Experiment File XXXX-3

Interview XXXX-4, ██/██/200█

"I thought I was okay with the scip. I thought we got along well. While I was in there, I read most of a book and watched some TV, but I spent a lot of time thinking about how my relationship with my wife started out — we got married six months ago — thank you — and they really were great times. Anyway, I had only been on the SZ job for four days when we realized, um, what happened.

She came to visit — yeah, her clearance was okay — and while we were talking, I mustered up the courage to ask her why she stuck that pin into my brain.

She looked at me like I… I don't know. I've never seen anyone make that face before. I told her what I remembered — the night we both finally saw the start of Rose Red, after I was asleep, she climbed onto my chest and sat there, kind of lightly, but with my arms pinned down by her legs, and she pressed her fingertips onto my eyes. Hard. She told me she'd crush my eyes if I moved, to stay still. Then she stuck something sharp, like a pin, into my ear canal — my left ear, here, it was angled upward through the skin like this — she stuck that needle or whatever it was into my brain and left it there. She did it kind of slow, stopping to squeeze my eyes with her other hand when I started to move or yell.

Afterward I remember her holding me down like that while I was crying and pleading with her to stop and help me get to a doctor. She just kept saying she wouldn't hurt me any more and I should go to sleep. She was so cold and… indifferent about it. A few hours later I somehow did calm down and fall asleep, and maybe that's the craziest thing about it, but that's where the weird memory ends.

Of course she didn't remember anything like that happening, so I went to get it checked out, just to, I don't know, FIX things with her in my mind. The docs said there was no evidence, nothing on the X-ray, no scarring, nothing. Nothing on the psych tests either. I felt better after that, a little, but that messed up memory is always going to be there. Like a pin lodged in my brain."

Annotated personal log of SCP-XXXX research subject #10, Agent A. M███████, herein referred to as "D-10427."

Entry #1, 06/██/200█ 20:31

God, that thing is ugly.

But what's more important to me than getting its face out of my head is jotting down precisely how fucked up this situation is. I just got demoted to D-class for saving the lives of everyone at [DATA EXPUNGED], and I barely had a chance to get my side of the story out to anyone before I was whisked away to babysit this abomination.

I was guarding SCP-914 when it happened. It's a real cushy position these days, so you better believe I took it seriously — I didn't want replaced, I wanted to watch my ass expand onto that uncomfortable chair while I read old issues of ███ and ate donuts. And socked away big lumps of retirement. Nothing was getting past me unless it was on the level, absolutely flat on the goddamn level. That just wasn't in the cards I guess.

I hope I can type quickly, because I've heard the stories about these cognitohazards. Any second now I'm going to shit my pants and then spend the rest of my life thinking I'm a chicken — all three weeks of it. You know the last thing I said to my wife? Neither do I. This is bullshit.

Anyway, this guy came in — no notice from the top, he just jogged up to me pushing a trolley full of lumpy shit with a canvas over it — and he's wearing a visored helmet, body armor, the whole rig. Even had his weapon, so I knew it was all wrong right away, but his insignias and mannerisms said "get out of my way or you're Keter food," so I gave him the benefit of the doubt.

I shouldn't have been the only one there. My partner only left for a moment. I hope his dinner plans or his dump was worth it. Maybe he's already floating in a Lagrange point or being picked clean by deep sea crabs. To hell with him anyway.

Then the spec-ops douche shoves the paperwork into my hands. He wanted a Very Fine, and get this, whoever reads this, what did he want to put in? A REAL DOLL and THE COLLECTED WORKS OF H.P. LOVECRAFT. I couldn't believe it, but his hand was on his weapon, so I poker-faced and let him in.

He turned to 914, and pulled something from the bottom of the cart. Not a book or a doll. It looked like a human brain in a glass tank, and that was the last straw. I did what I should have. I emptied my magazine into his chest while he was still struggling to heft the first of his prosthetic fuck buddies off the cart. He got off one round and missed, then some other [REDACTED] security showed up and hauled him off. Even if he was unarmed and not trying to push through like a con man going in for the kill, there is no way I'd let him try to create a plastic braineating demon-god sex slave on my watch.

Somebody down there in the bowels of Foundation administration likes him, because here I am. I didn't think it worked this way in life, in the Foundation, but there's no use complaining now. He was just above the law and the protocol and everyone else's life. He lived, by the way, and his name is Agent J███ H█████. Send him my love in the form of a hydrochloric acid enema.

I haven't slept since it happened, and I don't give a damn if that freak in the other room can hear my every thought and everything I dream. Actually, I like it. Part of me will live on even after it turns me into a breathing blob of lime Jell-O in my sleep.

Entry #2, 07/██/200█ 06:03

Cried myself to sleep, terrified. Ha ha. At least the people in that glorified tollbooth outside are making zero wisecracks about it.

I'm surprised I woke up at all, but I feel okay. It gets better too. They told me this thing can give people knowledge, important knowledge. Fusion power, ray guns, heat-seeking self-cleaning mousetraps. Whatever, but if it's valuable enough, it can be worth a promotion out of D-class. I usually don't believe those rumors about people leaving D-class, but this makes sense. They aren't going to off their poster child eggheads for some arbitrary termination ritual. So what if it's just as likely to reverse my coordination laterally or make me chew my lips off, I have a chance now.

They gave me some topics to start on — seems it likes science and math things, as far as they know — after I get a pail of slop from them and set it in the thing's cage. They have a robot to do it, an old decommissioned bomb squad gadget, but they want us to bond. How cute is that bullshit? If I have to dry nurse it and change its diaper, that takes a bit of the sting out of the prospect that it could wipe my brain at any second.

Entry #3, 07/██/200█ 11:15

They're having me study molecular biology. If that was my best subject, I'd never have wound up guarding the clockworks. At least there are no tests: they tell me to read and understand things one line at a time and hope that the zombie will pick up on what I'm thinking and fill in the gaps.

At least the coffee's good. I bet they spike it with something to get better results.

[Note: During a four-minute period that night starting at 01:50 in which D-10123 appeared to have an episode of somnambulism, he deleted the paragraph concerning his imaginary hat from his log. This of course had no effect on our records in the remote station. — Researcher █████]

Entry #4, 08/██/200█ 11:20

This morning the monitoring team asked me if I wanted my hat back. I told them I'm a condemned man who's trapped in a box with a monster that shits inside your head, so I'd rather have some of whatever they're smoking than a hat.

They must be cracking up. You'd figure the Foundation would have a way to detect how far away this thing can play with your brains, but you'd figure they would have given me a medal for stopping that lunatic too.

It's only been two days, but this stuff is starting to make sense to me. Doesn't seem right. I can't tell you the first thing about it, but it looks clear when I'm reading it.

They're changing the material, they're even going to pipe in a correspondence tutor. Neurochemistry now. What the hell?

Entry #5 10/██/200█ 19:49

I never fought for anything so hard. I'm trying, but I'm sorry, it's way too much. I don't know how to do these things, and they want me to compile a list of experiments in three days! Just… tell my wife I love her, and all that good rot. Don't tell her what happened, any of it, even if it's authorized. Make something up. She deserves better than a D-class "insurance" package. I'm sorry.

I'm probably starting to lose my mind. When I brought the monster its bucket of fruit and berries, I stood in front of it holding the bucket while it ate. I wanted to. I wanted to look at its face up close. I even ate some of its food myself. We were just standing there like two catatonic genius lab monkeys, eating pomegranate seeds out of a pail. After a few minutes I started to realize how horrifying that was, so I put down the pail and left. I was terrified of dropping it, I kept thinking that thing would put lightning into my pain center if I did. I don't know if that's my thoughts or it thinking for me, but I want out of here. Alive.

They tell me I spent almost an hour and a half in its cage, standing there staring up at it.

Entry #6 12/██/200█ 06:08

Yes. At least the coffee is good. Forget the bags under my eyes and the pillow full of tears, I have great coffee so to hell with it all.

I'm requesting papers on calorimetry, molecular mechanics, organic chemistry, stuff I can't believe I can spell. They tell me to go with whatever seems right. I think they want miracle drugs. I hope that's what we'll think up for them.

New teacher new subject, study or die. I hate this.

Entry #7 13/██/200█ 22:32

Haven't slept. First experiment sent off. I've seen and done a lot of strange things, but this is a whole other magnitude. I feel like one of those psychics who write for ghosts. A math ghost. Math ghost!

MATH GHOST! GIANT MALFORMED MATH GHOST WITH SHIT ALL DOWN THE BACK OF ITS LEGS!

They're telling me to stop laughing and sleep, or they'll have the sentry in my room shoot me with a tranq. I know enough now to not think of that as a good thing, but it's still tempting.

Entry #8 14/██/200█ 04:59

It spends all day staring at the ceiling. It doesn't sleep. It doesn't look at things. I wonder why its legs don't hurt. Maybe they do.

They'll have the results soon. It's not a normal pill, they know that much. It's something weird.

Entry #9 14/██/200█ 07:18

They studied the formula for a while, and they found out why it was strange. It all boils down to a handful of edible compounds, just like they thought!

IT'S A CAKE. It's a fucking CAKE! IT'S a FUCKING CAKE! It made a twenty-five thousand dollar CAKE!

But no wait, they're saying I should calm down because it has a light creamy texture and no icing, it's made of the fucking icing! That changes everything! It's a fluffy spongy icing cake that melts in your mouth and it's made from hundreds of expensive chemicals and my tears and blood and fear and my LIFE! I'm going to kill that dumb ugly motherfucker with one of his own ribs!

[Note: After this entry, D-10123 attempted to access SCP-XXXX's cell while sobbing and cursing abundantly. He collapsed screaming and clutching the sides of his head several times on the way to the door to SCP-XXXX's cell before finding the door to be locked. He proceeded to bash his chair against the safety glass window until the order was given to subdue him by tranquilizer at 07:23. — Researcher █████]

[Research Conclusion: Agent A. M███████ ("D-10123") was brought in for psychiatric analysis, then taken to medical facility [EXPUNGED] where he was restrained and shot in the leg with a half-charge round from a small caliber handgun and given an amnesiac. During his recovery, he was told that he had performed admirably in his duties in defending SCP-914 from forged access, and was given the standard SCP-XXXX volunteering bonus as a "reward." Doctored security camera footage of his actions, showing him firing nine rubber bullets at Agent J███ H█████ before being hit once himself, was provided to him to add credibility to a PTSD/blood loss amnesia explanation.

The agent who presented the bonus to Agent M███████, along with a thin slice of the material synthesized by SCP-XXXX's instructions, introduced himself as Agent "J███ H█████;" Agent M███████ did not recognize the name, adding to the evidence that SCP-XXXX does not cater to the vendettas of its co-habitating subjects, or cannot implant memories immune to amnesiacs. Corroborating the reports of other test subjects, Agent M███████ reported the synthetic cake to promote feelings of satiation not attributable to its volume or nutritional content.

The experiment completely failed to produce its primary goal, unless the more useful compounds in the cake can be isolated and produced for a much more reasonable price. Still, it confirms the hypothesis that the test subject's perception of danger and need does not assure a useful outcome. — Dr. ███, project leader]

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