SCP Foundation

"Today," shouted Dr. Mattheus, "we shall discuss historical assassinations, their rationale and their efficacy."

Dr. Mattheus elegantly plucked a dry-erase marker from the tray and turned to write on the whiteboard. Before he could take the cap off, Dr. Mattheus paused for a moment, weighing the marker in his hands. Then, he tossed the marker into the air, letting it fall in an arc before it hit the smooth marble floor. With a pop, spikes erupted out from the marker. Neapolio swore he saw orange liquid dripping from the spikes.

"Poison," Dr. Mattheus mused quietly to himself. "Classic."

He returned to his normal loud speaking voice, which demanded Neapolio's complete attention.

"The murder of a prominent official happens for many reasons. In ancient times, assassination was the gravest political move one can make. To permanently dispose of one rival not only removed an important political obstacle, but sent a dire message to any would-be opposition.

"Throughout antiquity and the early modern period, the world saw the rise of tyrannicide. The murder of an unjust ruler. The most famous case being King Julius Caesar's untimely crucifixion in the Senate. The statement alone of being surrounded by a hundred men, all of whom despise you enough to end your life, was an ultimately powerful message.

"The world started to grow up, and new ideology grew up with it. Starting in the early 15^th century, we began to see…"

Dr. Mattheus trailed off, his focus suddenly shifting to the marker trap poking into the floor. Neapolio looked around the classroom; each and every one of his classmates were staring intently towards the front. Not one soul's focus was found anywhere else. Neapolio never played poker, but he knew enough to recognize an entire room of poker faces.

Suddenly, Dr. Mattheus drew back his leg, culminating in a soccer kick that sent the spiky marker flying into an open supply closet. Not a moment later, a resounding bang marked an explosion coming from inside the closet. The fireball was large enough for even Neapolio to know it would have incinerated the entire front of the classroom.

Dr. Mattheus cleared his throat. "Of course, social reasons, just as much as ideological reasons, have resulted in as many brutal assassinations. A difference in ideas is a powerful motivator, but malcontent burns hotter than words. This is best exemplified by Emperor Claudia, murdered in the street by a man whose farm he'd taken.

"This isn't to say that assassination as a political play has disappeared. It simply became less obvious and more preemptive. There are plenty of lower-level officials who perish under mysterious circumstances. Sudden and unexplained suicides. Freak accidents with dubious involved parties. Disappear—"

Dr. Mattheus looked towards the ceiling. Neapolio followed his eyes, seeing the ceiling above him suddenly start bulging. Dr. Mattheus shrugged and rhythmically walked out of the way. The ceiling crashed down to the ground, weighed down by many tons of scientific equipment from the laboratory above.

Seeing the destruction, Dr. Mattheus pinched his nose. "I suppose," he continued, in a more annoyed intonation, "we'll skip to efficacy of assassination.

"Any common farmer or workhand can run up to a person of importance and take a wild shot. This is an incompetent practice for two reasons. Firstly, any 27^th-century politician has a retinue of trained servicemen who can identify and dispatch a blatant threat long before they're in position. Secondly, you immediately give yourself away. You will spend the rest of your life in prison, and you will never again be a free man.

"Therefore, you must take care to anonymize yourself. A competent investigative force will be able to narrow down a careless suspect in a matter of hours. Therefore, subtlety is of the utmost importance.

"Take, for example, this…" Dr. Mattheus gestured as the lab equipment behind him. "…attempt. While the actual assassination would only take a blind man unaware, the anonymization is barely competent. I'm sure many of the students in this class have access to the lab in the floor above, and the tools required to destabilize the integrity of the building can be found at any hardware store.

"Much less competent is the sniper currently stationed in the building across from the plaza. Even a mildly observant passerby could notice the glint of a sniper's scope from several hundred meters away. Not only that, said sniper is stationed in an entirely predictable position; a few floors upwards in a telegraph control center. In fact, such a position is so predictable, one could install a telelocation pad beneath the room for demonstration purposes."

As he spoke this, Dr. Mattheus drew a small remote from the pocket of his professors' robes. He pressed a button, then a haze began to accumulate in the center of the lecture hall. It slowly began to form the shape of a crouched person. Suddenly, the mist evaporated off, revealing a man wearing a black toga, a mask covering his face, holding an anti-materiel rifle.

The sniper seemed confused; Dr. Mattheus took the opportunity to deliver a chop to the back of his neck. The sniper turned around, wielding his rifle, but Dr. Mattheus quickly grabbed it by the barrel and disarmed him. He then reached under his toga for a knife, but Dr. Matteus delivered a series of concentrated, deliberate strikes to the solar plexus, neck and stomach. The sniper doubled over, incapacitated. Neapolio hadn't seen such a display of fighting prowess outside of films.

Dr. Mattheus stared at the would-be assassin; he was keeled over on the ground. He straightened out his shirt, undoing some creases, then walked calmly over to his desk drawer. He took out two strange devices; an orange metal disk the size of his palm, and a purple sphere attached to a metal spike. As he walked back over to the assassin, he continued lecturing.

"A co-conspirator is a common risk in assassination, but often a necessary risk. It's rare that one person has the ability and forethought to carry out the intricacies of untraceable murder. However, a conspirator is also a loose end. A conspirator becomes capable of the highest degree of blackmail; the ability to expose you for a serious crime. A conspirator can also reveal your identity under duress.

"This man is a Triarii veteran. He clearly has experience in long-distance combat, hence the possession of a Franciscus K320 anti-material sniper rifle. He clearly does not have experience in urban warfare, hence his lack of familiarity with proper sniper positioning. Now, what does this tell us? Anyone?"

Neapolio looked around the room. Any slackness within the room had been vacuumed out, leaving a cold tension that sent shivers down Neapolio's spine. No one fidgeted or even blinked. Afraid of what Dr. Mattheus would do if no one rose to answer the question, Neapolio raised his hand.

Dr. Mattheus exhaled through his nostrils. "Yes, Neapolio?"

"It means he's in the military," Neapolio hazarded.

"Half correct, as usual, Neapolio," Dr. Mattheus snided back. "Clearly whoever hired this sorry excuse for an interloper has some kind of military tie. In addition, they're wealthy enough to hire a mercenary to do their dirty work, but not knowledgeable enough to hire a good one. That narrows it down to five, maybe six, students in this classroom."

Neapolio noticed some of the students around him sweating.

"Torture, as discussed in our earlier unit, is rarely a useful strategy for extracting intelligence. Under torture, a detainee will only tell you what to hear, rather than any real truth. However, I doubt this man has any substantial loyalty to his cause."

Dr. Mattheus stuck the orange disk onto the man's back. Suddenly, he started convulsing, as though he were in the throes of the worst pain he'd felt in his life. It only took a few seconds for him to start screaming, begging for mercy. His pleas echoed in the empty lecture hall.

After a few more seconds, the disk fell off of his back. The man seized up, then lied on the ground. He reached back to massage the part of his back where the disk had been planted.

"That was setting one," Dr. Mattheus said, picking the disk up off the ground. "I'm calibrating it for setting five. Yes, the scale is logarithmic. Who hired you?"

The man groaned. "It was him!" he gasped, pointing towards one of the shorter students. "He tried to hire me over a letter, but I could recognize his blood money from a mile away. I only did this as a favor to his father."

The class was suddenly abuzz with uncharacteristic muttering. Neapolio turned around to face Sergius, the perpetrator. The color had drained from his face. It was more obvious due to the fact that he was bald; a strange fashion choice that had become more popular as of late. He was already stammering out excuses, trying to avoid what came next. But even he seemed to realize it was futile.

Dr. Mattheus sighed again, pressing the button on his remote. The soldier turned to mist, then vanished again.

"Mr. Senecius," Dr. Mattheus said. He said it much slower, much softer, much more sinister. "Please come to the front of the class."

Sergius froze for a second, glancing back at the door. I could run, he thought to himself, visualizing himself suddenly getting up and making a mad dash for the exit. But, even assuming one of the other students didn't stop him for favor with the brutal professor, campus security absolutely would. They would flay him for his cowardice. The alternative was less painful.

So he got up and forced his legs to move, slowly waddling to the front of the class.

Why isn't he running? Neapolio thought to himself. Is he dumb?

Sergius stood in front of the class, trying his best to appear brave. He puffed out his chest and stood up straight. Still, everyone in class noticed his clammy hands, his frantic eyes and his quivering lower lip.

"Here at Alexylva University," Dr. Mattheus continued, "any attempt on the life of a faculty member will be met with summary corporeal execution." Dr. Mattheus took the purple spike from earlier, twirling it in his hands. Then, placing one hand on Sergius' shoulder, he drove it into Sergius' left eye. Sergius winced and whimpered, trying not to express pain. Even Neapolio winced, shrinking down into his chair. Blood began running from Sergius' eye socket; still, he stood up straight.

"Unfortunately," Dr. Mattheus said, with a hint of annoyance, "this hasn't prevented students from killing their professors, in the hopes that their replacement will provide a better grade. This is especially relevant for notoriously difficult political science professors, with classes with dismal test scores.

"As iterated earlier, assassination sends a message. I hope this sends a more evocative message. Last words, Mr. Senecius?"

"Hail Caesar," Sergius said, pouring as much determination into his voice as he could muster.

"You're a disappointment to Caesar," Dr. Mattheus replied. Then he clapped his hands twice.

An eerie silence hung over the room. Sergius just stood there, the device impaled into his eye. Then, a sudden wet snap as Sergius' spine erupted out of his mouth.

Neapolio's mouth dropped. Sergius' shoulderblades had collapsed down to his waist, bringing his head with it. Effectively, it had impaled his skull on his own spine. Sergius tried screaming, which was rather ineffective with his mouth full of bone and spinal fluid. Sergius tried rapidly grasping for something, anything to help. But no one dared stand up.

Sergius buckled down, falling to his knees. His flailing arms suddenly started to bend at weird angles. A fleshy crack resounded through the auditorium as his arms started to fold in on themselves. The bone was rupturing through his skin, rapidly escaping the body only to fuse with itself. His legs followed suit.

Sergius was trying to say something, which was futile. He wept, tears streaming down what was left of his face. His bones kept shattering and knitting back together until he had no appendages left. Now a boney worm thing on the ground, Sergius made direct eye contact with Neapolio. It seemed to last an eternity; Sergius staring into Neapolio's being, infinite pain behind his eyes. Neapolio couldn't help but gasp.

Suddenly, the spine folded back in on itself like an umbrella being contracted, as the remains of Sergius' skin shriveled into his neck. Neapolio now noticed Sergius had no body. Now able to speak, Sergius tried to say something, but only managed to stutter out incomprehensible gibberish. Neapolio couldn't help but watch as Sergius' skull started compressing itself, the bone squeezing and contracting the internal organs, before starting to take a pyramid shape.

After he finally stopped screaming, Sergius had become a small triangular object made out of bone and ossified flesh. The only recognizable part was his eye, the spike still sticking out.

Dr. Mattheus bent down to pick up Sergius. After cleaning off the blood and bile, he removed the purple spike from Sergius' eye. It was now entirely solid; in a morbid way, it now reminded Neapolio of a geode. Dr. Mattheus then placed Sergius on the desk, next to— Neapolio realized with horror— seven or eight other similarly shaped paperweights.

Dr. Mattheus turned back to the class, his academic stare cutting the room like butter. After relishing the terror for a few minutes, Dr. Mattheus nodded.

"Before I was interrupted," he lectured, "we were discussing the historical context of assassination. Ideology is often blamed for assassination, and it's easy to see why. Politics is often flashy, a competition between desperate rivals to demonstrate that their party is full of liars, cheats, and— yes— murderers. Especially if it confirms their prior prejudices, ideological reasons are easy to blame.

"However, it is a fool's errand to rule out material causes. As I hope today has demonstrated, simple malcontent can drive many to desperate action. In fact, one can argue that…"

Neapolio couldn't pay attention anymore. His eyes were fixed on the pool of blood, guts and bile that had welled up on the floor. He could still see Sergius staring at him. Begging for Neapolio to end his suffering early.

The seconds ticked like hours until Dr. Mattheus dismissed class.

Neapolio staggered out of the lecture hall and felt like he was no longer drowning. He spent a few minutes hunched over a bench, trying his country best not to vomit. He almost failed.

After he had recovered, Neapolio looked back at his classmates and saw them… acting normally? The mathematicians were chattering excitedly about some new proof that there was no such thing as an irrational number. The bald gang was irreverently talking about their classes in the same manner a military commander plans a battle. Even the students Neapolio had seen go completely cold had gotten up and started acting normally.

It was another stark reminder that Neapolio didn't belong here.

A few months earlier, Neapolio had been the smartest person in the backwoods town of Eboracum. He could read, write and repair a hyper-tractor better than anyone in a fifty-mile radius. He was the biggest fish in the smallest possible pond. A genius, he was told.

His family had been saving money for generations. By the time Neapolio graduated high school, it was just enough for admission to Alexylva University, the most prestigious university in all the dimensions, let alone the Empire. A degree from Alexylva made you a shoo-in for a lucrative position within the Empire's bureaucracy. Of course, they chose to send him. Their little genius, ready to be their salvation, rescuing them from a miserable existence of subsistence farming and increasingly hawkish creditors.

Neapolio was a little worried he'd be out of his depth in the core of the Empire, but he had faith that his wits and intelligence would carry him through. That faith had evaporated the moment he met his peers. They were five times as quick as him, had effectively memorized the entire corpus, and were as cutthroat as a feral pig.

He thought he could deal with that. I'm gonna swim with the whales, mom, he'd written back home. But now, seeing Sergius maimed and slaughtered in front of him…

The thought almost made him retch again. He never liked Sergius, he was a jerk. But, to think of that happening to anyone…

Why didn't he run? Stupid, stupid Neapolio. Not able to understand the complex machinations and politics of this university. So far out of his depth. Ready to run home with his tail between his legs.

No, Neapolio told himself. If there was one redeeming quality he had, it was stubbornness. He could ram his head against this wall until it broke down. Even after today, he was sure of it.

But what to do next? Well, there was only one thing Neapolio could do. He stood up, kept his head down, and trudged towards his next class. Chronochemistry 101 was in five minutes, and he did not want to be late.

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