Some years bring monsters.
Some years bring miracles disguised as vending machines.
The year SCP-294 appeared, I almost laughed when I saw the designation scroll across my system interface. A coffee machine. That was it. No screaming. No spatial distortion. No ominous chanting leaking through reality. Just a simple-looking device that asked politely for payment and dispensed liquids.
Any liquid.
In the universe.
For a small price.
I took control of it immediately.
There was no debate. No committee vote. No ethical review delay. SCP-294 was relocated under maximum security straight to the Foundation site I currently occupied, escorted by enough armed personnel to secure a minor god. Julius approved it instantly. Darius erased all records of its initial appearance. Ashoka made sure not a single civilian ever knew it existed.
Doctor Bright arrived within the hour.
He stared at the machine, hands on his hips, eyes shining like a child in a candy store.
"Oh, this is going to be a problem," he said cheerfully.
"For everyone else," I replied. "Not for us."
The first thing I requested wasn't coffee.
It was liquid vibranium.
The machine hummed. The display flickered. The cup filled.
No alarms. No resistance. No cosmic backlash.
Just a cup of shimmering, impossibly dense, silvery-black liquid that radiated restrained potential.
Bright went silent.
I felt my heartbeat accelerate for the first time in years.
Vibranium wasn't just rare—it was foundational. Energy absorption. Redistribution. Structural resilience bordering on the absurd. In the Marvel universe alone, it was the cornerstone of civilizations, weapons, and technology that defied physics.
And now it was dripping gently into a ceramic cup in a medieval-age underground facility.
We didn't waste a second.
Containment protocols came first. Temperature regulation. Isolation fields. Non-reactive vessels. I designed a controlled solidification process on the spot, using principles that hadn't even been named yet in this world. Bright assisted, suggesting modern refinements while I adapted them to our available infrastructure.
When the first stable vibranium ingot formed, perfectly intact?
I exhaled slowly.
"This," I said, "changes everything."
And it did.
We tested it relentlessly.
Structural tests showed tensile strength beyond anything steel could dream of. Energy exposure trials confirmed absorption properties far exceeding theoretical expectations. When enchanted properly, it didn't just resist magic—it harmonized with it.
Science and sorcery, finally speaking the same language.
Bright was ecstatic.
"We can line containment cells with this," he said. "Build armor. Dampeners. Maybe even—"
"—weapons," I finished. "Yes. But carefully."
I wasn't about to flood the world with indestructible blades and shields. The Foundation didn't exist to dominate openly. It existed to endure. To survive what was coming.
Still, the applications were endless.
Power regulation systems. Reinforced vaults. Anomaly-resistant frameworks. Eventually—when we were ready—personal equipment for Mobile Task Forces that could let them survive encounters that would otherwise be instant death.
And SCP-294 wasn't finished giving.
Once we confirmed it could safely dispense vibranium, we experimented further.
Non-anomalous liquids first. Water of perfect purity. Sterile saline. Complex chemical compounds that would have taken years to synthesize manually. Medical breakthroughs followed almost immediately.
Then came the fun part.
Coffee.
Actual coffee.
Soda.
Juices.
Alcohol refined beyond anything this era could produce.
I allowed limited access to the other O5 members under strict supervision. The system chat lit up with reactions that were far more human than godlike.
Cleopatra:I had forgotten what real wine tasted like.
Julius:This "cola" is strange… yet effective.
Alexander:I don't care what miracle it is, this is the best thing we've secured so far.
I smiled at that.
For a moment—just a moment—it felt like we were back in our old world. Friends sharing something familiar. Laughing. Complaining. Enjoying small comforts stolen back from time itself.
But I never forgot what SCP-294 truly was.
Not a luxury.
A strategic resource.
We tested limits. Abstract requests. Exotic materials. Controlled failures. Some requests returned error messages. Others produced substances that required immediate neutralization. A few nearly breached containment before Bright and I shut them down.
We learned where the edges were.
And more importantly, where they weren't.
Between SCP-294, vibranium, electricity, gunpowder, and our growing system store, the Foundation had crossed a threshold. We were no longer just ahead of the world.
We were alien to it.
That night, Bright leaned against the machine, sipping something that definitely wasn't coffee.
"You know," he said, "most timelines would collapse under this kind of acceleration."
I nodded. "Most timelines don't have us."
He laughed. "That's either incredibly reassuring or deeply concerning."
"Both," I said calmly.
I looked at SCP-294, humming quietly, innocent in appearance and apocalyptic in potential.
Another year would pass. Another SCP would arrive. Eventually, the nice ones would stop coming.
But for now?
The universe had handed us a miracle in the shape of a coffee machine.
And I intended to drain every last drop of advantage from it.