost one of its gods. Over the following months, an Ortothan priestess named Cassidy Redwood became obsessed with bringing that dead god back to life, and obsession which ultimately drove her to break the greatest Ortothan taboo. She resorted to murder to get the blood she needed for her resurrection ritual. Despite that, or perhaps because of it, the ritual failed.

But what does any of that have to do with what’s happening now? Cassidy Redwood had nothing to do with the Fifth Church, and all of this happened years before Star Signals, let alone the Galaxy Plaza disaster.

Hall’s back to not talking. Evan needs to fix that. “How did a mere heptogon ruin your ritual from beyond the grave?”

“No mere heptogon!” Hall snaps. “I already told you it was //him//!”

“So, a child?”

“Why don’t you ask him about it?” she asks. “You have him in a cage somewhere, don’t you? Or, better yet, bring him here. Let me strangle his pompous face. It’s a fraction of what he deserves!”

“Tell me what I want to know, and maybe that can be arranged.”

She studies him for a moment, then shakes her head. “You don’t do that,” she says. “You don’t like to see your prisoners destroyed. You wouldn’t let me kill him.”

That much, she’s right about, both when it comes to the Foundation, and when it comes to Evan personally.

He tries a few other avenues to get the information from her, but she doesn’t bite any more of his hooks. He goes on a long rant against the Fifth Church, hoping to further break her connection to the Cosmic Starfish, but it seems that, as with most high-ranking Fifthists, her loyalty to it runs deeper than the brainwashing.

In the end, he isn’t able to get any more information.

-----

**Evan**

“What do you make of it?” Light asks.

Evan sighs. “Part of me wants to be frustrated, but the rest of me knows the fact that I got //anything// out of her is a miracle.”

“Fair assessment,” Light says. “At least the mention of Cassidy Redwood gives us a new lead.”

“//‘I told them that what didn’t work for Redwood wouldn’t work for us,’//” Evan repeats. “She didn’t mean human sacrifice in general. That still seems to be part of their plan. What else did the Galaxy Plaza Disaster have in common with Redwood’s failed resurrection ritual?”

“I don’t know,” Light says. “We might want to look back over the [[[SCP-7046]]] file. Maybe we’ll spot something.”

Evan nods.

“In the meantime, we should also be looking deeper into the //Starlight Saga//.”

“Yeah,” Evan says. “The last time the Fifthists tried to screw up the world, they used a mind-controlling book. If Sterling and the //Starlight Saga// are central to their plans, you’d think they were trying the same thing again, but it can’t be that the //Starlight Saga// books are like //Star Signals//. Tens of millions of people have read those books. If that many people had come down with Ojai Syndrome, we’d know.”

Ojai Syndrome was an anomalous mental illness that affected anyone who read //Star Signals.// It gave the Fifth Church control over a person’s mind, which they tried to use to get everyone to cooperate on a mass ritual whose success would have ended the world.

“Agreed, on all points,” Light says. “We need more information about those books. You’ve read them, right?”

“Just once, and that was six years ago. My brother was the Aster Sterling superfan.”

“I see.” Light thinks for a moment. “What are the odds of your brother knowing something you don’t?”

“The odds of him knowing the //Starlight Saga// better than I do? One hundred percent. The odds of him knowing something that would help us right now? Who knows? And that’s ignoring the fact that I’m not allowed to talk to him anymore.”

Evan tries to keep the bitterness out of his voice as he says that. He understands why Light agreed to that condition. The number of people it would save, at no cost besides Evan’s feelings? Of course she made the right decision.

Of course she did.

“I’ll talk to him,” Light says.

“I don’t think he likes you much more than he likes me.”

“It’s still worth a try. Right now, he doesn’t know anything about our investigation. Maybe if we’re up front that the fate of the world is at stake, he’ll be more willing to talk to us.”

-----

**Jerry**

“I have to get back to them,” says the clueless man sitting across from me.

No. I shouldn’t let myself resent these people. They’re victims, both of the Jailors’ lies and the anomalies they’re here to be cured of.

But that doesn’t mean it’s not frustrating to deal with people who lack information I’ve gotten used to, especially when I’m forbidden from rectifying that ignorance.

“They’re my friends,” the man continues. “My friends from high school, back in 1976. They need—”

“You were born in 1992.”

The man’s eyes go wide. He looks at me, confused, not because he doesn’t believe me, but because he knows I’m right.

“The people running this place gave me a file on you,” I continue. “You were born on June 11th, 1992. You were also homeschooled. Oh, and that pin you’re wearing? No one who went to high school in the seventies listens to Jimmy Pheonix.”

Granted, I don’t listen to him much, either, but the point remains.

The victim stares at me, eyes wide. “But… but, what about—”

“None of that is real.”

Now that I’ve said it, it takes only a moment of contemplation for him to realize I’m right.

“But then, what were those memories?”

“Don’t worry about that,” says one of the two guards posted in this room, before I can tell him the truth.

“What?” the man says.

“You’ll be debriefed in a moment,” the guard says. “Right now, we need to bring other victims through.” He’s lying. They won’t ‘debrief’ him. They’re going to wipe his memory.

The man is still confused, but he allows himself to be escorted to an adjacent room, where a doctor waits to steal a week’s worth of memories from him.

It’s a hollow victory. Cured of one lie, only to have it replaced with another.

With that man gone, I brace for the Jailors to bring another person into the room. He’s the fifteenth person I’ve cured of this affliction today, and I’m under the impression there’s at least that many more.

But the next person to enter the room isn’t a civilian. It’s Dr. Light.

She takes a seat on the chair that’s normally for the use of my patients.

“Come down with something?” I ask.

“I’m afraid the only mind-affecting affect I’m regularly subject to is reserved for after work hours,” Light says.

“You have regular work hours?” I ask.

“God, I wish. However, that’s not what I’m here to talk about.”

“I’m already doing what you want.”

“I know,” she says. She starts to say something else, perhaps that she appreciates my help, but she thinks better of it.

Good. I don’t want their fucking gratitude, and I don’t want them to pretend I was given a legitimate choice whether to help them.

“There’s something else I want to ask you about,” Light says. “Something that has to do with another area of expertise you happen to have.”

“Admitting I know something you don’t?” I ask, smugly. “The situation must be serious. Is the world in danger, or just your stupid Veil?”

“Oh, very much the world.”

That takes me aback. Not because it’s shocking. At any given time, the Jailors would probably say the world is ending. What’s surprising is her willingness to admit it to me. One would expect information so consequential to be classified.

“What’s going on?” I ask.

“Long story short, the Fifthists are trying to rewrite the world with magic books, again. Not just any books. //The Starlight Saga//, a set of books which I’m given to understand you’re rather familiar with. I’m hoping you might know something that could help us stop what they’re planning.”

A big part of me wants to tell her to go fuck herself, but I’m not sure there’s a point. Resisting interrogation could mean we both sit here for hours. Answering her questions quickly is the best way to get her to go away.

Fuck, that’s a compliant thought. That’s an obedient, institutionalized, complacent thought. I can’t let myself lose track of the fact that I’m a prisoner here, that these people are my enemies. They still have Jack, Sean, and a ton of other people locked up. They are evil. I can’t forget that.

Still, if the stakes are as high as Light says, maybe they’re the lesser evil. As much as I hate the Jailors, I can’t truly deny that the Fifthists are worse.

“I read those books a lot as a kid,” I admit.

“Did you ever notice any memetic triggers?”

“I said I read them a lot //as a kid//. I didn’t know what a memetic trigger was. I definitely couldn’t have identified one.”

“And you haven’t gone back over them since you found your way under the Veil?”

“I haven’t had the chance,” I say. “I’ve been busy either trying to rescue or being imprisoned by my //former// brother.”

She shows absolutely no emotional reaction to that comment. “Even if you didn’t reread them, did you learn anything about them during your time with the Serpent’s Hand? I imagine you interacted with the Fifth Church to some extent?”

“I’m not going to tell you anything that could help you against the Hand.”

“You shouldn’t need to. I just want to know whether you learned anything about those books.”

“What kind of thing should I have learned?”

“Whether there was something anomalous about them, perhaps? As I said, we’re under the impression that whatever the Fifth Church is doing involves them. We don’t know exactly how, and we’re a bit confused as to how those books //could// be anomalous, given that we’ve tested them to hell and back and haven’t found any memetic triggers.”

I chuckle.

“What’s funny?”

“Your arrogance. You’re all about how dangerous and unpredictable ‘anomalies’ are when you need an excuse to imprison us, but in the next breath, you’re sure that something can’t be dangerous because you ‘tested’ it and found nothing.”

“If I were //sure//, I wouldn’t have come to you. However, the tests we run did detect the triggers in //Star Signals//. Whatever is going on here, it can’t be as simple as both books having the same properties. It has to be something more complicated which we don’t fully understand.”

“There’s a great deal the Jailors do not understand, usually by your own choice.”

“Which is why I’ve come to you. Feel free to think of it as an act of humility, or hypocrisy. You’re part of another organization. You’ve looked at the anomalous world through a different perspective. You’ve been in the Wanderer’s Library.”

“And what is it you think Aster Sterling’s books might do?”

“We don’t know, exactly. Perhaps they’ll eventually give readers Ojai Syndrome. Perhaps they end the world in some other way.”

My eyes widen a bit. “Ojai Syndrome?”

“I take it you’re familiar?”

I nod.

Theo read those books.

Theo read those books because of the investigation I brought him into.

If there’s some kind of memetic trigger in those books, he’s affected by it.

I hold in my fear as best I can. I don’t want to give them even the slightest hint that Theo exists, meaning I can’t let on that their conflict with the Fifthists just became personal to me. “Actually,” I say, forcing a sly edge into my voice, “it occurs to me that I do know something which I think you’d find interesting.”

Light sighs. “And you want something in return for telling me?”

“Aww, how’d you know?”

“That’s usually what’s going on when people talk //about// the actionable intelligence they have without coming out and saying it.”

“Fiddlesticks. I hope I haven’t become predictable. You’re right. I want something in return.”

“Shoot.”

“Let me go.”

“It’ll need to be a request I have the authority to grant. I promise I’ll try to be reasonable, but you’re going to have to do the same. Can you think of anything the Foundation might allow?”

I think for a moment. “You contained a bunch of other people alongside me,” I say. “I don’t know what numbers you gave them, but their names are Jack, Mike, and—”

“I know who you mean,” Light says.

“Are they still in Site-17?” I ask.

“I believe so.”

“In high security? Alone in their cells with no human contact?”

“That would be the default for members of the Serpent’s Hand.”

“Move them out,” I say. “Move them to low security. Me, too, obviously. Sean, too. I don’t know if he’s at Site-17, but you captured him a few months ago. The guy whose left pinky glows. That’s the only thing ‘anomalous’ about him.”

“I know who you mean,” Light says. “I review all new humanoids as they’re brought in.”

“Low security, all of us. Just as much socialization as people off the street. Do that, and I’ll tell you what I know about the //Starlight Saga//.”

“And you’re claiming you know something that’s worth that?”

“Yes,” I say. “Something I learned in the Wanderer’s Library, which you Jailors could never hope to figure out on your own.”

She studies me.

“I don’t have the authority to unilaterally change the security status of anomalies I’m not assigned to. I’ll have to pass your ultimatum upward,” she says.

“Sure. Go ahead.”

She leaves. The guards bring another patient in. Same as the last several, blathering about imaginary high-school memories from before she was born.

Light takes so long to come back that, for a while, I worry she isn’t going to return. I finish curing an entire yearbook’s worth of millennials who think they’re boomers. I’m already done for the day, just about to be escorted back to my cell, when Light returns and retakes her seat.

“Where the hell have you been?” I ask.

“Presenting your offer to O5-7,” Light says. “Believe it or not, she’s a busy woman, not easy to get a hold of on short notice.”

“Did she accept my terms?”

“Partly.”

“Partly?”

“We identified the anomalies you mentioned. They are all here, at Site-17. O5-7 is willing to downgrade them, and you, to //medium// security. That will allow you access to more forms of entertainment, as well as monitored socialization with anomalies of a similar classification, including each other.”

“I asked for low security.”

“So did I. Please, try to think objectively for a moment. This is going to make their living conditions a lot better, and this might be the only opportunity you ever get to help them.”

I think about them. All of them. Mike, Jack, and Sean.

I was the one who got them captured. They lost their freedom for my quest to rescue my brother, a quest that was futile from the very beginning.

As much as I don’t want to make any concessions to Jailors, the fact that my comrades are captives is my fault. I have to do whatever I can to make their lives easier.

“Fine,” I say. “Deal.”

“Thank you,” Light says. She looks at me, expectantly.

“How much do you know about the Wanderer’s Library?”

“A reasonable amount, considering I’ve never been.”

I chuckle. By now, I know Light well enough to have caught on to her gimmick. She’s the good cop. The nice Jailor, the one who does ‘everything she can’ for the poor little anomalies under her care, who oh-so-kindly offers dignity and purpose to prisoners who could otherwise never hope to do anything but rot in a cell.

It’s a sham. She’s part of the organization that locked them away, and she’s never made the slightest attempt to free them. She just wears a gentle smile while she convinces them to become useful to their captors.

It’s gratifying, if unsurprising, to know that the Library treats her like any other Jailor, never allowing her inside.

“There’s a section of the Library set aside for hazardous works,” I say. “Things that are dangerous to read, or that contain information that could be used to do horrible things. I spent a day browsing there, several months ago, while the Hand was training me. I saw a lot of fucked up shit in there. Usually, I was able to tell why something was there, but there was one thing I saw that I couldn’t make sense of at the time.”

“What?”

“The //Starlight Saga//.”

Light’s eyes go wide.

“All five books,” I continue. “Seemingly ordinary editions. I didn’t read them cover to cover, but as far as I could tell, they were the same books I read as a child, and, for some reason, the Library considers them dangerous enough to keep them separate from the general collection.”

I see Light try to form a reply, but she’s still delightfully speechless. I can’t deny I love how it feels to take her by surprise, so I continue. “Whatever tests you ran, they’re dogshit. My guess, the books are dangerous as fuck, and your little Foundation just couldn’t detect it.”

She still can’t bring herself to say anything.

“Good enough for you?” I ask.

“Yes,” she says. “That’s very helpful. Thank you. I know we have our differences, but I promise I really mean that.”

“Don’t ask me for any more favors,” I say.

“Of course,” she says. “I’ll make sure Graham doesn’t put off changing your security status, or that of your friends.”

“You do that.”

She rises from her chair and leaves the room.

-----

**Evan**

Evan studies the file for [[[SCP-7046]]], which contains Cassidy Redwood’s story.

It’s a long file, repetitive in places, but very thorough. It details every step of Redwood’s thought process, how she began with a hypothetical ritual that involved millions of willing participants, then modified it again and again until it involved hundreds of unwilling sacrifices.

//‘I told them that what didn’t work for Redwood wouldn’t work for us.’//

What didn’t work? Everything, seemingly. The offering Redwood gave doesn’t seem to have made its way to her god at all, let alone brought it back to life.

Hall blamed Callum for the failure of Galaxy Plaza’s ritual. She said that that sacrifice was originally going to take place in Los Angeles and involve thousands of victims. She seemed to think that if it hadn’t been moved, it would have worked.

But why would the Fifth Church have gone along with the change in venue if it was likely to stop the ritual from working? Did Callum or his father really hold that much sway?

//‘I told them that what didn’t work for Redwood wouldn’t work for us.’//

Redwood’s story isn’t just well known within the Foundation. She’s infamous throughout the anomalous world. Everyone involved in the Galaxy Plaza Disaster probably knew about her, Callum included.

Redwood’s original ritual would’ve required millions of people. When it became clear she couldn’t possibly recruit so many, she went to great lengths to reduce the amount of blood she needed. By using a complex machine, offering the same blood multiple times, and using hundreds of thousands of dollars of expensive arcane materials, she sought to allow a ritual designed for millions of people to be performed by hundreds.

Perhaps Callum’s request that the sacrifice be moved from Los Angeles to Galaxy Plaza was paired with a similar plan to increase the sacrifice’s efficiency?

//‘I told them that what didn’t work for Redwood wouldn’t work for us.’//

Of course she did. The fact that Redwood’s ritual didn’t work is as famous as the fact that she resorted to murder to get the blood she needed. Why would Callum copy the homework of such an infamous failure?

Evan’s eyes widen.

It can’t be. Could Callum really have…?

Hall said it was Callum’s fault that the ritual failed. What if she’s right? What if she’s even more right than she knows?

[[=]]
**[[[i-didn-t-forget-hub|Series Hub]]]**

,,[[[xhawk77x|More by this Author]]],,
[[/=]]

[[include :scp-wiki:component:license-box]]
[[include :scp-wiki:component:license-box-end]]

I Didn't Forget Pt 17: Veronica Hall

Module Styles

Inline Styles

Includes

CSS Classes

Page Source