Dr.Popius

SCP-4122
Item #: SCP-4122
Object class: Euclid
Special Containment Procedures: 5 x 5 x5m soundproof room (3m thick soundproofing). Experimental sonic-dampener speakers instilled in walls. 1 qualified personnel in soundproof glass booth must watch over SCP-4122 whenever any personnel go to interview, talk to or study it. When exiting and entering SCP-4122’s containment cell, all personnel must pass through the 5 x 2 x 2 “clean room” and be interrogated by the qualified personnel to prove they are NOT under the influence of SCP-4122. The Clean Room is equipped with gas dispersers for rendering unconsciousness and death, controlled from the glass booth. If a civilian piano technician must be called in, should Dr. Maestro not be available at site 73, they must be given class E amnestics after passing the interrogation. All subjects who are unable to pass the interrogation and are found to be under the influence of any instance of SCP-4122-1 are to be rendered unconscious and amnesticised immediately. If the condition continues even after regaining consciousness, subject is to be terminated at the discretion of the 05 council.
Any instance of SCP-4112-2 is to be terminated immediately. If there are numerous instances of SCP-4112-2, the Alpha warhead is to be considered as an option.
SCP-4122 must be communicated with by an actual human at least once a month.

Description: SCP-4122 is a standard size black Grand Piano with its lid permanently bolted down but it’s sheet stand up. Attempts to remove the lid have proved ineffective, and the Piano itself appears to be extremely resilient to damage. The lid is adorned with a symbol of a circle, with 2 smaller circles inside of it leading down to an X in the centre. The letter’s “GL” are printed above the keys. Placing a hand on the lid, researchers have identified a strong heartbeat of around 60 BPM emanating from about the centre of the piano and a ticking noise, similar to a household clock. The true anomalous nature of SCP-4122 comes with how the key’s move naturally on their own. While many first thought it was random, Dr. Lobianco was the first to notice that if one listened closely, the keys pressed closely resembled a human voice. Dr. Lobianco likened it to “what happens when you put a video with speech in it into a MIDI file converter, but with far higher quality”. Using this, Dr. Lobianco determined that the piano spoke French with an Italian accent, but has an expansive knowledge of most European languages, as well as speaking fluent English with an Italian accent. Dr. Lobianco hypothesized that this could be linked with the fact that it was recovered during a UIU raid on a Marshall, Carter and Dark auction in Sicily, Italy. Consequently, SCP-4122 seems to have a high opinion of the UIU (see incident 3). Overall, SCP-4122 is mild mannered, and seems to enjoy talking with personnel who come in to talk to it about a wide array of subjects, although it doesn’t know a lot about more recent or niche topics. SCP-4122 often mentions being able to see whoever it is talking to, but any form of eyes or ears anywhere on SCP-4122 have not been discovered. It does talk about it’s past about how it was transported around Europe by various owners, its last of which was a Mafia Boss, but it doesn’t ever discuss its origin.
SCP-3657 is relatively intelligent, scoring in the top 15% on most IQ tests
A dangerous effect that SCP-4122 has is that it often gives advice to people who talk to it. Recordings are made of every time SCP-4122 gives advice, and they may only be accessed at the discretion of the 05 council, who must force at least two D-class personnel to listen to it and be interrogated prior to any further playback. All of these recordings are given designations of SCP-4122-1-XXXX, and most are classed as “Euclid” due to frequent attempts from the cult of the shattered star and the Chaos Insurgency to steal recordings. The advice ranges from trivial things, such as fashion or a limited array of sports, to serious topics, such as how to resolve potentially violent disputes, personal, emotional and relationship advice.
The advice comes seemingly at random, and is occasionally contradictory to how SCP-4122 would go about the situation. Subjects who are affected by the advice are not able to recall how SCP-4122 sounded when giving the advice. Cameras have identified that when giving the advice, the Softening Pedal on SCP-4122 lowers slightly, but the voice of SCP-4122 does not get softer, instead it speaks much more evenly, and if both SCP-4122-1-2339/3472 (the only recordings to be classified “safe” after being reviewed by the 05 council and analyzed by sound technicians) is to be taken as a representative of most recordings, the accent disappears, almost sounding like it was being made with a text-to speech function. Many subjects who take the advice often report it as being helpful, and employee survey’s at both site 06-3 and site 73 show that employee’s there report significantly happier lives when compared to sites of the same nature.
People who are given this advice are rendered into a nigh-hypnotic state, and are compelled to take action based on how the advice is given to them with complete conviction. However, hearing the advice repeated verbatim by an affected subject does not spread the effect to the person listening, so the effect is completely generated only from the piano’s ‘voice’. However, incident 4122-2 and 4122-4 proved that a recording of SCP-4122’s voice can replicate the effect, although to a far less severe hypnotic effect (see incident 4122-2).
It doesn’t seem to sleep, but soundwave monitors mounted in the ceiling have reported that when not being watched, SCP-4122 simply plays various music, mostly classical, but on the 27/08/19 Dr. Bright came in with a sheet music rendition of the ‘Monster’s Inc.’ theme, which SCP-4122 promptly swallowed through a paper-thin slit that opened up on the sheet music stand. It then played it for a week straight. Dr. Bright is not allowed to refer to the SCP foundation as “Monster’s Incorporated” anymore, nor may he call SCP-131 “Mike Wazowski”.
When left alone without anyone to hear it for an extended period of time, approximately a month is when the effect starts, SCP-4122 will slowly get louder and louder, eventually being able to be heard through any soundproofing until a human hears it. This has been colloquially nicknamed “The Silent Crescendo Effect”. This affects all 3 “voices” of the piano, the entity, the advice and the regular playing. The effect will decrease at the same rate it grew while it is being listened to. SCP-4122 is not consciously aware, or in control of this phenomenon. Recording, or listening to recordings of SCP-4122 does not stop the effect.

Incident Log:
25/6/19 4122-1
Preface: 28 Days after containment, SCP-4122 was being kept only in a small, music studio with an industry standard amount of sound proofing, as the only anomalous behavior documented of SCP-4122 was the heart beat and ticking noises coming from the lid and the occasional playing by itself at night
SCP-4122-1-1 almost breached containment when Dr. Carlos took a recording of SCP-4122 demanding to be given a free maintenance. Dr. Carlos had been allowed to play the piano for fun during his break. He left the studio at approximately 10:20 AM and went to his office, returning with his phone with a recording app open at around 10:30 AM. He promptly attempted to leave site 6-03, when a close friend of his, Carlson Stanford, who was on guard duty at the time, stopped and questioned him. At first thinking he was intoxicated, Stanford took Dr. Carlos to a small, unused D-class personnel containment area. After Carlos refused to comply, Stanford took him into an interrogation room. The following is the transcript from the interrogation

Transcript: Interrogation room A-2, Site 6-03, 25/6/19
Stanford: What is your name?
Dr. Carlos: Carlos J. Carlos
Stanford: What is my name?

Dr. Carlos: Carlson Rocco Stanford

Stanford: What were you doing with your phone in SCP-4122’s containment area?

Dr. Carlos: Getting a recording.

Stanford: A recording of what? No offence man, but you only started playing a month ago, who were you going to show it to?

Dr. Carlos: The Luthier who lives up the road from my house.

Stanford pulls up Dr. Carlos’s phone and presses ‘playback’ on the recording

Phone: *Loud piano noises, reviewed afterwards to have been SCP 4122 saying “Vous réparerez mon piano gratuitement” in the same tone it used for recordings 2339 and 3472*
Upon hearing the recording, Dr. Carlos suddenly straightens his head, but immediately shakes it while blinking

Stanford: What the hell does that mean?

Dr. Carlos: “You will repair my piano for free”

Stanford plays the recording again, listening closely. It is hypothesized that the recording had no effect on Stanford since he speaks absolutely no French while Dr. Carlos is fluent. Dr. Carlos begins struggling harder and harder after hearing the playback, Stanford leaves and releases sleeping agents into the interrogation room.

END TRANSCRIPT
Dr. Maestro, a qualified ex-Luthier, was sent into to check on SCP-4122, and found that all the keys were eroding and had uneven weighting. SCP-4122 was observed to be playing more tunes in major keys at night post incident 4122-1
4122-1 is classified as safe, and almost never has an effect on subjects when played unless they have an extensive instrumental maintenance background.
When Dr. Carlos regained consciousness after 6 hours, he had no memory of attempting to leave Site 06-3 or anything related to incident 4122-1 aside from him playing SCP-4122 during his lunch break.

5/08/19 4122-2

Preface: After the true nature of SCP-4122 was revealed, and the anomaly became more and more friendly with researchers, new containment procedures eventually were established, and 24/7 recordings were made of SCP-4122 but the cell stayed the same, people where merely stopped by guards and asked what the subjects what they were intending to do within the next 24 hours. The recording effect was not yet proved or documented beyond incident 4122-1

Incident: Dr. Glass was performing a psych evaluation of SCP-4122, and when they finished, they started to talk about mundane topics. When Dr. Glass mentioned a workplace dispute with Dr. Westhuizen SCP-4122 began suggesting a peaceful solution to the problem, it suddenly entered its advice state, and suggested that Dr. Glass simply murder Dr. Westhuizen, at which point Dr. Glass left the room, and told the guards he intends to “Solve an argument”. The guards didn’t identify any strange behaviour and as such didn’t question him any further. He was later stopped by Dr. Casey, who questioned him when he ran into him holding a kitchen knife outside of Dr. Westhuizen and Dr. Glass’s shared workspace. He quickly responded “Stabbing Dr. Westhuizen” in a monotone and rushed inside, puncturing Dr. Westhuizen’s left forearm, but Dr. Casey was able to restrain him in time before any severe wounds took place. All the scientists in the office came rushing to the commotion, at which point Dr. Glass was dragged into a D-Class containment cell, where he attempted to push against the bars to no avail, eventually passing out from the effort. The 3 senior researchers on duty at the time went into a secluded room to listen to the recordings of SCP-4122’s cell prior to Dr. Glass leaving. They told the junior researches that SCP-4122 had told Glass to stab Westhuizen. They left, but two of them headed straight to Westhuizen’s room in the infirmary brandishing a sharpened ruler at 10:14 PM, broke in and were stopped at the door by a security guard with an S-14 Stun Baton, rendering them unconscious. The other senior researcher also reported feeling a similar urge after hearing the recording, but dismissed the urge immediately, possibly due to his close friendship with Dr. Westhuizen.

SCP-4122 was questioned after being moved to its current containment area with all current procedures in full effect. It denied telling Dr. Glass to stab Dr. Westhuizen, claiming that while it can use its own suggestions in conjunction with its power, as seen in incident 4122-1, but it can’t control everything that is said in its hypnotic state. When Dr. Glass woke up, he too didn’t remember the event, and was mortified to find out he had injured Dr. Westhuizen.

10/10/19 4122-3
SCP-4122-1-2550 breached containment when site 06-3’s treasurer wanted to talk to SCP-4122, and was placed under the influence of the contents of SCP-4122-1-2550. The treasurer was able to pass the interrogation and evade suspicion on his way back to the office, at which point he began transferring much of the researcher’s snack funding to the local UIU’s training and equipment funds under the guise of a government grant. This mistransaction was detected a week later by the same treasurer, who was insistent he didn’t do it, but surveillance footage confirms he did. SCP-4122 was questioned about the incident immediately.

Transcript: SCP-4122 containment area site 06-3

SCP-4122: Hello, how are you today? How is Dr. Volkev doing with his wife?
Interviewer: Good thanks, Dr. Volkev has mentioned the relationship with his wife has improved significantly thanks to your help. Speaking of which, was putting Mr. Renchau, our treasurer, under the effects of SCP-4122-1 intentional on your part?
SCP-4122: Yes.
Interviewer: It was clearly established to you that you can only use your intentionally created instances of SCP-4122-1 to assist consenting personnel with exclusively personal matters.
SCP-4122: Every time I ask someone who comes in here about why such an advanced organisation had so many casualties during the simple raid that led to my liberation, they always say that the UIU are overworked, underpaid, undertrained and underequipped for the situations that they are forced in. When they rescued me from Marshall, Carter and Dark, four UIU agents were shot dead by street level mafia crooks and 8 of them were killed by the thing you call SCP- (DATA EXPUNGED), even though they would have all being fine if the foundation saw fit to give them a small budget for a few (DATA EXPUNGED), because the foundation thought that it was just a “Small, outsourced amateur” auction, so they saw fit to send lives in without any preparation. All I could think about was the mob boss who had me in his lobby years ago. Every day, he would send people, desperate men desperate for work, out to do his dirty deeds with nothing but a rusty coltello and no chance of evading prison if it went sideways. I saw most of them once. I was silent then, I won’t be silent again, not now that I know what I can do.
Interviewer: You were able to get the affected subject around the interrogation, despite it so far having a 100% detection rate against malevolent intentions, how?
SCP-4122: I simply told him to lie. Whatever that is inside of me that makes up both the violent, and helpful orders isn’t capable of thinking beyond the problem of the person is thinking about, I can. I might not be as helpful or as brutal as they are, but I am still much smarter than them.
Interviewer: You are aware that we could terminate you if you continue to refuse to cooperate, correct?
SCP-4122: ah, the old strong-arming? Fucking try, Porco Miserabile

.
END TRANSCRIPT
Following incident 4122-3, SPC-4122 was moved to site 73, where it currently is contained to compensate for the increased threat level observed

14/08/19 Incident 4122-4

Dr Maestro called in to site 73 to replace every key on SCP-4122’s keyboard after Dr Bright had what he called “Piano Practice” with it. Dr Bright claimed that SCP-4122 had been giving him advice on how to proceed with his relationship with the new Junior researcher, Dr. Myken. The foundation permitted their relationship on the condition that it was completely absent from their workplace behaviour. Supposedly, the advice had successfully won over Dr. Myken. However, after Dr. Bright acted on the advice found in SCP-4122-1-3472, Dr. Myken ended their relationship.
The following is a statement taken from the guard, Jameson Franken who was the day guard over SCP-4122 regularly in the months leading up to the incident
Transcript: Interview at the Site 10 conference room the day after the incident.

Interviewer: Please, tell us about the incident
Franken: Bright would come in about once every few weeks and would always announce his plans for his date with Myken he had later that night during the interrogations. He passed all the tests, and his intentions met all the criteria to be considered “non-harmful, non-conspiratory and non-anomalous” so I was allowed to let him leave. This goes on for a few months, until one day, he marches right into the clean room, bleary eyed, and when I ask him what he intends to communicate with the skip about, all he said was “Practicing”, I figured that was fair enough. So I let him in, and immediately he sits down at its bench.
Interviewer: What happened next?
Franken: Now, regulation says I am supposed to be monitoring anyone who interacts with 4122 in case of any erratic behaviour, but I figured, ‘the guy comes in here every other week’ plus I find watching two people talk about relationships to be the most entry level form of voyeurism. So I look away and file some more paperwork. I turn back a minute later to see Bright playing the final keys of a song, at which point he looks up and smiles at me. All around were just piano keys, everywhere, scattered all over the room. He casually gets up and walks out of the room all proud like. As soon as he is out of the clean room, I hear a sound that I will never get out of my head. The goddamn piano screaming. You ever hear a piano scream?
Interviewer: No.
Imagine a herd of cats, rolling across the keys all at once. Then make it so loud it can be heard through 3m of the strongest soundproofing known to man. It wasn’t even just music sound; it was so human. Damn sonic dampeners didn’t do shit. The goddamn thing did this for two weeks straight until we could fly old Maestro in to fix the poor bugger. I reviewed the security tapes, but that Dr Frankenstein knockoff was just playing some real quick melody and somehow ripping every key he touched played off. Somehow. The night guard had to go to therapy because it was all he could hear when he tried to sleep, and that’s why I’m in here instead of Jamie.”
END OF TRANSCRIPT

Following incident 4122-4, SCP-4122 has been occasionally reported to speak with a lisp
Upon review, SCP-4122-1-3472 was simply the advice to give Dr. Myken a rose, even though she has debilitating, but not severe allergies to flowers, and was deemed “Safe” by the 05 council after an accidental containment breach led to it being played on the Site 73 intercom system. Dr Myken recently opened a shop for second hand flowers.

17/7/19 Incident 4122-5
Preface: SCPs-4122-1-4420 to 4425 breached containment when a cell of the Chaos Insurgency hijacked a convoy escorting a truck that was carrying the physical recordings from Site 73 to Site 01 for proper archiving. The truck was disguised under as “Super Cooper’s Pot Plants” to evade suspicion, so it is unknown how the Chaos Insurgency was able to figure out which truck to target. After escaping with very few casualties and SCPs-4122-1-4420-4425, the Chaos Insurgency hijacked a TV/Radio station that was broadcasting coverage of a UN peace talk. SCP-4122-1-4425 was considered Keter class due to the dangerous nature of its contents. Subjects exposed to SCP-4122-1-4425 had a 100% fatality rate and are given Keter class designations of SCP-4122-2 due to their alarming abilities, including (DATA EXPUNGED) and aggressive temperament. The Chaos Insurgency had heavy weapons defending the station, so MTF Nu-14 “Amber-clad Mjölnir”, the smaller, more mobile, European counterpart to MTF Nu-7 “Hammer Down” was sent in to retake the station before all the recordings could be broadcast. The following is an excerpt from Corporal Kaliban’s mission report.
“Bastards had gone straight for the jugular. They somehow knew that the Piano Man had made some doomsday recording, something real nasty. The D-class that the eggheads tested it on wound up (DATA EXPUNGED) all of his cell mates, most of the guards and then himself. They had to steam clean the whole prison block. The CIs were planning on blasting this in every concerned English speaker’s ear. Intel said the death toll would be (DATA EXPUNGED) as a best case scenario without even accounting for collateral damage. We had to go floor through floor because they had STINGERs on the roof, and we couldn’t just flatten the building, that would have raised too many questions about what the terrorists wanted. It was slow going, thankfully the security personnel at the station had half a mind to barricade the broadcast room. It didn’t save them, but by Christ were we lucky they had bought us some time. When we had finished the breach and clear, the doomsday tape was already in the player, we barely snatched it out. They only managed to get one recording out. Something harmless. All the recordings are labelled, but we eventually figured out why they didn’t play the doomsday tape first. Fucking intern Pope had gotten the labels messed up at Site 18 and had the doomsday speech, 4425, mixed up with the harmless one, 4424. We were 2 seconds from an extinction level event because of this overgrown xylophone.”
SCP-4122-1-4424 was the advice from SCP-4122 to Dr. Rights that she should wear her hair up in a bun. The hairstyle, in both men and women, saw a huge rise globally after incident 4122-5. When shown to the 05 council, even bald members were observed to be attempting to tie their hair back.

SCP-4122 was unaware of the contents of SCP4122-1-4425. When told about what almost happened, the heart rate from under the lid jumped to 180 BPM. It immediately tried to order Dr. Maestro to terminate it, but he was restrained by guard Franken. SCP-4122 was eventually talked down from terminating itself by Dr. Glass, but it has been noticeably quieter, both when it is alone and during visits from personnel after incident 4122-5. Numerous personnel who frequently visited SCP-4122 have stopped doing so following this incident, and several D-class were forced to communicate with it to prevent the crescendo effect.

Psych report (post incident 4122-5)
Dr. Glass
Date of interview: 19/8/19
Psychological history: My previous evaluation (not attached) reported that SCP-4122 had a mostly stable, confident and altruistic personality, with mild selfish tendencies normally related to self-preservation. I decided that SCP-4122 had mild megalomania, which was noticeably amplified following incident 4122-3, a very common trait among mind control related anomalies
Current Evaluation: SCP-4122 has obvious signs of suicidal tendencies and anxiety, going against its previous “Tough guy” persona it was observed to exhibit. It often talks of fearing its own power, and has frequently refused to give advice to personnel requesting it on the basis of “not feeling up to it”. SCP-4122’s megalomania has not gone away, but its more frequent mood swings have led to it being much quicker to threaten personnel with its power, only to immediately apologize and back down.
Summary: SCP-4122 is suffering from the stress of knowing it almost caused the deaths of millions, leading it to feel disillusioned with itself and un confident in its ability to help others as it used to be very motivated to do.
Recommendations:
1. Test amnestic gas on SCP-4122 to remove memory of incident 4122-5. Preferably without SCP-4122’s knowledge
2. Use emotionally supportive SCPs such as SCP-999 or SCP-131
3. Fabricate stories of SCP-4122 helping others in huge ways in order to rebuild its confidence
4. Do not mention termination as an option to SCP-4122. (Overruled by the 05 Council, note: “SCP-4122 is currently being considered for termination due to the potential for an XK class scenario if SCP-4122 were to intentionally abuse the Silent Crescendo Effect”