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| The Sony answering machine currently containing SCP-855 as it was found on Dr. Flipp's desk. |
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Item #: SCP-855
Object Class: Euclid
Special Containment Procedures: SCP-855 is contained on a Sony brand answering machine currently housed in Remote Storage ██, a shed 55 m west of the perimeter of Site 19 with roof, walls, and door made of 7 cm thick titanium. This facility is to be guarded by two armed guards during standard daylight shifts for staff. The door is to be locked with both a Foundation-issue keyhole padlock and a Foundation-issue combination padlock, both attached above the door handle. Any personnel wishing to enter this area for testing must first obtain approval from Dr. Tack, who will issue both the first padlock's key and the second padlock's combination. Personnel entering the shed must surrender all cell phones, satellite phones, or any other communications device to guards before unlocking either padlock for admission.
After reviewing the threat that SCP-855 poses to Foundation secrecy, O5-█ and O5-█ have ordered that the combination to the padlock be rekeyed and the padlock key be surrendered into O5 authority. Dr. Tack no longer has authorization to allow access to Remote Storage ██.
Description: SCP-855 is a voice mail recording of varying length and content, but always beginning with the voice of an (apparently) elderly woman saying "Hi Julie! It's grandma, calling to let you know how my trip is going." The message will continue in the same woman's voice with differing messages (see below). After, and only after, the message has finished playing does SCP-855's anomalous effect manifest.
After a human subject has heard the message, he or she will pick up the nearest telephone (usually attached to the machine containing the message) and dial a seemingly random phone number. According to subject reports, they then hold the phone to their ear as the phone rings, picks up on answering machine, and the same elderly woman can be heard saying, "Hi Julie! It's grandma, calling to let you know how my trip is going," followed with descriptions of the subject using the phone, their position and current situation, and recent activities of the subject as if the woman speaking has spent a day with and conversed with him or her. After the woman's voice is done speaking over the phone, the subject will return the phone to its receiver or otherwise hang up the call. Subjects have reported that during the call, they are aware of what the woman is saying but do not have control to hang up, speak, or otherwise interact with the call themselves. The message itself also seems to be self-deleting once it has been played and leaves no trace on the recording device.
See addendum for logs of recovery for SCP-855 and details on its current state.
Addendum 855-01: SCP-855 was originally brought to the attention of the Foundation on ██/██/████, when Agent Jacobs, stationed undercover during a mission involving [DATA EXPUNGED], reported back that a security breach had possibly taken place. Apparently, Agent Jacobs had returned to the apartment provided for him as cover when he found that there was a message waiting on his answering machine. Thinking that the Foundation had tried to contact him through non-standard channels due to an emergency, Agent Jacobs played the message.
He stated that the message was from an old woman calling for "Julie," and describing her stay with a man named ██████ ████, whom she described as a "nice old man, but a little lonely. He had lost his wife, Mrs. ████, a few years back. Oh Julie, I'm sure he'd love to meet you. He has a daughter of his own that he wishes would visit more often…" and so on. Agent Jacobs was uncertain how this message had come to his phone, as the number was no longer listed in public directories, but continued to listen.
When the message was finished, Agent Jacobs reported that he then picked up the phone, dialed a number (which he did not recall,) and held the phone to his ear. He heard the same elderly woman talking about an "Agent Jacobs. He's such an interesting man. He works for this company called the SEC or the SC-something or other Foundation, isn't that wild? But he's undercover right now, so I probably shouldn't tell you where he is (giggle). Anyway, he's hoping that his contact, Dr. █████, will call him soon… " the woman went on to describe details of Agent Jacobs's mission and the Foundation for another █ minutes, and when she was done talking, Agent Jacobs hung up the phone, and immediately contacted the Foundation.
Following the report that a breach of secrecy had occurred, phone logs of the apartment were dumped and MTF Beta 4 was sent out to the home of a Mr. ████ ███████, who had received the call. When they arrived on scene, Mr. ███████ had apparently already heard the message, as he asked the Task Force if they were from the Foundation. Subject was [DATA EXPUNGED] immediately due to massive secrecy breach, all telecom devices were confiscated, and house was [DATA EXPUNGED].
Though phone logs from the house of Mr. ████ ███████ were obtained and used to track subsequent subjects, it appeared that no subjects receiving SCP-855 after Mr. ███████ had been exposed to any knowledge of the Foundation. Phone logs continued to be traced and subjects apprehended in an attempt to head off the progress of SCP-855. Subjects were all held for further questioning until the next incident (see below.)
Addendum 855-02: On ██/██/████, ██ days after the initial incident, a message was left on the Customer Service line of Soap from Corpses Products, one of the Foundation's fronts. Dr. El, who was supervising the front, listened to the message the following day, later reporting the standard "Hi Julie!" introduction of SCP-855 followed by an account of the woman's stay with a Mrs. █████ ███, a "young, single woman" with "a lot of spunk" and who had recently [DATA EXPUNGED]. After hearing the message, Dr. El picked up the phone and dialed a number. Fortunately, however, he did not dial an outside line, but instead dialed the extension for Dr. Flipp's office, who was aiding in the supervision of the same front and had an office down the hall from Dr. El. Interestingly, Dr. Flipp was out of his office at the time while attending to [DATA EXPUNGED].
Dr. El reported that the call went to voice mail and the elderly woman began to explain about Dr. El, the Foundation, the fact that Soap from Corpses Products is a front of the Foundation, and all SCPs Dr. El had recently worked on as a researcher. After about █ minutes, the conversation ended, and Dr. El, realizing what had happened, alerted all class 4 personnel in the area and effectively removed the answering machine now containing SCP-855 from its power source and Dr. Flipp's office.
It has been in Foundation custody since that incident.
Addendum 855-03: After SCP-855 was moved from Dr. Flipp's office to it's current secure site, tracing of phone records to determine the path of SCP-855's travel were concluded. Including Agent Jacobs' interaction with the anomaly, a total of ██ victims have been found. However, the oldest record that was traceable was from a small telephone service provider in Egypt that had all records and client lists corrupted sometime within the last █ months, meaning that tracing further back from that call is impossible. It is feasible and, given analysis of SCP-855's behavior, likely that there are far more subjects who have interacted with SCP-855. Attempts to locate previous information or subjects for new leads is ongoing.
All subjects that had had confirmed contact with SCP-855 and who were still alive at the time of the second event were brought in for questioning as soon as traces were concluded. All interviewed subjects reported similar stories, including the unchanging introduction of the message and subsequent random dialing effect. However, it appears that the random number dialed by subjects of SCP-855 never results in a call that will be picked up, but that instead always goes to voice mail. In addition, examination of confiscated devices supports evidence of a self-deleting effect that takes place after the message is played, removing any chance that it will be heard twice. All subjects interviewed were found to have not received any information about the Foundation via the message, even those subjects that had received the message after Agent Jacobs' incident, instead consistently hearing accounts of only the subject before them who was placing the call. All interviewed subjects were given Class-A Amnesiacs and released, while their phone lines were monitored for an additional █ months for further anomalous activity.
Due to the sensitive nature of the information currently present within SCP-855, immediate attempts were made to destroy it. Tests were conducted with fire, acid, high-power magnets, explosives, pressure, radiation, and disassembly. All showed no effect on damaging the device storing SCP-855 or the message itself, as the device still indicates 1 new message and seems to be functioning normally when plugged in. This effect seems to be intrinsic to SCP-855's current instance, as previous confiscated equipment showed no similar resistance to damage.
Due to its currently indestructible yet sensitive nature, SCP-855 was placed in Remote Storage ██ in order to prevent further breaches of secrecy, whether due to unauthorized persons hearing the message itself in its current state or high-level personnel hearing the message and subsequently falling prey to its information leaking properties.
Addendum 855-04: On ██/██/████, ███ days after SCP-855 was put into containment, a call was made to Dr. ████'s office from an outside private line, though no such call should be possible. Following the capture of SCP-855, automatic call monitoring systems had been placed on all Foundation lines, and they recorded the following:
Dr. ████: Hello? Who is this?
Caller: My name is Julie. I haven't heard from my grandma in a while and I'm getting worried.
<Sounds of Dr. ████ going through his desk for a pen and paper>
Dr. ████: Oh yes, Julie. Why don't you tell us where you are and we'll have her call you. And could you tell me your last name?
Caller: I really liked to hear from my grandma.
Dr. ████: Well Julie, just let us know where you are and maybe we can have her contact you.
Caller: I hope she's all right.
Dr. ████: Your grandma is fine, Julie.
Caller: And I hope I hear from her soon.
Dr. ████: Well, Julie, as soon as we can hear form y-
Caller: (Menacingly) Or else I'll have to kill you.
<Dialtone>
After this call, Dr. ████ went to Remote Storage ██ and attempted to force open the door in a panicked state. The guards on-site restrained him and he was sent home on psychiatric leave. One week later he was found [DATA EXPUNGED] in his house. All attempts to trace the incoming call from "Julie" have failed.
Following this incident, further testing as to a way of destroying SCP-855 or its containing device has been proposed, pending approval of O5-█ and O5-█.
Agent Stide sat at his desk, eyes half open and trying to overcome his immediate sense of boredom. He was idly flipping a pencil between his fingers, though he had already dropped it at least 24 times… no, make that 25.
Agent Stide bent down to pick up the pencil. As he came up, he glanced at the pegboard covered in papers and documents that took up one of the walls of his slightly cramped office. All containment reports. All incidents where breaches were written down, and the results of those events logged, quantified, and sorted for posterity and the chance to learn from past mistakes. Sitting there and looking at the wall of containment protocols, Agent Stide began to twirl the pencil in his left hand again, and the boredom returned to his face.
Working Containment was like that. You got stationed to a site, briefed about all the containment procedures for the relevant SCPs, shown to your office, briefed again on the containment procedures, given a copy of the daily schedule of the site, and finally reminded that copies of containment procedures could be found in your desk. Then, you spent almost all of your day in that very office, not even able to go to the break room to chat with the research staff for more than five minutes, because you had to be ready at your post in the event of a breach. And then came the next day, and the next, until finally you requested to go to a site with more "action" or just shut up and accepted the boredom and stayed where they put you.
Well, it wasn't continuously that boring, actually. Every once in a while an alarm would go off and a breach would happen, and you'd have to run down a corridor that was already growing eyeballs on its walls, or put on earmuffs and sunglasses and walk backwards toward the bashed-down door of some cell. And even though that was all procedure, it never really was a constant on how a breach would go down. Sometimes the skip would mimic the appearance of a researcher so you had to round them all up for questioning, sometimes you had to take a flashlight and check all the vents on site because the power was down and there was rattling in the ductwork. When stuff happened, it was exciting. But stuff doesn't happen too often when you have pages and pages written down on how to keep it from happening. Or, at least, stuff didn't happen too often at this run-of-the-mill site.
But when it did, Stide at least had the glory of putting some bug-eyed thing with nine and a half arms back in its cell. All the glory. Not like when he used to work in Intel.
Oh, hell no. See, all the newbies thought they had it figured out. He'd seen it in their faces a million times. Containment, true enough, was a waiting game. Action came eventually, and then you got your fifteen minutes, but most of the time it was like this. Newbies had containment pegged. Then, there's Retrieval. Retrieval had the action, sure, but it had all the dangers of a new skip nobody had brought down before, too. Some of them were mild, but the newbies knew that if you were going to get killed, retrieval was the place it would happen. That was mostly true, too. So that left Intel. Going out, gathering information, in a really noir, smooth and spy-like way. Intel was what the newbies pined for. They thought Intel was the shit.
They were wrong.
See, there was a huge problem with Intel, Stide knew. Sure, it was great to be on the front lines, to be the first, lucky agent who even heard of this SCP or that. The discovery, that rush of filling in mystery with detail and getting to the bottom of something either being frighteningly real or just urban legend, that was intense. Stide had enjoyed that; he'd followed it with a passion. And the legwork, too! The chatting in a bar scene about "werewolf" sightings. The occasional breaking and entering to retrieve a photo from a local tabloid. The sitting in your cover house, jotting down a list of subjects that would have to be taken in for further questioning. And finally, catching your first glimpse of the thing. Being the first person to see it who knew it for what it really was. Writing down its behavior, noting its appearance, recording its schedule (if applicable). Figuring out what this weird, spooky thing actually was. That, as the newbies eventually learned, was the real pull of Intel.
But then, after you'd been on location for months, after you'd talked to about four hundred people who all had different accounts of a cat without hind legs, after you'd risked spying on a thing that could start your liver on fire by looking at you funny, what did you do? Did you rush in, using all the information you'd painstakingly collected and detailed to catch it off guard? Did you devise some trap and then set it into motion like a master hunter of supernatural game? No. You called the boys from Retrieval. And they'd come, maybe set up a camp or HQ or something, double check their gear, and within the span of four hours have the thing bagged and on a flatbed to site whatever-it-is. And back at Command, who would get all the credit? Not you with your months of research, fact-sorting, and possible illegal activity, oh no. You'd only hear about agent so-and-so from Retrieval, and what a great job he did. It's not like he figured out you had to pull on the thing's fourth antenna from the left or it would shoot acid at you all on his own, did he? No, that was the unglorified, safe, and almost forgotten work of Intel.
Stide knew that a lot of the guys from Intel and the guys from Retrieval were great pals. Heck, take Lombardi and Bibs. And he knew that both the sides worked together, really, to bring in the new skips, and that it was probably his credit that a lot of Retrieval guys were still walking around. But he still couldn't help but feel that, in Intel, he always had put in so much more work, more time, than anyone gave him credit for. Even the Retrieval boys. And they were the ones who he'd gruffly hand all the paperwork to anyway. At least he could get a thank you once in a while, right? I mean, it's not like he ever got lucky enough to go out and take down one of the skips that he stalked, right?
Well, there was the one time.