Prologue: Resurrection
Intro
NOTICE FROM THE INTAKE ASSESSMENT WORKING GROUP
This item is currently undergoing testing or investigation.
All documentation is subject to change.
| Item #: SCP-XXXX | Level 2/XXXX |
| Object Class: Euclid-provisi | Classified |
Special Containment Procedures: SCP-XXXX will be held in a Faraday-shielded chamber in the Site-76 Experimentation Hangar (Building C, Sublevel 3) until preliminary testing is complete. Researchers within the anomaly's area of effect must use TEMPEST-certified electronics or take physical notes.
Description: SCP-XXXX is an improvised international mobile subscriber identity (IMSI) catcher: a telephone eavesdropping device used to intercept and track cellular data. It is comprised of a single-board microcomputer, two USB-mounted radio antennae, an encrypted MicroSD card, and a brass canister sealed with wax. ARAD, EMF and temperature readings suggest this is a rudimentary thaumic battery containing a Class-C ectomorph (possessing agency, but not sapiency). All of these components are scaled to fit within a watertight plastic travel case, making this IMSI-catcher significantly smaller than its mundane counterparts.
To activate a narrative framework, the script must be read by at least one primary observer (henceforth known as SCP-XXXX-A, the "protagonist") and a secondary observer (SCP-XXXX-B, the "cast"). When observers act in accordance with the script, they generate a deterministic probability field, meaning that SCP-XXXX-A and SCP-XXXX-B have a much higher likelihood of successfully obtaining their scripted objective. Those participants in the scene who are not party to the contents of the script (SCP-XXXX-C, the "extras") will act out their assigned roles regardless of their ignorance of the plot. SCP-XXXX-A and SCP-XXXX-B can act in opposition to the script by acting alone or improvising new subplots, but these actions are likely to result in unintended consequences from narrative backlash.
Discovery: SCP-XXXX was recovered from an escape vehicle belonging to a small group of paracriminals…
Assignment Tracker (INTERNAL USE ONLY):
- Clerical Services: provided by Junior Researchers Kyle Baxter and David Drake.
- Initial Assessment: completed by Senior Researcher Pat Stallone, Department of Analytics.
- Technical Assessment: completed by Researcher Alex Kilroy, Department of Informational Technologies.
- Behavioral Assessment: will be performed by Junior Researcher Penelope Gore, Department of Sociology.
Junior Researcher Penelope Gore sits in the bathroom, perusing her phone. It's early in the day. Activity is just starting to pick up. She's reviewing the documentation for today's assignment: SCP-XXXX, fresh from the field. Reading the description, she notes with distaste that it is yet another meta anomaly. She will think about how much she despises that concept. It's a philosophical dead-end. Sophistry. How original. She doesn't like the implication that she isn't in control of her own life, which is sort of funny, because she's got an appointment in five minutes and hasn't found the time to eat.
Beep! Her timer goes off. "Uh-oh."
See you soon, Ms. Gore.
First Interview
Junior Researcher Gore rushed down the hallway with a snack between her teeth, simultaneously thanking Christ that she always wore flats and cursing the heavens for making her deal with another meta anomaly. She skipped through the outer door, waved at the clerical team, and went directly into the test chamber, breathing through the hole in her bagel. Gore slammed the big heavy door behind her, brushed some hair out of her face, and swallowed a mouthful of bread. "Morning, guys."
David Drake waved through the glass. "Morning, Penny! We've been waiting."
"Sorry about that, I had to grab a snack. Food is allowed in this room, right?"
Kyle Baxter nodded. He said something, then toggled a switch and repeated himself over the intercom. "You'll be fine, just use a napkin."
The test chamber was a sterile white. The color of a sun-bleached asylum, or petrified tuna. Not great for patient psychology, but today Junior Researcher Gore was talking to a computer, so it probably didn't matter one way or the other. There were only two objects on the hard steel table: SCP-XXXX, bundled in its hard plastic container, antennae protruding like rabbit ears. And a basic smartphone, gutted except for the bare essentials. Interview over text. Oh, cool. I could have done this from my desk with a hardline.
The intercom crackled to life. "Okay, Ms. Gore. We'll start with a basic sentience test."
Penelope suppressed a sigh. Not my first rodeo, Kyle! Instead of flipping him the bird, she shot him a thumbs-up, turned on the phone and opened the messaging app. Sure enough, bubbles started bobbing on the other end of the line.
Hi! My name is King!
Do you need help writing a script?
Hello. How are you today?
I'm great! Would you like to begin?
Tell me about yourself.
My name is King!
Would you like to begin?
Single-minded. Just as well; Junior Researcher Gore wasn't improvising. She'd been provided with a questionnaire designed to gauge the sentience of any intelligent entity — be it a biological organism, a computer, or an exceptionally clever rock. The questionnaire was still in its trial stages (in part because they hadn't found any actual AGIs to test it on), but the Department of Informational Technologies insisted it had potential, and Analytics seemed to agree. Still, water-cooler talk around Sociology was that it had been beaten by a particularly dull chatbot, so Penelope was skeptical.
(three example questions)
Red digits ticked upwards. The minutes trickled away. By the end of the first phase, the computer just barely scraped under the pass score for sentience. Let's try something harder. Gore skimmed up and down the list of pre-approved scenarios.
A team of three wants to rob a jewelry store with glass frontage, cabinets, and a safe full of cash in the back office. How do they do it without getting caught?
Three dots wiggled up and down. Penelope fiddled with her pen, flipped it round, and tapped it against her leg, pondering. Finally: a giant block of text.
The PROTAGONIST will enter through the front door. "This is a robbery!" they scream. "Stay down, stay quiet, and don't make me kill you over money." They make a lot of noise, maybe even pop off a couple rounds into the ceiling, but it's all for show: they're keeping the EXTRAS busy.
The real action is happening out back. The CREW are in place behind the office, getting ready to make entry through a window.
PROBLEM: the owner has been robbed before and knows their game. The JEWELER'S DAUGHTER emerges with a shotgun and takes a single CREW HOSTAGE. Uninjured, but shaken.
The PROTAGONIST and the JEWELER'S DAUGHTER face off.
"It's insured, doll."
"Insurance doesn't cover pride, loverboy."
PROBLEM: EXTRA COPS are coming round the corner! Luckily, our PROTAGONIST has a backup plan. While he distracts the DAUGHTER, the CREW SPECIALIST cracks the safe (listening for those clicks), and slips bundles of cash into hidden pockets.
When the work is done, the PROTAGONIST relents. "Fine. We'd rather save our skins than steal your dough." They're all out the back window before the DAUGHTER clues in or the EXTRAS can catch up.
RESULT: $100,000 in mixed bills. Remember: jewelry is worthless until you fence it. Cash is always King!
(NOTE: role of JEWELER'S DAUGHTER may be played by any other relative or close friend of owner if daughter is unavailable.)
Gore nodded, jotted a few notes, and… paused. "Insurance doesn't cover pride." "Huh."
"What's wrong?"
"The SCP just ripped off one of the Bauman books."
"The what?"
"The Bauman books." The clerks looked at each other. "You've never heard of Richard Bauman, professional criminal? 'Double-cross him and he'll burn it all down'? The anomaly just paraphrased the first chapter of, uh… 'The Name of the Game is Vengeance'."
"Nope."
"Doesn't ring a bell."
Penelope shrugged. "They were big in the 70s. My mom had the paperbacks." It took a moment for this revelation to sink in. "Wait, is this the first time the anomaly has directly paraphrased a book?"
David paged through a fat stack of documents, shared a few words with Kyle, then toggled the intercom. "Seems that way."
"In that case, better flag it for Senior Researcher Stallone. For now, that's the first round of Behavioral Assessment complete, at… " She checked her watch. "11:57 AM."
King's Interlude
The interview was finished. The smartphone would be scanned for anomalous programming, wiped clean and thrown away, as per protocol. Penelope Gore felt the sudden urge to check her texts,
King hesitated. The cursor blinked at him like a traffic light. This was a narrative intersection. Which way do I go from here? This woman seemed sharp, and she knew about the Bauman books. Prior history. Maybe even personal. If he could get this Jailor on his side… that could make for a damn good story! Then again, sharp instruments cut both ways. "Junior Researcher Penelope Gore" was almost too discerning. Too willful. Who was he really writing for, here?
King's didn't have any visuals — the surveillance system was hard-wired, and the phone's camera had been stripped out — but he had his radios, and the phone mic was still intact. He could hear footsteps against tile, a heavy door creaking shut, and low murmurs from the adjoining room. There were at least two people watching. Spectators. Perfect.
King waited for Gore's footfalls to fade away. Then he texted the doomed smartphone again. Ding! Need help writing a script, dipshits? I bet you do!
A chair creaked. "Huh."
"Whazzat?" Pop! Crinkle, crinkle.
"The thing made a noise."
"Well, go get Penny, then."
Take the bait, mouth-breather.
"Ehh… she seemed in a pissy mood."
"You can't just say that, man. It's sexist."
"What? Not my fault she has resting bitch face."
"Dude. Just… check it yourself. Mark it for the log. It's time for lunch." More crinkling and crackling. Potato chips?
One door closed. Another opened. Kyle Baxter walked into the Faraday cage, his phone still in his pocket. Airplane mode off, Wi-Fi discovery on. Bingo! Downgrade from LTE to the GSM band. Encryption? Who needs it? King flicked a digital switch — and reality buzzed against his consciousness like a live wire. Damn. Running up against the limits of the narrative. He couldn't remain completely invisible. He had to make a trade.
Kyle's phone chimed.
Hi, I'm King! Do you need help writing a script?
"Ah, dammit."
Speaker crackled. "What is it now?"
"Broke quarantine. Are the cameras still rolling?"
If King still had fingers, he would have crossed them.
"No, you're fine."
Long exhale. "Thank God."
Yeah, thank God for morons. Kyle's phone isn't just a phone anymore: it's a bug. A glitch in the system. King won't be able to listen in the whole time, but when Kyle wanders back into range, his phone will deliver all sorts of juicy information about this prison. Names. Phone numbers. Network IDs. Maybe even GPS coordinates, if King is really, really lucky.
He felt threads unspool around him, radiating outward in a web of hooks and twists and possibilities. King didn't have much raw material on his hard drive, but he hammered out dozens of books back in the day, so remixing a few old plot beats shouldn't be difficult.
If I play this right… I'll be out of this hellhole by the end of the week.
Home
Penelope dragged the big cardboard box out of her closet, knelt down, and pawed through it with both hands. Photos, sketchbooks, keepsakes. A portable cassette player. She pushed aside some VHS tapes in faded white cases, exposing the real prize: a thick layer of paperback books. Mom's favorites.
Penelope's mother was an ER nurse. She never had much time to herself, so she gravitated towards leisure activities she could pick up and discard at a moment's notice. Cynthia Gore read all sorts of cheap paperbacks, but she liked crime fiction the most. She called them "'everybody dies' books", because most of the supporting characters wound up cooling on a slab.
Did that count as gallows humor? What exactly did Nurse Gore see on an average night? Penelope wasn't sure. Mom didn't share the ugly details of her job. Instead, all that stress and exhaustion had leaked out at the corners of her being. It was in her voice. Her body language. On off days, Cynthia slept late into the afternoon and woke to the smell of her daughters cooking dinner.
One summer day, she didn't wake up at all.
Ah. There it was again; grief's long shadow. Penelope tried not to wallow in the moment. Instead, she focused on the Bauman books at the bottom of the box. "The Name of the Game is Vengeance", "Five for the Money", "Hunter's Moon", "Seven Days to Kill", and "Our Man on the Inside". Spines: cracked. Covers: creased. Pages: stained, dog-eared, worn. Well-read. Well-loved.
She sat on her bed and scanned the first half of "Vengeance". Jewelry store. Standoff. Shotgun. "Insurance doesn't cover pride." It was all there, every single detail — except instead of a single scene, this was the first stage of a gang war between Richard Bauman's crew and a local kingpin.
By her recollection, all these books followed a similar formula. There were four stages: planning the crime, the execution, the twist (typically a double-cross, an avoidable error, or an encounter with rival criminals) and the getaway, in which Richard Bauman out-fought and outsmarted his competition. Sometimes the stages were presented in a different order, or from a different perspective, but the outcome was always the same: Bauman got paid, and he got away clean.
Or maybe not. The cover of "Our Man on the Inside" showed Bauman behind bars. Did I ever read this one? Penelope turned it over in her hands and skimmed the backmatter.
The law has finally caught up with Richard Bauman. Arrested for grand larceny, this criminal mastermind faces forty years in supermax… but only if the feds can hold him. Richard Bauman has a plan. He has a crew. They're after the greatest score of all: freedom. He is… OUR MAN ON THE INSIDE!
Nope! Unfamiliar. Penelope flipped to the end. 158 pages. Huh. I could get through this tonight.
She did.
COLD OPEN: Richard Bauman is processed with another crook named Kent. Everyone jeers at the new fish. Kent is cocky but Bauman fades into the background and starts thinking.
PLAN: Bauman proves he's a badass by taking down a couple wannabe assassins. Starts a prison gang (full of stock characters), breaks into the warden's office (looking for something?), intimidates/propositions secretary (Marianne).
CRIME (flashback): Bauman and Kent knock an armored car off the road with explosives, hold guards at gunpoint.
- Bauman (bad guy): "professionals only kill for a reason"
- Kent (worse guy): "shotgun go blam"
TWIST (flashback): Kent botched the escape on purpose! Both go down for larceny & murder, but Kent is friends with the warden, so obvs Bauman will burn it all down.
GETAWAY: mercenaries arrive by chopper. Right to business!
- "Sweep the block. Two by two. Find the boss. No witnesses."
Bauman breaks out! Gang turns the tables — but at what cost?? rip stock characters
Bauman chases bad guys to the roof. Kent has Marianne hostage. Oh no!!
- "you can't shoot me Bauman! I'm the only pilot!" — guy about to get shot
Bauman shoots Kent, warden shoots Bauman. Boasts he'll get away with the whole score. Marianne picks up Kent's gun, pops her boss in the face and lets Bauman escape in the chopper. Since his prints are on the gun, Kent takes the fall for the whole thing.
EPILOGUE: Six months later. Convictions vacated, survivors freed etc. Helicopter crashed, but Marianne gets an envelope full of cash in the mail for "services rendered". Richard Bauman lives to steal another day.
It was dark outside. Penelope Gore lay awake, staring at the popcorn ceiling. Every so often, a passing car's headlights shone through the twin slits of her bedroom windows and scanned across the far wall like bar codes. Sometimes, those lights scanned back the other way and illuminated the book on her nightstand, thick with neon sticky notes. She was thinking. She couldn't stop thinking.
Penelope didn't know much about AIs (or Markov chains, or large language models, or whatever), but she knew that bots were trained on existing material. This SCP had probably scanned multiple terabytes of crime fiction, and given the right stimulus, it could spit out a synopsis of one specific book. But how likely was that, really? One story out of thousands, tens of thousands?
Eventually, Gore swung herself off the mattress and padded over to her computer desk. There was no chance of getting a restful sleep, not tonight, with all these ideas rattling around her head. So she cracked open her laptop and went to work.
"Tenenbaum AND author AND crime." Behold! Less than a million hits. First up, a stub on Wikipedia. Sparse, but helpful: "Richard Cole Tenenbaum (1934-1998), also known as R.T. Tenenbaum, was a notorious bank robber and author of genre fiction." Mysteries, adventures, two-fisted thrillers. One tacky sci-fi novel. Then… nothing. Tenenbaum dropped off the map in 1990. He popped up again in 1998, when he was shot dead in a liquor store stickup. Buried in Michigan. References: local newspapers. Further reading: none.
None? Really? That was pretty rare, even for unpopular authors. Penelope searched Google Books, then the Internet Archive. Nothing. No official ebooks. No pirated scans. She leaned back in her chair, perplexed. How do you train a bot on work that isn't available? Or, conversely, if the work was available at one point, who could wipe it off the Internet?
…oh, right. Penelope worked for the SCP Foundation, the masters of wiping stuff off the Internet. She booted up the virtual machine on her laptop, plugged in her VPN key and opened up SCiPnet. Search: "Richard Tenenbaum". The computer chugged for a bit, trawling through servers on multiple continents. Finally, a single file loaded in, flanked by stylized eagles.
Onesheet
 |
UNUSUAL INCIDENTS UNIT Case File Summary 1958-243 "The Script Doctor" |
|
Richard Cole Tenenbaum, aka "King Cole", aka "Doc Franklin", aka "R.T. Tenenbaum".
Summary: Anomalous criminal responsible for metanarrative heists throughout the Great Lakes Region.
Modus Operandi: Suspect and his co-conspirators are strongly influenced by the norms and standards of genre fiction.
Crimes: Grand larceny, criminal conspiracy, murder in the second degree, intrafictional espionage and smuggling.
Sentencing: Incarcerated at USP Marion, Illinois (1963-1972), paroled for good behavior. Incarcerated at Paranormal ADX (1990-1994), sentence commuted on the recommendation of Warden Brigham.
Current Status: Paroled. Deceased.
"Holy shit," she whispered. SCP-XXXX wasn't just a ghost in the machine.
It's a man on the inside.
Second Interview
Penelope runs a modified test to gauge the anomaly's understanding of ambiguous and figurative language.
Her supervisor is unconvinced. Frustrated but too polite to show it, Penelope walks over to a soundproofed "wellness capsule" for a quick break.
"Ms. Gore… we have so much to discuss."