[You're not supposed to be viewing these files. Take a chance. You've come this far. Some of this is true. Some is false. Sometimes I'll lie. It doesn't matter. Someone somewhere believes it. And belief has power. Realize also that the O5 Council might not even exist.] —████████████ 👁️‍🗨️🜏

The O5 Council. O5 Command. The Overseers. Overwatch.

Ultimate control over the Foundation. Each O5 knows almost everything. Between them, every secret the Foundation holds. Below Clearance Level 2, you don’t even know they exist. An O5 walks in, and everyone pisses their pants.

SCiPNET DIRECT ACCESS TERMINAL
⚠ IMPERSONATING AN OVERSEER: TERMINATION
VIA BERRYMAN-LANGFORD MEMETIC KILL AGENT
Does the Black Moon Howl? > Only when you listen.
. . . CREDENTIALS ACCEPTED. WELCOME, OVERSEER.

You don’t remember how you got here. Metal chair. Bolted down. Concrete walls. A single glass of water on the table you instinctively know not to drink.

(Smart. That could be SCP-006. The Fountain of Youth. O5-exclusive access. Anyone who touches it unauthorized gets incinerated.)

There is no door. There was one when you sat down. Now there isn’t.

Then — thirteen silhouettes. Arranged in a semicircle. You don’t know when they arrived. They don’t have faces. Not masks — your brain simply slides off them. Some memetic filter. Some anomalous property.

The O5 Council.

O5-7:

“You accessed a file you weren’t supposed to. Cognitohazardous tracking signature. Paragraph six. You read paragraph six.”

O5-4:

“We are not angry. Anger is for people who have the luxury of being surprised. We are never surprised.”

A folder materializes on the table. Your name — your real name, the one your mother whispered when you were born. Not your badge name. Not your Foundation designation.

(How do they know that? She died before—) (Oh.)

O5-1:

“We know things that haven’t happened yet. Things that happened and were unhappened. Between thirteen of us, we hold more classified information than every intelligence agency in history combined — and most of them work for us anyway.”

One of them is impossibly ancient — O5-6, 200+ year lifespan, preserved by the Fountain. Another flickers like damaged video — O5-2, possibly no longer human. One might be dead. O5-13. “Death’s Seat.” The Council made a deal with Death itself.

You feel the awareness of MTF Alpha-1, “Red Right Hand” — the Foundation’s most elite, answering only to these thirteen. They’ve killed Site Directors. Disappeared Level 4 personnel. Fought the Ethics Committee’s MTF Omega-1 inside this very building.

They aren’t pointing weapons at you. That’s the terrifying part. You’re already inside the box. The box has no doors.

O5-1:

“We decide what is anomalous and what is normal. We decide what the world knows. We have terminated populations to prevent breaches. Rewritten causality. Negotiated with gods. Fed living humans to things that should not exist — because the alternative was worse.

We are not good people. We are not bad people. We are the people who make the decisions that good and bad people cannot.”

All thirteen turn to you.

O5-1:

“Are you useful? Or are you a containment breach?”

The glass of water sits before you, still and clear. You do not drink it.

[MEMETIC KILL AGENT: ACTIVE] [MTF α-1: MONITORING]
[SESSION AUTO-PURGE IN: 00:03:47]
[Does the Black Moon Howl?]

[DOSSIER: Thirteen Overseers. O5-1 through O5-13. Clearance: Level 5 — Unrestricted. Protected Site-01. Defended by MTF Alpha-1 “Red Right Hand.” Access to SCP-006. Anomalous properties. Post-human lifespans. Body doubles. Designation swapping. They observe Keters. Micromanage Thaumiels. Negotiate with pre-human entities. Above the Ethics Committee. Above the Administrator. Above oversight itself.]

[Thirteen shadows holding the world together by choosing, every day, not to let it fall apart.]

[Secure. Contain. Protect.] 🔒🜏