The briefing room lights were dimmed when FULCRUM walked in.
Not for mood—just to make the projection easier to see. A blown-up photo hung in the air above the table: a grainy security still from a convenience store.
A young man stood at the counter in a hoodie and ball cap, one hand on a pack of cigarettes, the other holding something up to his face.
A pair of red 3D cinema glasses.
The next frame—cropped tighter—showed him dropping the cigarettes. His mouth was open in a scream the camera didn't capture.
The frame after that was just motion blur and a spray of arterial black-and-white.
"Everything fun happens in a corner-store," RATCHET muttered.
OWL stood at the front of the room, tablet in hand. TEAM 1 sat around the table, armor still damp from the showers after training. PATCH$1 and FUSE occupied chairs along the wall, support roles pulled into the briefing instead of piping in from elsewhere.
On the far side, DUSK leaned back with a coffee she'd smuggled past Security, UIU badge clipped to her vest like a joke.
"ZERO-ONE-SEVEN-EIGHT," OWL said. "Three-Dimensional Specs. Designation Euclid. You've all seen the file."
"Yeah," VANTAGE said. "Put on the glasses, see the tooth fairies from hell."
"Hostile extra-dimensional entities visible only to the wearer," DOCSTRING supplied. "They respond violently to being observed. Violently to the wearer, specifically."
The projection flicked to a still from the SCP file: the red-blue cardboard frames on their pedestal.
"These were checked out under controlled conditions to a research team on Site-██," OWL said. "They did not return as scheduled. Two hours later, we got the corner-store feed you're looking at. Someone diverted them for extracurricular viewing."
"Field trip gone wrong," DUSK said. "My favorite."
"UIU flagged the pattern and notified us so we wouldn't step on each other's jurisdiction," OWL continued. "Thus, DUSK."
She raised her cup in a lazy salute.
"Hi," she said.
FULCRUM studied the image.
"Current location?" he asked.
"Specs are believed to be in the hands of the store clerk," OWL said. The projection changed to a still of a young woman crouched behind the counter, eyes wide, the corner of something red-blue visible in her grip. "She put them on after her coworker started screaming. She's still alive. For now."
"How long has she been wearing them?" PATCH$1 asked quietly.
"Approximately forty minutes," OWL said. "Police have cordoned the block, but they haven't seen what she has. Yet."
"Entities?" FULCRUM said.
"We have no visual confirmation," OWL said. "But based on the condition of the first victim..." He gestured at the projected blur and spray. "We can assume at least one is very present."
PRIORESS's voice cut in over the room speaker.
"ALPHA-1 Overwatch online," she said. "Nu-7, TEAM 1, your objective is straightforward: secure the specs, minimize civilian casualties, prevent entities from spreading attention vectors. Attempt to recover the clerk alive. Do not, under any circumstances, put the glasses on without explicit authorization."
"Whose?" HARROW asked.
"Mine," PRIORESS said calmly. "And we both know I'm not going to give it."
"Understood," FULCRUM said.
"IMINT?" OWL prompted.
"Overhead cams from the area are garbage," FUSE said. "Interior store cams went to static twelve seconds after Glasses Boy lost his spine. I hacked the cops' dash cams, but all we get is sound. Screaming. Then... nothing. I'll give you approach routes and a 3D layout of the store. No promises on the interior behaving."
"MedIntel," OWL said.
"ZERO-ONE-SEVEN-EIGHT's effects are psychological and physical," PATCH$1 said, eyes on her tablet. "We're expecting possible shock, disassociation, and severe laceration injuries consistent with high-velocity tearing. I'll be staged two blocks away with a trauma bay ready. If you hear anyone say they want to 'look just for a second,' you treat that as exposure."
Her gaze flicked to FULCRUM, then away. He caught the motion, the little knot of worry under the clinical tone.
"I won't be looking," he said.
"Good," she replied.
"Support element DUSK will handle police liaison," OWL added. "She'll also keep UIU's curiosity in check."
"That's a full-time job," DUSK said. "Lucky I'm charming."
FULCRUM stood.
"Loadout remains standard?" he asked.
"Shotguns and carbines are acceptable," OWL said. "No explosives. No fire. We're not testing how flammable they are in a crowded neighborhood."
"Copy," FULCRUM said.
As TEAM 1 rose, PRIORESS's voice came softer over a side channel only command could hear.
"Shadow channel online," she said.
"Here," FOXHAMMER answered.
"You seeing this?" she asked.
"The specs, or the way he already looks like he's rehearsing not looking?" FOXHAMMER said.
"Both," she said.
He watched the feed—FULCRUM moving toward the door, posture already narrowing to the next problem.
"He's going to try to solve this without seeing anything he doesn't have to," FOXHAMMER said. "That's the right instinct. The question is whether the situation lets him."
"Noted," PRIORESS said.
The convenience store sat under a flickering sign that said JAY'S MARKET in letters missing half their tubes.
Police cruisers boxed the block. Yellow tape fluttered in the evening wind. A small crowd of onlookers pressed against the far perimeter, phones up, eager to turn someone else's nightmare into content.
"Civilians with recording devices," DUSK muttered as they stepped out of the van. "My favorite anomaly."
She peeled off toward the nearest sergeant, badge already out, smile weaponized.
FULCRUM took in the scene: glass windows covered hastily with blankets and newsprint, the front door blocked by a makeshift barricade of shelves and crates.
"Law enforcement status?" he asked.
"Two officers saw too much of the first victim," PATCH$1 said in his ear. "Both showing early trauma signs. No one else has line-of-sight. They're corralled behind their cars, arguing about jurisdiction with DUSK."
"Good," FULCRUM said. "Let them argue."
He gestured to BASTION.
"Shield," he said. "We go in the side."
FUSE's voice came through, layered over a schematic of the building that appeared on FULCRUM's HUD.
"There's a service entrance in the alley," FUSE said. "Leads to a stockroom behind the coolers. Less glass, fewer sightlines. Also fewer exits if it goes sideways, but we like a challenge."
"Alley it is," FULCRUM said.
They moved as a unit, slipping past the cruisers and down the trash-stinking narrow between buildings. A cat hissed and bolted from under a dumpster.
At the service door, RATCHET dug into the lock.
"Give me ten seconds and a good reason," he said.
"You have one," FULCRUM replied.
The lock popped.
"Door opening," RATCHET murmured.
BASTION took point, shield angled, as FULCRUM eased the door inward.
The stockroom beyond was cramped and smelled of spilled beer and cardboard. Boxes were stacked haphazardly to the low ceiling. The hum of the refrigerators bled through the walls.
"Heat signatures?" FULCRUM whispered.
"One in the main aisle, near the front counter," FUSE said. "Small, low to the ground. Likely your clerk. No other human-sized signatures. I'm getting... weird interference in certain corners. Could be the entities. Could be this shitty building."
"Call it entities," FULCRUM said. "Keeps us honest."
They edged forward, weaving through the stacks.
At the door into the storefront proper, FULCRUM paused.
"You all remember the file," he said quietly. "Your weapons can't hit what you can't see. That doesn't mean you're powerless. You block lines of sight, you break their angles, you keep her from looking anywhere but where I tell her."
"Copy," VANTAGE said.
"Got it," HARROW added.
FULCRUM flipped his shotgun's safety on and slung it.
"Going hands-on?" RATCHET asked.
"No," FULCRUM said. He pulled a length of folded dark cloth from his pack—the same material as the memetic shrouds, repurposed. "I'm going to gently disagree with her fashion choices."
He took a breath, then signaled BASTION.
The shield man pushed the stockroom door open.
The store was a narrow rectangle of fluorescent light and bad decisions.
Aisles of chips and canned goods. Refrigerators humming along one wall. The front windows were mostly covered, but thin shafts of outside light sneaked in through gaps in the paper.
Near the counter, a body lay sprawled in a widening puddle of something that had dried too dark to be anything but blood, even in poor light.
The clerk crouched behind the register, back pressed to it, knees drawn up. The red 3D glasses were on her face, her gaze locked on something in the air between the aisles.
She was shaking so hard her teeth rattled.
"Stop right there," she whispered to empty air. "Stop— stop— please—"
Her hands were raw where she'd gripped the edge of the counter hard enough to split the skin.
"FUSE?" FULCRUM breathed.
"Nothing on my channels," FUSE said. "Just you, her, and... static. If they're there, they're not showing up on any spectrum I've got."
FULCRUM kept his eyes on the floor, on BASTION's boots, on the lower third of the room.
He could feel it, though.
A pressure, like being watched by something just beyond peripheral vision.
"Stay low," he murmured to TEAM 1. "No one crosses her line of sight."
He stepped out from behind the shelf, hands open and empty, cloth folded over one forearm.
"Ma'am," he said softly.
The clerk flinched.
"Don't— don't come closer," she gasped. "It's— it's right there."
"I believe you," FULCRUM said.
She blinked. She hadn't been expecting that.
"You do?" she whispered.
"Yes," he said. "I'm Foundation. Think of us as... pest control for things no one told you about. We're here for that." He nodded toward the space in front of her without looking. "And for those glasses."
"It's... it's standing on him," she said, voice cracking. "On Jake. It's... chewing. It knows I can see it. If I take these off it gets closer. I tried."
Her breath hitched.
"It doesn't like when I blink," she whispered.
PATCH$1's voice came through, soft.
"Baseline heart rate two-twenty," she murmured. "She's going to crash if this keeps up. You've got maybe three minutes before physical collapse."
"Copy," FULCRUM said.
He took another step closer. He could hear nothing but the hum of lights and her ragged breathing.
Behind him, HARROW shifted, tension rolling off his shoulders. KESTREL's fingers flexed on her rifle.
"Listen to me," FULCRUM said gently. "You've been holding the line. You did good. You saw something no one should see, and you didn't run. That's hard."
"I couldn't leave Jake," she said, voice breaking. "He was— he was—"
"I know," FULCRUM said. "You did what you could for him. Now you have to let me do my part."
He crouched slowly, keeping his head angled so that his eyes never rose above her shoulders.
"What's your name?" he asked.
"Marcy," she whispered.
"Okay, Marcy," he said. "Here's what's going to happen. I'm going to come close. I'm going to put this cloth over your glasses. You're going to keep your head pointed exactly where it is and your eyes open. When the cloth is in place, you're going to let me take the glasses off. You don't close your eyes until I tell you it's safe. Understand?"
"If I stop looking at it—" she began.
"It's going to have a bad day," FULCRUM said. "Because that's when we do what we do. But you don't need to see that part."
He let just a touch of iron into his voice.
"Trust me," he said. "You've done the hard part already."
Behind the counter, Marcy swallowed.
"Okay," she said.
He moved.
The cloth went up, blocking her view. Her breath hitched as whatever she was seeing momentarily vanished.
"Still with me?" he asked.
"Yeah," she whispered.
He slid his fingers along the side of her face until he found the cardboard frames. They were trembling under his touch.
"On three," he said. "One. Two. Three."
He lifted.
Nothing exploded. Nothing screamed.
On his HUD, FUSE swore softly.
"Big spike of... something and then nothing," FUSE said. "If they were there, they didn't like that."
Marcy collapsed forward, hands flying to her eyes.
"Keep them open," FULCRUM reminded her. "Stare at the cloth. Don't blink hard. That's it."
He backed away, glasses wrapped in shroud, holding them like a live grenade.
"Object secured," he said.
"Copy," OWL replied immediately. "Containment team is inbound to your position. Do not unwrap. Do not pass go."
"On my way with the clerk," FULCRUM said.
HARROW moved in, gently easing Marcy up and around the counter.
"You're okay," PATCH$1's voice murmured in Marcy's ear through HARROW's chest mic. "You're going to feel shaky and sick. That's normal. We've got you. Just breathe."
Marcy sobbed once, a sound halfway between relief and leftover terror.
They shepherded her toward the stockroom.
"Entities?" VANTAGE asked, rifle still trained on the empty air where she'd been staring.
"Gone from my boards," FUSE said. "Could be they hitchhiked with the glasses' attention. Could be they're still there and just don't care now that no one's looking at them."
"Either way, we're not hanging around to find out," FULCRUM said.
Outside, the air felt too bright.
Marcy sat on the back bumper of an ambulance, blanket wrapped around her shoulders, eyes fixed on the middle distance. PATCH$1 knelt in front of her, stethoscope around her neck, hands gentle but firm.
"You're not crazy," PATCH$1 said quietly. "You saw something real. Your brain did its best with bad input. It's allowed to be upset."
Marcy nodded, tears slipping silently down her face.
"Will it... come back?" she asked. "If I close my eyes, if I dream?"
"It might try," PATCH$1 said, because she didn't lie about that. "But we have treatments that help. You're not going to be left alone with it."
She put a hand lightly on Marcy's shoulder.
"And if anyone tells you it was 'just in your head,'" she added, "you tell them our organization would like a word."
A faint, watery smile twitched at Marcy's mouth.
"Okay," she whispered.
A few meters away, FULCRUM handed the shrouded specs to a containment tech in full gear.
"Zero-One-Seven-Eight transferred," he said.
"Logged," the tech said, voice tinny through their respirator. "We'll route them back to secure storage. Or a furnace."
"That's above my pay grade," FULCRUM said.
He stepped aside as FUSE approached, tablet tucked under his arm.
"You almost ate pavement for a pair of cardboard glasses," FUSE said. "How's that feel?"
"Like a Tuesday," FULCRUM said.
FUSE snorted.
"You kept your eyes where they needed to be," FUSE said after a moment, more serious. "Most people can't resist the urge to peek. Even some operators. That's how you end up with off-books funerals."
"Peeking has a body count," FULCRUM said. "I've seen the file."
"Yeah," FUSE said. His gaze drifted to where PATCH$1 still spoke quietly with Marcy. "Same."
Something in his posture softened as he watched her. Pride, worry, something else.
"Go check on her," FULCRUM said.
FUSE glanced at him.
"You ordering me to hover?" he asked.
"I'm pointing you at the thing you're already staring at," FULCRUM replied.
Reluctant, FUSE gave him a grin.
"Fine," he said.
He walked over, sliding into PATCH$1's orbit as if he'd been there the whole time. She leaned subtly into his presence, the line of her shoulders easing as he took the edge of the blanket to help wrap it tighter around Marcy.
FULCRUM watched for a second, then looked away.
"Nu-7, TEAM 1," OWL said over the net. "Good work. No additional casualties. UIU liaison reports local law enforcement is pacified and ready to sign whatever we put in front of them. Return to Site for debrief."
"Copy," FULCRUM said.
As they loaded back into the van, KESTREL slid into the seat opposite him.
"You didn't even flinch," she said quietly once the doors shut. "With the glasses. With her."
"I flinched," he said. "Just not where it counts."
She studied his face for a moment, as if trying to see the tell.
"If you ever... do need someone to talk at while you pretend you're fine," she said, "I have ears. Two of them, even."
"And a mouth," RATCHET added from the next bench. "She won't shut up about knots if you're not careful."
"Shut up," KESTREL said, but there was no heat in it.
FULCRUM let a small smile touch his mouth.
"I'll keep that in mind," he said.
She looked like she wanted to say more. Instead, she just bumped his boot lightly with hers—a small, grounding contact.
He didn't move away.
Back at the Site, in the dimmed observation room where certain feeds never really shut off, PRIORESS watched the replay of the store encounter.
"Shadow channel," she said.
"Online," FOXHAMMER answered.
They watched FULCRUM move through the aisles again, careful, head angled, never letting his eyes rise too high.
"He believes her," FOXHAMMER said. "Right away. Doesn't waste time trying to convince her that what she sees isn't real just because he can't see it."
"That's important?" PRIORESS asked.
"It's rare," he said. "Too many operators default to 'you're hysterical' when reality doesn't match their inputs. He doesn't. He just assumes there's a threat where she's looking and works with that."
"He treats the anomaly as real even when it's outside his frame," she said.
"Yeah," FOXHAMMER said. "He treats people like that too."
She glanced at him.
"Is that a criticism?" she asked.
He shook his head.
"No," he said. "It's why I'd take him on a door with me."
Her gaze returned to the screen.
"Recommendation still stands, then," she said.
"Yeah," he said quietly. "It does."
On the monitor, FULCRUM handed the glasses off and watched PATCH$1 and FUSE at the ambulance, the distance between him and their orbit measured in more than meters.
In the silent room, PRIORESS reached out and curled her fingers lightly around FOXHAMMER's hand where it rested on the console.
He squeezed back once, eyes still on the screen.
They both knew where this was heading.
Neither of them could quite bring themselves to stop it.