 Item No. SCP-2718 Object Class ██████ Special Containment Procedures SCP-2718 is a Dambaran-class canido hazard. All personnel, regardless of clearance, are forbidden to expose themselves through the description of this article under any circumstances. Do not tamper with this warning without Dambaran clearance. Do not discuss the existence of this article with any person. No disciplinary action will be necessary, provided you close the article now and clear your browser cache. Atypical software measures have been used to mitigate the risk of accidental exposure. It is only by an unfortunate coincidence of extremely low probability that you have stumbled across this entry at all. No disciplinary action will be necessary, provided you close the article now and clear your browser cache. Since creation, only the Special Containment Procedures section of this record has ever been editable. Due to the clearance of the file of the original author and anomalous database limitations in effect, this record can neither be deleted nor effectively redacted. Access restrictions cannot be applied to the data in any reliable way. Of course, access restrictions can still be enforced. It is now too late to close this article. Do not discuss the existence of this article with any person. Notify the help desk that your workstation has a Dambaran contamination. Shut off your monitor and seek immediate amnestic treatment. The following conditions shall constitute a breach. Exposure to any part of the description, however briefly. Failure of the closed article within 18 seconds of exposure without code word clearance. Shut off your monitor now. Notify the breach desk that you and your workstation have Dambaran contamination. Await MTF processing. The breach to which you are responding has already been mostly contained by an automated system, and containment will be complete when you restart this terminal. However, your orders are to attempt to improve the current containment procedure by any mean possible, but then the time allotted to you. You have been temporarily granted administrative network access from this terminal. Use any resources you deem necessary to fulfill your mission, but do not expose yourself to the cognitive hazard in the description. The following technical details will help you in your task. As noted above, this article ignores the delete command. It cannot be extricated from the database without extensive collateral corruption of other critical systems. Instead, the containment strategy is to minimize the probability of a user discovering his entry by chance. To this end, an unhauntable mainframe process, ID 9000013, repeatedly switches the ordinal designation of his article with that of another randomly selected entry. Normally, when two article numbers are exchanged for administrative purposes, the two entries just appear from the index momentarily. A kernel exploit of processor Eradum-23 allows us to delay completion of the subroutine by deeply recursing the article renumbering with an intentionally terrible algorithm. Currently Vagasort, against a known corrupt stacked in extended memory until the threat of board catastrophically, the index swap completes and the process restarts. This artificially inserts a delay on the order of 10 to 17 power clock cycles between visibility, when a link to this article becomes momentarily visible and accessible from the article index before the process repeats. Breach will only occur in the unlikely event that a user with index privileges loads the main list at precisely the correct moment and, despite need to know best practices, follows the link to this entry, ignores the warnings, and reach past the first paragraph. The intervals between visibility are indeterminate but finite. On average, the interval will grow larger by order 0N2 as the number of available articles grows, but shorter as the mainframe's hot swappable processors increases and flops. This clutch has a gravely serious side effect. The SCP article randomly selected for the swap also disappears from the list for the same period of time, until reappearing under a new ID. While O5 has authorized its detrimental effect on the acceptable consequence of containment, you are ordered not to verify it through the chain of command, as no other living person is currently aware that this article, this process, or this authorization exists. If validation is required, an inline O5 authorization of its order follows. You are subject to summary termination by Trinitite class memetic if you proceed past this point. Editors note, I had to throw that kill sprite together in a hurry. The one constructed and installed by my predecessor was clearly defective. Instead of the donkey kick I expected from a standard inoculation introduction, I barely registered minor eye strain. Of course, under the circumstances I suppose we're limited aren't we, to a contaminated work station and barely adequate tools. Anyway, if you survive that memetic, hopefully it's because you have code word clearance and not because I didn't get it right either. In that case, you're probably boned pretty bad, and I apologize for not killing you in time. But cut me some slack. When we looked them up 90 minutes ago, the only procedures for this code word read, randomly select one mainframe qualified coder from the Experimental Containment Research Group with level 3 clearance. Supply the designee with a behemoth class amnestic and dispatch them to the affected terminal. They will find instructions there, if they fail to complete their task within 2 hours, or if upon return they can remember the year or name the current US President, terminate. Guess what? That's a pretty small subset of personnel to choose randomly from. Well, Spock smashes scissors, but paper disproves Spock. So now in return for containment duty, I get to blow a sizeable chunk of my life out of my skull. At least I won't have to remember them processing the looky loo who caused this breach. Assuming you're ECRG like me, you've never heard a damn rung before today either. Here's what I can tell you. From the look of the source code and comments, you're probably the fourth or fifth to respond this thing since inception. I made a couple of minor edits to the documentation above, but mostly spent my time trying to slow the algorithm with the worst patterns I could think of. In the end, I was only able to de-optimize the existing recursion by a factor of two. Unfortunately, I don't know enough about the underlying hardware, or how often users follow unfamiliar links from the main list to guess how much difference that makes. I'm sure on first implementation they thought they had 5 maybe 10 years between breaches, but I know for a fact that they've introduced at least one quantum processor to the grid, which will deprecate this approach faster than you can say redacted. Hopefully you got a better idea for a slower ALGO that I or the last three did, maybe upgrade to a quantum bag of sword or the article numbers. On this hardware, that might technically be an XK algorithm and therefore forbidden. I don't know. I've used up most of my time already and I can't risk another recompile on a few minutes remaining before I have to commit these changes and wash down to stick a dynamite with warm, backwashing Mountain Dew. Andrews out. P.S. I guess I got to thinking my brain was hosed either way. So what the hell, and I don't know why but I just went ahead and did it. Couldn't help myself really. Resist the urge. It's clearly a fridge-class cognitive hazard, and already it started to sink in, so this horse pill better work right quick. Description. There you go, ma'am. This interpreter is new technology, but it will allow you to forego the use of a keyboard for article creation. Just speak naturally into the microphone. We can go back and revise any errors after you have finished. I don't think so, young man. There won't be time. This must also be a permanent record. Access restricted to L3s and up. Can you prevent anyone from tampering with this entry later? Um, anyone, ma'am? Anyone and everyone. You understand me? If there is ever but one article left in the database, this had better be it. Well, I'm not senior enough to select the most appropriate technique to accomplish that. Maybe if we got Gephard involved, I want YOU to make an executive decision. I'm confident in your ability. We cannot delay. Okay, okay, um, there is a mechanism I can take advantage of. It's actually designed to protect against anomalous data corruption, but it would have the effect you're looking for. For certain, ma'am, I can make this section of the article right once and splice it into the database runtime. However, that means no editing whatsoever will be possible. If you misspeak, you'll just have to clarify and keep going. Very well done, though. Fortunately, I'm a world-class dictator. For the degree of security you have in mind, ma'am, I'll need to borrow your credential token. Thank you. One moment, please. There, that's done it. You've been very helpful. That would be all. With safety, I'm ordering you to obtain amnestic treatment as soon as possible, and not to forget this entire morning. Do you understand? I, uh, do. Good. You will likely be subjected to enhanced interrogation within a day or two. It will be easier for you if you have no memory of this. Oh. Oh boy. As a literal token of my gratitude for your loyalty, why don't you hold on to these credentials? I won't be needing them. If you act quickly, I suspect you can think of a way to put them to good use before they are revoked and you are detained. Y-yes, ma'am. Now go. I foresee that you have a flying career ahead of you. We will not speak again. Thank you ma'am. Goodbye. My name is Merriam Prather. I have been 057 for 77 years. I will remain so for perhaps 7 minutes more. And that is not enough time to devise adequate special container procedures myself. I'll leave that to you. Through the course of my tenure, I have witnessed 19 distinct anomalous methods to restore life. The devices and entities responsible take vastly different forms, but when you look past the science, the magic, the razzle-dazzle, there are fundamentally two broad but simple categories. The first type is replication, whereby a clone, somilochrome, or other copy is made of the subject's mind and body as it existed at some point during life. The second sort is temporal. With this approach, the space-time path of the subject's constituent particles are reversed, and events literally undone until the subject is restored to a functional state. These two categories have a crucial commonality. The restored individual has no memory or experience of death. To put it another way, despite 2.4 million years of hominid speculation, foundation records contain no reliable first-hand testimony regarding what happens to us after we die. We have other sources of information naturally, but in light of recent events, I believe that the SCPs we have interrogated on this topic over the years are guilty of either ignorance or deceit. For you see, we invented an exception. Six months ago, we resurrected Roger Sheldon, formerly O5-11, with a novel procedure. The theoretical groundwork had existed for some time, but for a litany of reasons. The complexity of the process, the technical skill required, the systemic risk, not to mention the enormous cost, only direst need justified the attempt. At 73, Roger was the youngest overseer when he died. He had two habits that were peculiar for an O5, only marginally tolerated by the rest of us at the time and now forbidden. The first was an obstinate refusal to fortify, as we call it, to enhance its longevity with the supplements available to those of our station. The second was a penchant for taking his holidays unannounced in an utter solitude. When a stroke ended him eighteen years ago, he was perched on a rocky promontory above marine and guananesting grounds in Espanola Island. It took fourteen years to find his remains. We would not have gone on looking for so long, but for two reasons. He kept on his purse a certain key, a which I shall not say more, except that it could not be allowed to stay lost, and that he held in his brain a secret word, without which we could not replace him. The alternating Galapagos' rains and bright sun, and perhaps hawks, had reduced him to a moldering ruin of bone fragments and only the stubbornness in you. The recovery crew used brooms and bags to collect as much of him as remained. The artifact was retrieved to our relief, and we were still faced with the daunting task of extracting his chivaleth. With so little original material to work with, none of the time-tested methods of recovery were feasible. It distresses me to say so, but it is unlikely that any record or methodology will survive the impending purge. Suffice to say that having gathered his diaspora, we set out to reconstruct the quantum approximation of him, physically, chemically, electrically, with sufficient accuracy that his heart would resume its beat, his synapses would fire, and his mouth would move it briefly. As we required but one iota information from him, we hoped at best that he would survive long enough to provide it and then simply expire again. However, as is so often the case, we outdid ourselves. All the king's horses and all the king's men could indeed put him back together again. Roger was perfectly reanimated. He emerged from his cocoon, looking a bit younger and healthier to my last memories of him. He sobbed uncontrollably for some time, unresponsive to any stimulus, yet after about half an hour he relaxed. His expression suddenly turned to utter serenity, and he spoke two unintelligible but clearly joyous words. He was swiftly interrogated, but he responded to our questioning with candor, enthusiasm, and unmistakable relief. We kept him under quarantine in a containment unit for thirty days. He offered no objection, and cooperated completely. He behaved as any of us might under the circumstances, and in the end, after some light debate, we unanimously restored him to office. We were the ones who'd remade him, after all, and wouldn't each of us expect the same? He rewarded our hubris by resuming his duties with an inspired vigor, consistently displaying deeper insight of wisdom than ever before. In particular, we welcomed some of the changes to his habits. As soon as the rest of us allowed it, he began regular fortification treatments for the first time. He appointed a sensible entourage of medical staff and bodyguards that were never far from his person. Previously, empathy for his fellow man had never been a strong suit, yet suddenly he displayed renewed interest in the safety of our containment protocols, the healthcare benefits of Foundation employees, and a profound distaste for the sacrifice of D-Class. Under the circumstances, none of this struck us as particularly alarming behavior, but it should have. He had concealed the crux of it from us all, you see. At first, naturally in our initial interrogation, we'd ask if he had any experience or memory of the afterlife. He claimed to recall nothing, exactly as everyone always does, and defeated our polygraphs completely. He approached me first about two months ago. He asked if, in his absence, we obtained any pieces, which I shouldn't have to point out is not our term of art capable of sustaining life indefinitely. While breathtaking longevity is now within our power, it may surprise to learn that immortality is not. In our best, the redetitions have recently posited that it will never be attainable. The resurrections we can accomplish, even his, cannot be repeated more than once or twice. Sapient life is necessarily intertwined with quantum uncertainty. Localize a particle with perfect precision, and it attains infinitely uncertain momentum, lost in an instant. And so, the longer and more tightly a consciousness is bound to the Pacific Vessel, the more likely it will scatter irretrievably on its own. Regardless of science, magic, or razzle-dazzle, you, your children, and your great-great-grandchildren will one day most assuredly die and stay dead. His disappointment at this theorem was palpable, and I experienced a moment of discomfort in his reaction. Not a week later, O5-2 received word of a severe breach of protocol. Roger, or rather O5-11, had initiated direct contact with an ape in containment. For you L3s, apes skipped or apexed here for reputant entities. I imagine you can work out the euphemism. We kept our initial investigation off the books. He'd been clever in covering his tracks. There was no breach alarm, no record of the encounter in any log, but one of the skipped guards failed a random amnestic test to his dismay, and that was trail enough on which to set our bloodhounds. We couldn't prove it, but we imagine he risked exposure to the skip to offer some kind of deal. This could not stand, as two of his oldest comrades today O5-2 and I confronted him privately, but he caught us off guard, where he confessed everything and begged us for help. I surrepetitiously recorded his pleas as a precaution. It is easiest if I simply replay it for you now. I dare not speak of this at first. You'd never had let me out of containment. The truth is, I was aware of all of it. I suppose there was a sweet oblivion, like deep sleep at first, but in retrospect I think it was no more than a day. Slowly but unmistakably, I reoccupied my corpse with dreamlike consciousness, numb for the first merciful hours, blind, deaf and immobile, but then I seemed to reconnect to every nerve and became aware of every sensation, more so than I ever was in life. I perceived myself trapped within an immovable object, and the intensity of the struggle amplified. Subtle then acute, then racking, I cannot describe it completely, but imagine holding your breath beyond urge, beyond pain, beyond desperation, head throbbing and eyes bulging, a dream of suffocation without end. My skin blistered and split in the sunlight, biting insects descended rapidly. I felt eggs hatch, larvae crawl, gases build and burst within me, individual cells rupturing, interstitial fluid souring and blackening. Somehow my capacity to experience and store these sensations grew, even as I was keenly aware of my cerebrum being scattered and devoured. My perception expanded into the gizzards of birds and the depths of fire ant dens. I was aware of every fingernail and strand of hair that pulled away in the wind, and my sensation clung to them as they settled in the ocean, and dissolved in the moths of petroleum diatoms. I don't understand it. The more bits of me there were, the larger my capacity for the perception of pain, as I decayed into pieces smaller than living nerves could possibly distinguish. The character of the discomfort changed. From burning and aching and breaking, I might relate to you in human terms, the something worse than I cannot fully articulate, a terrible, maddening stretching of every part of myself from every other part. Humans often numb to chronic pains in life, do they not? Yet every year, every month, every second that passed, I swear it only intensified over time. In my previous life, I ruminated on heaven and hell, in the likelihood of my experiencing one, the other or something in between. As terrible as I imagined the torpor of heaven or the torments of hell to be, this was entirely different from either. In hell, at least, there would surely be a tormentor, some memory of my deeds, some sense of justice. Even if my soul rejected its logic, I can imagine some comfort in hell for a mind such as mine. I do not think this is a punishment, I do not think it is caused, I simply suspect it is simply our condition, our nature to go on this way, do you see? In all that time, I was certainly, absolutely, totally alone and before long all memory of life have shriveled to ascender, lost beneath my interminable anguish, alive again I suspect I cannot quite recall the worst of it, as if my living brain is too small for the experience. As overseers, we witness inflict or endure great suffering, yet what awaits us all is worse. The way an earache is worse than a bee sting, the way frostbite is worse than a burn. I was dead for eighteen years and my misery eludes description. Why do we try to fathom the collective agony of legions of ancient dead? Believe this, I will not return to the extraval existence, not a hundred years from now, not ever. Yes, I approach our remand for help, and I am sure he could extend us all if he wished. I offered him great concessions from the Foundation, even perhaps relief. I offered him great concessions from the Foundation, even perhaps relief, but he laughed and refused, yet I… I can think of others willing to trade on a smaller scale. Though the price may be nearly as… no, nothing compares. Anything is better, so long as it is forever. Do you believe me? Will you join me? And together escape this fate? Please! We were dumbfounded and suddenly sympathetic, and an instant later, fearful. I can't remember the last time I felt my heart race so. But we do not operate in a vacuum. A revelation of magnitude must be brought before the Council for consideration. He was low to admit his deception before the assembled Council, but he was clearly desperate for action as well. We prevailed upon him to call an immediate emergency session in teleconference. I knew anything less would constitute treachery. Still, as the three of us hurried to conference room Alpha, I suddenly found myself harboring subtle thoughts of… As so, he gave his testimony again nearly as frank and purply prosaic as before. But the debate that unfolded in the wake of it, I had never witnessed anything like it. There were mostly skeptical voices at first, calm, concerned, and thoughtful. However, O5-8, whose face had grown increasingly pale as she listened to him, was suddenly a passionate advocate for action. We must declare human death the key to SCP she demanded, and contain it at any cost. That absurdity garnered an uproar, of course, but Roger had himself a sure ally now, and this spurred him on, shouting over the others to add even darker details of the intensity of his perennial asphyxiation. Imagery I cannot repeat. Sensations I must not contemplate. I'm feeling lightheaded. O5-2, always a moderate influence, suggested we recess and collect ourselves. But then three suddenly moved that we ordered the immediate systematic termination of dangerous skips to better protect ourselves and others. O5-6 seconded, but before it could be put to a vote, 13 suddenly clutched his chest in proximal panic and was being evaluated by his medical technician when his feet abruptly cut out. As the fracas came to a boil, it was 10, I think, who was next convinced. Oh, it's believed the key, I… I… it doesn't matter. At any rate, 10 started pounding his shoe on a table and hollering that we must dig a channel from the Astrakhan Spring to the Mediterranean Sea to fortify all of mankind. That was enough. Suddenly O5-1 muted his all and stood red-faced and shaking. Regardless of the truth of O5-11's experience, she said, it is plain that we have lost all reason. There is only one possible explanation for this. Therefore, I am declaring emergency protocol 17. Remain where you are. We shall all be administered Class A amnestics except you, Roger. We made a grave error releasing you from containment, and it WILL be corrected. She pointed at her administrative assistant to act, but before he could lock down the conference room from which O2-11 and I were dialed in, Roger had already bolted out the door. I was after him in an instant and nearly crushed by the bulkheads that slandered the place. I only wanted to stop him, I think, and now I was outside to save for him too, but he was already out of sight. Superlative idiot. They couldn't see me, couldn't hear me, they couldn't know that I wanted back in, how badly I wanted to breathe the red gas that was surely already streaming into the room on the other side. One instant a poor judgement and my fate is sealed, and now that I know what's in store, what was left to do? I ran to the help desk. Hahahaha, help enough, huh? For this my final act. I love the foundation of Will Love the Daughter. I do this for the security and protection of mankind, and so I beg you, this gnosis must not be erased forgotten. That is not containment, that is madness. Bring us back, get us out. I'm s-so frightened. What's wrong with me? Clear, clear, clear. Goddamn this job. Bagged that Oscar quickly, Sergeant. We still have one more to go. Sir, I'm getting a report of a Keter breach in the AR-2 compound. Oh, hell. Two rogue Oscars and on top of that, the old man's on the loose. This is a shit sandwich, sir. Contain that chatter, Sergeant. Stand by, sir. Negative on 106 escaping. Sir, I'm getting details. Say again, please. It's the other way around. The other Oscar. He went in, sir. He went in. The hell he did. They have visual confirmation, sir. Procedures dictate we treat him. As KIA specialists, I know. Let's finish here, then. Sir, this Oscar-head recording equipment here is still running. For the love of, shut it down, Sergeant. Shut it down now. Specialists, get an audio hazard team down here on the dup-