Foundation — Felix Ragnell's bedroom.
Through the shared feed from Phil's strike team, Felix Ragnell lounged back and watched the "live broadcast."
"A bunch of idiots."
On-screen, the "S.H.I.E.L.D. elites" stared at a corpse and empty floor space while ignoring the most obvious object in the room—the statue. Felix couldn't help the snark.
"Basic scene control and environment sweep—zero. Charging in like that is just volunteering to die."
He didn't warn them.
They were his canaries—expendable probes to test the anomalies.
What had his attention was the other matter.
The "little princess" in Alley 96—the thing that shredded Pick's team.
SCP-096 was far more dangerous than SCP-173.
Once anyone saw its face, it wouldn't stop until the viewer was dead.
Felix thumbed his comm.
"Natasha, notify Phil," he ordered, voice brooking no argument. "They do not pursue Alley 96. I want the outcome, not the process. Get them back alive to brief me verbally."
"And one more thing," he added, "every photo, every recording from this op—don't look. Not a single frame."
"Why?" Natasha asked on reflex.
"Because if you do, you die."
The flat calm in his tone carried a chill that sank into the bones.
Natasha stiffened. Questions burned, but she nodded all the same.
—
Hell's Kitchen.
After confirming there was "no sign of life" in the warehouse, Phil's team pulled out and rushed to Alley 96.
What they found there was ten times worse than Mike.
Pick, Jesse, and Tom lay in pieces, scattered through widening pools of blood.
Their bodies were raked open to the bone, like something with massive claws had torn straight through them. The scuffed cement and blood arcs said they'd fought hard—futilely—before the end.
"Sir…" Johnson's voice shook. "Their helmet cams—if we pull the footage, we can reconstruct what hit them."
Phil's eyes went bloodshot the instant he took in his agents' remains.
A tidal wave of rage and grief smashed through restraint.
"Bag the bodies. We're leaving." He ground the words out. "I'm going to see what kind of freak killed my people."
"But, sir!" Johnson shot back, "Orders from the Chairman—verbal only! No photos, no video review allowed!"
"We don't work for the Foundation!"
Phil snapped his head around, fury strangled low in his throat.
"We're S.H.I.E.L.D."
To hell with the Chairman's rules.
He wanted vengeance—for his agents. And step one was seeing the killer's face with his own eyes.
They returned to a luxury rental in Midtown—S.H.I.E.L.D.'s temporary base.
In the living room, three bodies lay in a row beneath white sheets.
The survivors circled in silence, the air so heavy it squeezed the breath from lungs.
"Preserve the remains first."
Phil's voice was raw. Eyes rimmed red, he stared at the shrouded forms like he was trying to brand their condition into his mind forever.
"Priority two—recover the helmet footage."
Vengeance demanded a face.
"Sir, I'll handle it."
Johnson—silent until now—stepped forward.
The lazy swagger was gone. What replaced it was a tech specialist's cold confidence.
"As long as the storage modules aren't physically destroyed, I can pull the video."
He didn't wait for permission. Kneeling by one of the bodies, he eased a fingernail-sized black chip from the shattered helmet, patched it into a rugged mil-spec laptop, and let his fingers blur across the keys.
Green code waterfalls strobed down the screen.
"Got them!"
In under five minutes Johnson cracked a grin.
"All three storage chips are intact. I've extracted everything."
He pivoted the laptop toward Phil.
"Sir, we can—"
But the living room was empty.
Phil and the rest had scattered to corners of the suite to keep from drowning under grief and pressure.
Only Johnson remained—one man, one laptop, and three cold bodies.
The only sound was the laptop fan's soft whine.
Johnson stared at the three video files.
Curiosity reached out and took his hand.
What could do this to three battle-hardened agents in seconds?
He clicked.
Playback rolled.
First-person view. Violent shakes with the operator's sprint.
Pick's POV, charging down the black throat of Alley 96 with two teammates.
At the far end, a thin, tall shape crouched in the corner—like a homeless man, face buried in his knees, perfectly still.
"Hey! You okay?" Pick's voice bled in over the audio—cautious, concerned—stepping closer.
Two steps.
The figure twitched at the sound.
Slowly… it raised its head.
That instant—
The camera clearly caught the face.
A face beyond description.
No brows. No lips. Skin white as printer paper. Hollow eyes like pits swallowed most of the head.
The first impression was wrongness—profound, primal wrongness.
Look closer, and your brain failed to assemble the whole. Like a visual singularity—searing, yet impossible to hold in detail.
Johnson saw that face.
The room's temperature seemed to drop by several degrees.
A cold wire raced up his spine into his skull.
"Huh. Thermostat busted?" he muttered, glancing at the wall controller.
Numbers normal.
He turned back to the screen—
—and his pupils snapped down to pinpoints.
(End of Chapter)
[Get +20 Extra Chapters On — P@tr3on "Zaelum"]
[Every 500 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter Drop]
[Thanks for Reading!]