SCP-8056 in containment.
Special Containment Procedures: The creation of SCP-8056 is forbidden by order of the Temporal Anomalies Department.
By fiat of the Director of Site-43, SCP-8056 possesses all rights, freedoms, restrictions and responsibilities common to non-anomalous personnel of the SCP Foundation. This status is pending Overwatch Command review.
The Archives and Revision Section of Site-43 has fabricated counterfeit substitute records attesting to the existence of SCP-8056; these are to be considered 'official' for all personnel not privy to the contents of this file.
Description: SCP-8056 is Jennifer Vide, a baseline human female whose existence is unattested by anything but the fact of her physical presence. The circumstances and timing of her birth have been confirmed via advanced DNA methylation analysis and blood gas testing, but both remain impossible. She possesses a full suite of apparently genuine memories of her life up to the moment of her appearance in 2024, but these do not accord with the memories of others, and her existence is not attested in genuine governmental, civilian, or Foundation records..Necropsar-class anomalies are mutually exclusive with the course of local temporality, yet nevertheless exist.
Addendum 8056-1, Discovery: The following security camera footage was recorded in the main access corridor linking the Habitation and Sustenance Section, Archives and Revision Section, Security and Containment Section, Janitorial and Maintenance Section, and Acroamatic Abatement Facility AAF-D at Site-43 on 22 May, 2024.
<Excerpt begins.>
<Camera shows the approach to the sealed AAF-D airlock. A figure suddenly appears outside the airlock, moving to the right edge of the camera view at an extreme rate of speed.>
<Camera shows the entrance to the Replication Studies main laboratory. Dr. William Wettle is standing in the doorway, conversing with Dr. Bastien LeBlanc. Subject, a young woman, appears at the left edge of the camera view, still running. She begins to scream. Dr. Wettle darts through the door, closing it halfway before Dr. LeBlanc wedges himself through as well. The containment breach alarm sounds as subject reaches the right edge of the camera view.>
<Camera shows the entrance to the Archives and Revision main office, and the Security and Containment access corridor. Two members of STF Gamma-43 ("Random Walks"), Agents Mucci and O, are transitioning from a light jog to a run from S&C as subject appears at the left edge of the camera view. She is still screaming. The agents round the corner, and attempt to seize her person. She allows the contact, staring at her surroundings in apparent uncertainty.>
<Dr. Harold Blank emerges from Archives and Revision. Subject notices him, and a look of extreme confusion passes over her face.>
Subject: Dad?
<Excerpt ends.>
Dr. Blank, Chair of Archives and Revision, is married to Dr. Melissa Bradbury, Chair of Research and Experimentation. They have no children through this, or any prior, relationship.
Subject was taken into S&C custody, protesting that Dr. Blank was her father until the arrival of her intake officer. The intake interview is reproduced below, in full.
Intake Interview: SCP-8056
Intake Officer: Dr. Nhung T. Ngo, Psychology and Parapsychology (Chair)
<Transcript begins.>
<Subject is seated at the interrogation table. She appears to be approximately twenty years of age, dressed in a simple white shirt and jeans, with no obvious injuries or deformities evident. She is extremely agitated, and begins speaking as soon as Dr. Ngo enters the containment chamber.>
SCP-8056: Tell them who I am!
<Dr. Ngo sits down at the table, placing both hands on its surface.>
Dr. Ngo: I'm afraid I don't know either.
<Subject reaches out to clutch at Dr. Ngo's sleeves and hands. This is permitted without comment.>
SCP-8056: It's me. It's Jennifer.
Dr. Ngo: If I'm acquainted with any Jennifers, the fact escapes me right now. Stay calm — if you know who I am, you know I'm on your side, and if you know where you are, you know we'll figure this out. You do know where you are?
SCP-8056: Point-43.
Dr. Ngo: Ah. Well, that's a useful, ah, point of variance. This is Site-43.
SCP-8056: Site…? It hasn't been called that since before I was born.
Dr. Ngo: Which was when?
SCP-8056: June 29th, 2005.
Dr. Ngo: And where?
SCP-8056: Here. I was born here. I've spent my whole life here. I've known you my whole life. Most of my life. After the reorg. We lived in the same hab block!
Dr. Ngo: And who am I?
SCP-8056: Dr. Nhung Ngo.
Dr. Ngo: And what do I do? I'm sorry to be so banal, but we need to establish—
SCP-8056: You're on the A5 Council. A5-13.
<Silence on recording.>
Dr. Ngo: And what is the A5 Council?
<Subject begins to laugh. Tears are flowing down her cheeks.>
SCP-8056: What's the A5 Council? Are you serious?
Dr. Ngo: For the record, please.
SCP-8056: The A5 Council is… you are the main advisory board.
Dr. Ngo: For?
SCP-8056: For? For Cornerstone!
Dr. Ngo: What's Cornerstone?
<Silence on recording.>
SCP-8056: Oh no.
Dr. Ngo: Yes?
SCP-8056: Is this the Foundation? The SCP Foundation? That's what this is, right? That's who you are?
Dr. Ngo: That's correct. What—
SCP-8056: How many people are there on the Earth?
Dr. Ngo: I don't know the precise—
SCP-8056: Ballpark! How many?!
Dr. Ngo: About seven billion, I believe?
<Subject begins laughing uncontrollably.>
Dr. Ngo: Jennifer? What's wrong?
SCP-8056: What isn't? You don't know who I am, you won't let me see my parents, you don't know what Cornerstone is, and you've got about six billion more people on your Earth than I've got on mine.
<Silence on recording.>
Dr. Ngo: You've claimed to be Dr. Blank's daughter.
SCP-8056: I am.
Dr. Ngo: And your mother…?
SCP-8056: Melissa Bradbury. A5-5. He's A5-2. Is she alright? I didn't see her—
Dr. Ngo: She's fine. But Jennifer, neither of them have ever had children.
<Silence on recording.>
SCP-8056: It must have been the breach.
Dr. Ngo: What do you mean?
SCP-8056: It was the wrong time of year, and they never thought it would happen again. But that must have been it.
Dr. Ngo: What breach?
SCP-8056: The breach, or something like it! It was happening again. I never saw it, but I knew what it was. You have to let me talk to them!
<Subject rises, still clutching Dr. Ngo's sleeves.>
SCP-8056: We have to figure this out! I need to get back there! What if it's still happening? What if they're in danger?
Dr. Ngo: Jennifer—
<Subject rushes to the two-way glass.>
SCP-8056: Are you in there?! Come out and talk to me! I need your help!
<Dr. Ngo stands, and walks over to join subject. Subject begins pounding on the glass.>
SCP-8056: I'M ONE OF YOU! YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE ME! I NEED TO GET BACK THERE! I NEED TO!
<Dr. Ngo places a hand on subject's shoulder. Subject shakes her off, striking her in the stomach. Dr. Ngo bends over double, and subject snatches her security identification card before attempting to run to the chamber door.>
SCP-8056: WE CAN'T WASTE TIME! WE CAN'T—!
<Dr. Ngo extracts the needle she has pressed into subject's thigh, and drops it. Subject stares at her for a moment, then collapses. Dr. Ngo catches her, and maneuvers her back to her chair to await security.>
<Transcript ends.>
Observer Debriefing: SCP-8056
<Transcript begins.>
<Dr. Ngo enters the observation room. Drs. Harold Blank and Melissa Bradbury are present. The former rushes to attend Dr. Ngo.>
Dr. Blank: Are you okay?
Dr. Ngo: Of course.
Dr. Blank: You should get it checked out.
Dr. Ngo: I'm fine, Harry.
Dr. Blank: That's how Houdini died, you know.
Dr. Ngo: Not really, no, and stop trying to change the subject before it's introduced.
<Silence on recording.>
Dr. Blank: Is she our daughter?
Dr. Bradbury: She can't be.
Dr. Ngo: She has your nose, Melissa, and Harry's eyes.
Dr. Bradbury: You're going to have to do better than that.
Dr. Ngo: And we will, now that she's sedated.
Dr. Blank: Where did she come from?
Dr. Ngo: Sounds like an alternate reality to me. She thinks we're some sort of Overseers.
Dr. Blank: We know a few timelines where that happened, but they all collapsed.
Dr. Ngo: Maybe that's how she ended up here.
Dr. Blank: They collapsed years, even decades ago. You did the debriefings, Nhung.
Dr. Ngo: I know. I'm just spitballing. Could this be a symptom of [EXPUNGED]?.Individuals cleared for this information will recognize it contextually.
<Dr. Blank shrugs.>
Dr. Blank: Anything goes with [EXPUNGED].
Dr. Bradbury: When will she disappear again?
Dr. Ngo: We don't know that she will.
Dr. Bradbury: Everything that's happened because of [EXPUNGED] has un-happened quickly.
Dr. Blank: But it's been getting steadily worse, too. We can't assume there's a static ruleset.
Dr. Ngo: We'll know more when she wakes up. I'd like you two to talk to her.
Dr. Blank: Yeah, alright.
Dr. Bradbury: No.
Dr. Ngo: What?
Dr. Bradbury: I said no.
Dr. Blank: Mel—
Dr. Bradbury: That isn't my daughter. I don't have a daughter. I c—
<Dr. Bradbury has reached up to rub her eyes, and begins shouting incoherently. She forces one eye open with her fingers as she stumbles out of the room, cursing.>
Dr. Blank: Contacts. She ought to be used to them by now, but.
Dr. Ngo: Some things you don't get used to.
Dr. Blank: Yeah.
<Transcript ends.>
Addendum 8056-2, Initial Tests: A comprehensive review of Site-43's electronic surveillance systems was undertaken by the Security and Containment Section subsequent to SCP-8056's manifestation. A number of vulnerabilities and unexplained aberrations were identified, and S&C Chief Hachiro Kuroki placed the entire facility on alert until further notice.
As subject was now unconscious, medical and identity tests were conducted by the Health and Pathology Section with assistance from experts in Applied Occultism.
Medical Report: SCP-8056
Dr. H. Forsythe, CMO, Site-43
Subject is a baseline human female approximately 20 years of age. Full spectrum analysis was undertaken per Security and Containment Section directive. The following notable results were derived:
- Subject is in perfect health;
- Markers for SCP Foundation health care are present in subject's fluids, organs, and DNA;
- Environmental indicators suggest long term residence in a 'clean' room or otherwise sequestered facility (cf. medical records of Technician Philip Deering, Nurse Wilhelmina Forsythe);
- Subject is the biological offspring of Drs. Harold Blank and Melissa Bradbury.
Dr. Rozálie Astrauskas submitted a report on the subject of SCP-8056's field emanations, more commonly termed her 'aura'..Dr. Astrauskas is a Class-2 ("Adept") Type Blue specializing in auramancy. The only practitioner of this Talent in Foundation employ, her work is therefore only tentative and non-falsifiable; as it was nevertheless responsible for discovering the wholesale replacement of an SCP Foundation facility by malicious doppelgangers in early 2023, however, her assessments carry a high degree of institutional confidence.
Auramantic Assessment:
SCP-8056
Prepared by Dr. Rozálie Astrauskas, Site-43
Somatic representation of subject's field emissions (left) and expert interpretation (right).
Element Key
Standard Bands:
Vigour Band (blue)
Emotion Band (red)
Psychic Band (yellow)
Standard Elements:
Hume Spirals (green)
Esoteric and Novel Inclusions:
None
Non-Transmissible Inclusions:
Identity Gradient (absent)
Intent Bloom (absent)
Analysis: Subject's standard bands read within expected tolerances for a baseline human female, with overlapping flare activity in the emotion and psychic bands indicative of a heightened mood consistent with ongoing anxious trauma. Intent bloom is sporadic and bodily unfocused, suggestive of uncertainty and/or general discombobulation; in a calm and determined state, said bloom should cluster at the ocular orbits and 'shear' in tune with the subject's focus. Hume spirals approximately match the local norm, though mild vertical distortion is observed and clarity is below average, in a state of apparent flux. No esoteric inclusions (thaumic radii/channels, transhumanistic deviations, etc.) are observed, and no uncatalogued elements are present.
These readings confirm the working theory that subject originates from an alternate iteration of baseline temporality, as opposed to an alternate timeline altogether.
Alternate iterations of this kind have been created whenever the Special Containment Procedures for SCP-5243 are incorrectly followed. These tangent realities survive until the seven members of Provisional Taskforce Sampi-5243 ("See You In September") correctly follow the procedures after one calendar year, at which point temporality collapses back to baseline and the tangent realities cease to exist. The Provisional Taskforce members undergo an involuntary memory realignment twenty-four hours later, forgetting their experiences over the past year and recalling the events of baseline.
Debriefing records for each of these tangents suggest that Tangent 5243-A, wherein an alternate SCP Foundation was created by the senior staff of Site-43 after a catastrophic global conflict, is the most likely origin point for SCP-8056. That this tangent only existed between September 9, 2003 and September 9, 2004 is an obvious complicating factor.
Addendum 8056-3, Interview Logs: After Dr. Ngo's hypodermic sedatives ran their course, subject was placed in a standard humanoid containment chamber for the continuation of the intake process.
Intake Interview: SCP-8056 (Cont'd)
Intake Officer: Dr. Nhung T. Ngo, Psychology and Parapsychology (Chair)
<Transcript begins.>
<Subject is seated at the interrogation table. Her apparent energy level is low, but as before, she begins speaking as soon as Dr. Ngo enters the chamber.>
SCP-8056: I'm sorry.
Dr. Ngo: Of course. Now, I thought we might go over some of the things you said yesterday in more detail.
SCP-8056: I'm really, really sorry. I don't know what came over me. I've never done anything like that before.
Dr. Ngo: You were worried about your parents, confused by your new environment. Flight was a perfectly typical response, and no offence, but you wouldn't make my career highlight reel of uncooperative interview subjects.
SCP-8056: What about my parents? What was that?
Dr. Ngo: You were demanding to speak with them. You wanted to get back to where they are.
SCP-8056: Where they…?
Dr. Ngo: Cornerstone, you said.
SCP-8056: I don't understand.
Dr. Ngo: I… don't either. You've been out for a while, but nothing in the meds should have affected your memory. Your brain scans—
SCP-8056: Was I acting violently? They told me I hit you. Is that why I'm in custody?
Dr. Ngo: No… Jennifer, you're in custody because you appeared suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, and none of us had ever seen you before.
SCP-8056: What? You know who I am.
<Silence on recording.>
SCP-8056: You know who I am! You walked me through the ethics primer last year. Dad got you to teach me a few holds and kicks before he'd let me date..Dr. Ngo is an expert practitioner of the Vietnamese martial art Nhất Nam, for defensive purposes in her role as parapsychologist. I… You've been my mom's therapist since the accident. Don't tell me you don't remember.
Dr. Ngo: The accident?
SCP-8056: With Doug..On September 18, 2002 Dr. Bradbury was attacked and incapacitated by SCP-5056 (then designated SCP-5056-A) at Site-43. She was rendered comatose for a period approaching one year, at the end of which she resigned from active duty and telecommuted as a consultant until returning to the facility in late 2020.
Dr. Ngo: Jennifer… What is Cornerstone?
SCP-8056: What's a cornerstone? You…?
Dr. Ngo: Proper noun. Cornerstone. You were talking about it yesterday.
SCP-8056: I don't…
Dr. Ngo: The A5 Council?
SCP-8056: The… O5 Council?
Dr. Ngo: You said this Earth had six billion people more than the one you came from.
SCP-8056: I came from here.
<Silence on recording.>
SCP-8056: I have no idea what you're talking about.
<Silence on recording.>
SCP-8056: I want to see my parents.
Dr. Ngo: Dr. Blank has agreed to meet with you. We'll arrange that soon.
SCP-8056: What about my mom?
Dr. Ngo: She's unavailable right now. It has nothing to do with you.
SCP-8056: I don't…
Dr. Ngo: I know. I'm just as confused as you are.
SCP-8056: But you get to leave the cell and talk to people who might have some idea what's going on. I'm stuck in here.
Dr. Ngo: If you took that ethics test, you know we're not going to leave you in the dark forever.
SCP-8056: Sure. It'll only feel that way.
<Transcript ends.>
Observer Debriefing: SCP-8056
<Transcript begins.>
<Dr. Ngo enters the observation room. Dr. Harold Blank is present.>
Dr. Blank: This shit again.
Dr. Ngo: Yes?
Dr. Blank: Yeah. Always happens when an alt timeline collapses. One day later, the old memories disappear and new ones that fit the present course replace them.
Dr. Ngo: Except that only happens with the Taskforce, and in any case her new memories don't match reality much better than the old ones did.
Dr. Blank: They're closer. No apocalypse. No reorganized Foundation.
<Dr. Blank sighs.>
Dr. Blank: It honestly didn't occur to me that this would happen. Maybe if it'd happened in September… We've just lost what might have been our only opportunity to learn about where she really came from.
Dr. Ngo: Maybe not. If this is really connected to [EXPUNGED], she might remember some day at random. But since we have no way of knowing, we need to deal with the here and now instead.
Dr. Blank: Meaning we need to figure out who this woman really is.
Dr. Ngo: Meaning your daughter needs to speak with her parents. Where's Melissa?
Dr. Blank: Grand Bend. Said she needed to get some things from her old house.
Dr. Ngo: You believe her?
Dr. Blank: Of course not. I'm her husband.
Dr. Ngo: I'll make an appointment. See if I can't talk her through the difficulties.
Dr. Blank: You think that'll work?
<Dr. Ngo smiles.>
Dr. Ngo: Of course not. I'm her therapist.
<Transcript ends.>
Dr. Blank requested, and received, permission to continue SCP-8056's intake interviews within the Site-43 topside interdiction zone (the former Ipperwash Provincial Park). Special dispensation was made for this activity, as the inspections still in progress had revealed significant vulnerabilities in the Site's security infrastructure, both topside and below.
Observed by a covert security detail, Dr. Blank and SCP-8056 met in a forest clearing.
Followup Interview: SCP-8056
Interviewer: Dr. Harold R. Blank, Archives and Revision (Chair)
<Transcript begins.>
<SCP-8056 is observing the parkland with apparent suspicion, hugging herself and twitching at distant birdsong.>
<Dr. Blank approaches.>
Dr. Blank: What's wrong?
<SCP-8056 is startled. She moves to approach Dr. Blank, changes her mind, and stares at him instead.>
SCP-8056: The forest.
Dr. Blank: What about it?
SCP-8056: I don't know. It's like… I've never seen it before. Not like this.
Dr. Blank: Okay. What seems off to you?
SCP-8056 in Ipperwash Park.
SCP-8056: Everything. The trees, the grass, the… sounds. The…
<Dr. Blank swats at the air.>
Dr. Blank: The bugs? I fucking hate mosquitos.
<SCP-8056 begins to weep.>
Dr. Blank: Oh. Hey. Hey! It's alright.
<He moves to approach SCP-8056, but stops short of reaching out.>
<SCP-8056 wrenches away, as though she has been touched.>
SCP-8056: It's not alright! It's not alright!
Dr. Blank: We'll figure it out. It just takes time. Take a deep breath.
SCP-8056: Fuck you.
<Dr. Blank laughs. SCP-8056 narrows her eyes.>
SCP-8056: What?
Dr. Blank: Nothing. It's just easier to believe you're my daughter when you curse me out.
<SCP-8056's expression softens.>
SCP-8056: You really don't remember.
Dr. Blank: No. But maybe you can refresh me.
<Dr. Blank gestures at a gravel path.>
Dr. Blank: Go for a walk? It's a nice day out.
<SCP-8056 continues to hug herself, despite the summer warmth.>
SCP-8056: I guess.
<The pair walk for several minutes in silence.>
SCP-8056: We've done this before.
Dr. Blank: Yeah?
SCP-8056: Yeah. Lots of times. And…
<She shakes her head.>
SCP-8056: And no times. I'm confused.
Dr. Blank: Let's try something. Imagine you've got two boxes in your brain.
SCP-8056: Archival boxes.
Dr. Blank: Exactly.
<Dr. Blank pauses.>
Dr. Blank: Are you an archivist? Is that what you remember?
<SCP-8056 nods.>
Dr. Blank: That's… that's good. That makes sense. Okay, you've got two archival boxes in your head. The things you're remembering and feeling, each of them goes in only one of those boxes.
SCP-8056: This reality, and whatever the other one is.
Dr. Blank: Right.
SCP-8056: Okay.
Dr. Blank: I'll help you figure out what goes where. You just need to tell me what you're thinking about.
SCP-8056: Okay. I don't really know where to start, though.
Dr. Blank: You're a Foundation researcher?
SCP-8056: Yes.
Dr. Blank: What sorts of stuff have you worked on?
<SCP-8056 smiles briefly.>
SCP-8056: Everything you work on. I'm your research assistant.
<Dr. Blank smiles.>
Dr. Blank: Of course you are. Let's hear some examples.
SCP-8056: Okay. Well… the 001 file.
Dr. Blank: Which one? Not the Frontispiece?
SCP-8056: No, the other one. [REDACTED].
Dr. Blank: That's… very high clearance.
SCP-8056: You trust me.
Dr. Blank: I would.
<He shakes his head.>
Dr. Blank: It'd be nice to have help with that one. Feels like it's never getting done otherwise.
SCP-8056: You miss Dr. Pickman.
Dr. Blank: I told you that?
SCP-8056: You didn't have to.
<They walk in silence again.>
SCP-8056: I did the background research on Sara Lee Guthrie.
Dr. Blank: Probably the weakest part of the article. Could've used that help, too.
<Dr. Blank pats the trunk of the nearest tree as they pass it.>
Dr. Blank: Those things belong in this box. The baseline box.
SCP-8056: But you don't remember them.
Dr. Blank: No, I don't. They pertain to things I do remember, though.
<SCP-8056 sighs.>
SCP-8056: I hate this. I hate this, I hate this, I hate this.
Dr. Blank: So let's not belabour it. Did you work on any projects of your own?
SCP-8056: Yeah. I'm the one who figured out that Welsh politician was a sapient lump of plagioclase.
<Dr. Blank stops walking. SCP-8056 stops as well.>
Dr. Blank: What?
SCP-8056: What?
Dr. Blank: Which Welsh politician?
SCP-8056: Oh. You didn't…?
Dr. Blank: No?
SCP-8056: Oh. Well. Guess that might be one for the other box.
Dr. Blank: Guess so. Maybe we need three boxes.
SCP-8056: Baseline, my memories, and my other memories.
Dr. Blank: Yeah.
SCP-8056: Still, I'll give you the politician's name. Something to look into when we get back to the Point— the Site.
<SCP-8056 laughs ruefully.>
SCP-8056: Fuck. Where did that come from.
<SCP-8056 shakes her head.>
SCP-8056: Have I told you I hate this yet? We're not getting anywhere.
Dr. Blank: Nhung would say that human relationships are processes, not events.
SCP-8056: I guess. Does that mean more walks in the woods?
Dr. Blank: Certainly. And probably around the Site, too. See what triggers your memories, both kinds. Anything for the far-out box? Anything that just seems wrong?
<SCP-8056 scans the treeline.>
SCP-8056: All the trees are dead. Should be dead. Were dead.
Dr. Blank: In the park, you mean?
<SCP-8056 shakes her head.>
Dr. Blank: Oh. Okay. Uh.
SCP-8056: I'm just getting faint impressions.
Dr. Blank: I might be able to help with that. We've got quite a few records from alternate realities. Maybe some of them match what you're sensing.
SCP-8056: Except they'll never let you share that stuff with me.
<Silence on recording.>
SCP-8056: Because I'm a skip.
<Silence on recording.>
SCP-8056: Let's keep walking.
Dr. Blank: Only thing for it.
<Transcript ends.>
Subsequent investigation by the Archives and Revision Section and CLIO-1 researchers in the United Kingdom determined that Andrew RT Davies, leader of the Welsh Conservative Group in the Senedd, was indeed a sapient lump of plagioclase projecting a cognitohazardous human front. Containment efforts were coordinated with Site-91, and SCP classification is pending.
Addendum 8056-4, Reproductive Report: The following was submitted to SCP-8056's HCML supervisor following replication studies of the relevant tests, as ordered by the Temporal Anomalies Department.
Reproductive Capacity Report:
Dr. Harold R. Blank, Dr. Melissa Bradbury
Dr. H. Forsythe, CMO, Site-43
Dr. Bradbury is presently 47 years of age, two years past the threshold where unassisted pregnancy becomes unlikely. Dr. Blank is presently 58 years of age, although as a result of advanced Foundation medical treatment his physical age is approximately 48. This places him past the fertility threshold as well. For unknown reasons, potentially as one result of her exposure to SCP-5056 and the resultant trauma, Dr. Bradbury also suffers from primary ovarian insufficiency.
It is my medical opinion that this partnership is incapable of producing offspring, even with medical intervention, whether said intervention is mundane or paratechnological.
In receipt of the above, the Temporal Anomalies Department nevertheless issued a direct order to all affected parties forbidding the attempted creation of SCP-8056 in baseline temporality. After repeated demands for response, both Dr. Blank and Dr. Bradbury acknowledged receipt of this directive.
Addendum 8056-5, Related Counselling Session: While the interrogation of SCP-8056's personal history continued, Dr. Ngo scheduled counselling sessions with Dr. Blank and Dr. Bradbury. The latter claimed administrative privilege, and refused. A partial transcript of the former's counselling session is appended below.
Counselling Record
Subject: Harold R. Blank (Chair, Archives and Revision Section, Site-43)
Officer of Record: Dr. Nhung Ngo (Chair, Psychology and Parapsychology Section, Site-43)
<Excerpt begins.>
Dr. Blank: I've always wanted to have kids eventually. Just never now. Never any time soon. Never within a year or two from the present moment.
Dr. Blank.
Dr. Ngo: You've had things to do.
Dr. Blank: Not even that. You ever have that thing… You can't enjoy right now, because you're worried about later?
Dr. Ngo: I know what you mean by that.
Dr. Blank: Right. This is how I spend most interims, thinking about how finite they are. How much time I have left before they end. Having a kid, that puts a timer on so many things. Getting enough sleep. Having privacy. Working on your career. Seeing friends. It locks you in to a whole new kind of life, and locks you out of the one you had before. I've never been ready for that. Never had enough sleep that I'd be willing to start waking up to a screaming baby at every hour. Never had enough time to myself that a few years of being permanently on call started to sound appealing.
Dr. Ngo: So you delayed.
Dr. Blank: I guess. Melissa wasn't in a good place anyway, and I was waiting for her. Not that this is her fault. Or even a fault. I just… wasn't ever ready. You know… I used to fantasize about getting to skip the hard work.
Dr. Ngo: What do you mean?
Dr. Blank: Not having to lose sleep or sacrifice my free time or change diapers… Nhung, I have OCD, I will never under any circumstances change a fucking diaper — but still having a kid.
Dr. Ngo: Like, hiring a nanny?
Dr. Blank: No, just not having to be there for the painful stuff.
Dr. Ngo: Like that Adam Sandler movie.
Dr. Blank: That is an unconscionable comparison to make to someone's fantasy. But yes. And no. I imagined, what if some old girlfriend had my baby and never told me? I'd have my legacy, and I wouldn't have had to put in the effort to make sure it took.
Dr. Ngo: You'd miss a lot.
Dr. Blank: Yeah. First words, first steps, report cards and birthdays and Christmas. Colic and the terrible twos and having to give The Talk. Graduations.
Dr. Ngo: I meant the processes more than the events. The formative years for the parental bond. They wouldn't even know you. You'd never be like their true parent. People don't form those connections the same way when they're adults.
Dr. Blank: Yeah. And I wouldn't want to tell her I wasn't there for all that because I need at least nine hours of sleep every night.
Dr. Ngo: Does the idea make you feel guilty?
Dr. Blank: I guess. It's not a very nice thing to wish on a kid, even a fictional one. They'd probably end up hating me.
Dr. Ngo: Now you're on Star Trek II.
Dr. Blank: Yeah. Now I am.
<Silence on recording.>
Dr. Blank: Why the movie comparisons all of a sudden?
Dr. Ngo: Because you're obviously not interested in engaging with this situation in real terms.
Dr. Blank: What?
Dr. Ngo: Jennifer isn't your fantasy of a fait accompli daughter you didn't have to raise. She's a real person, and she's suffering from all this ambiguity.
Dr. Blank: I'm going to see her again.
Dr. Ngo: Today?
Dr. Blank: Sure. Today. Why not?
Dr. Ngo: You're sure you wouldn't rather go to sleep? Or have some alone time?
Dr. Blank: You're very aggressive for a therapist.
Dr. Ngo: This isn't therapy. It's counselling. My counsel is to get out there and talk to her while she still wants to talk.
<Excerpt ends.>
Addendum 8056-6, Quantum Supermechanics Consult: During the above interviews, the Quantum Supermechanics Section of Site-43 was engaged in extensive collaboration with the Department of Temporal Anomalies and Dr. Ilse Reynders to determine the feasibility of returning SCP-8056 to her native temporality. The Temporal Anomalies Department rejected all consultation requests..The DTA's jurisdiction covers local timeline discrepancies, while the TAD is concerned with multiversal timeplane stability. A transcript of the final presentation to Director McInnis is attached below.
<Transcript begins.>
Dr. Du: We can't send her back.
Dir. McInnis: No?
Dr. Du: No. Not even if we knew where she came from, in a useful sense.
Dr. Reynders: We know where she came from in a useless sense. We know some of the attributes of her reality. But that's like knowing someone comes from a city where the skyscrapers are so many storeys tall, and the civic flag has a stripe in it. Not enough to go on.
Dr. Du: At least, not without a database of such things. And if the curt responses I've been getting to my enquiries are anything to go by, TAD either hasn't got one of those or doesn't want me seeing it.
Dir. McInnis: But you're saying it wouldn't matter anyway.
Dr. Du: Right. Because we aren't talking about an alternate timeline or an alternate Earth. We're talking about another version of this Earth. One that doesn't even exist anymore. Probably.
Dir. McInnis: Probably.
Dr. Reynders: It's like how you can't send your consciousness into the version of you who existed last year. You don't share many cells with that guy. You aren't cell mates, if you'll excuse the pun.
Dir. McInnis: With reluctance.
Dr. Reynders: It's an instructive pun. You can't reach out and touch that other you, because they aren't really other at all. They're just you, on a tangent. Like your subconscious plugging away on a problem while your conscious mind has the reins.
Dir. McInnis: How far does that metaphor go? Are these time-tangents still extant, only submerged? Or are they truly dead, as Dr. Du seems to be saying?
Dr. Du: I suspect that [EXPUNGED] has progressed to the point where the nature of reality is so fungible that past possible states are occasionally asserting themselves, piecemeal. Reality's pores are opening, we're seeing what lies beneath, and then it scabs over. I can't imagine that seven different versions of this universe still exist simultaneously..Containment of SCP-5243 has failed six times, producing six one-year tangent timelines. That would be outrageously unstable.
Dr. Reynders: Although that might explain [EXPUNGED]. Could even be the root cause.
Dr. Du: For our present purposes, though, that doesn't matter. What matters is that there's only one known way to pass between these tangents and baseline, and that's SCP-5243.
Dr. Reynders: Specifically, messing up its conprocs.
Dr. Du: And that only works for Sampi-5243, and even then only for a year.
Dr. Reynders: TAD agents have jumpwatches. We don't know how they work, and they're not telling. But we do have anecdotal evidence which suggests they can only hop between discrete timelines. Whatever membrane separates these tangents, it isn't permeable in that manner.
Dir. McInnis: Meaning, to paraphrase what you already said, our guest can never go home.
Dr. Du: That's right.
Dr. Reynders: Yes. Unfortunately.
Dir. McInnis: Quite.
Dr. Du: Why unfortunately?
Dr. Reynders: Because it might worsen [EXPUNGED] to have a rogue variable from an outside context in baseline. If there's one thing nature abhors more than a vacuum, it's a thing out of place.
Dir. McInnis: And nature's abhorrence pales beside that of the Overseers.
Addendum 8056-7: On 27 May 2024, the Department of Temporal Anomalies recused itself from further consultation on the matter of SCP-8056. Its final report is appended below.
Department of Temporal Anomalies
Report: SCP-8056
On 10/31/2022, Drs. Polyxeni Mataxas and Mali Wattana of the Spectrometry and Spectremetry Section of Site-43 encountered a temporal anomaly in The Ward Cemetery near Grand Bend, Ontario, Canada. Both researchers rapidly transitioned through multiple anomalous spaces geographically congruent with the cemetery but wildly variable in contents, makeup, and survivability. Subsequent analysis has determined that six of these variants can be mapped with a high degree of confidence to the six known tangent realities created by SCP-5243. Said tangents are only known to have existed for a single calendar year in each case, corresponding to the years in which the containment procedures for SCP-5243 were enacted incorrectly. Nevertheless, the researchers would appear from contextual clues to have visited each tangent during a period of time in which each tangent was not known to have existed, ranging from the near to the far future. Tangent 5243-A, code named "Playing Gods," was visited at some point in the late 2050s. The researchers briefly encountered a woman in early middle age, who was in the process of visiting the shared grave of Dr. Harold Blank and Dr. Melissa Bradbury.
Both researchers were amnesticized after being debriefed about their experience, as it was quickly determined to have been one facet of the ongoing [EXPUNGED] which constitutes the primary research and containment initiative of Site-43 at this time, classified at the highest level. Nevertheless, the description they were able to give is fully consistent with the physical appearance of SCP-8056, when accounting for two decades' worth of aging.
This would appear to be empirical confirmation that SCP-8056 originates in Tangent 5243-A, and also further confirmation that elements of these otherwise dead alternate realities may assert themselves in baseline temporality as a result of [EXPUNGED]. Reports that random, unexplained variables are interfering with security operations at Site-43 may also represent ontokinetic bleed related to [EXPUNGED].
It is my recommendation that extensive research into the origins and nature of SCP-8056 be conducted by the researchers presently managing her file, so that we might better understand this crisis as it unfolds. As the present anomaly is of multiversal origin, however, I am forced to concede that my department's jurisdiction is superseded by that of the Temporal Anomalies Department. This report will therefore be my final statement on the matter, unless Director Xyank (or whoever is fulfilling his duties in his presumed absence) sees fit to consult me further.
— Alice Forth, Director, Department of Temporal Anomalies
Addendum 8056-8, Replication Studies Consult: Extensive interdisciplinary collaboration was attempted to further understand the nature of SCP-8056. One such consult, between Dr. Blank and Dr. Bastien LeBlanc of the Replication Studies Subsection, is transcribed below.
<Transcript begins.>
Dr. Blank: I don't think we can replicate this.
Dr. LeBlanc: Huh? Oh. No, that's not what the consult is about.
Dr. Blank: Okay.
Dr. LeBlanc: In fact, as I understand it, replicating the anomaly is—
Dr. Blank: Against regs. Yeah. I didn't mean that joke as an entrée into talking about my reproductive system. Bad enough that the article talks shit about my waterworks.
Dr. LeBlanc: Uh… yeah. Sorry. That does suck.
Dr. Blank: What did you want to talk about?
Dr. LeBlanc: Myself.
Dr. Blank: What particularly?
Dr. LeBlanc: What it's like to have a temporal anomaly pull you out of your context and dump you where nobody's ever heard of you..Dr. LeBlanc encountered a temporal anomaly in his sixteenth year which transported him from the year 1966 to the year 2006.
Dr. Blank: Ah. Yeah.
Dr. LeBlanc: You and I have something in common.
Dr. Blank: Besides the name, you mean.
Dr. LeBlanc: We both know what it's like to wake up in a world we don't recognize, where we don't really belong. You've had that happen a few times. But you didn't have to stay there. I did. And your daughter, it looks like she will too.
Dr. Blank: I see the parallel.
Dr. LeBlanc: One minute, I'm falling down a well. Next minute, I'm crawling back out. Minute after that, I'm at ground level again. That's my perspective. As far as the rest of the world was concerned, though, somewhere in between those minutes half a century got lost.
Dr. Blank: Is that why you left Sloth's Pit?
Dr. LeBlanc: Trying to get ahead of me? In my own trauma narrative?
Dr. Blank: Sorry. It's just… I guess I'm getting impatient about all these illustrative stories people want to tell me. I'm sick of my own stories, even. Not a very good historian right now. Go on.
Dr. LeBlanc: Well, you hit it on the head anyway. I did leave the Pit, eventually, because of what came next. And I wish I could tell you I regret it, but I don't. Because I learned something about myself, and my situation, by doing that.
Dr. Blank: Okay.
Dr. LeBlanc: It sucks when nobody knows who you are. It sucks when you're completely alone. It feels like you have no backup when you're down, like nobody will be there to catch you when you fall. It feels that way no matter where you are. But it's so much worse in familiar surroundings.
Dr. Blank: Why?
Dr. LeBlanc: Because being a stranger in a strange land makes sense. There's a fitness to it. Being a stranger in your home, though? That's a little like going mad.
<Silence on recording.>
Dr. Blank: Have you ever known anyone with dementia?
Dr. LeBlanc: No…
Dr. Blank: I have. When it's someone you care about, it's like… the familiar becoming unfamiliar. Not just for them, but for you. It seems like the person you know, but they're saying things, doing things, that you know the person you know would never say or do. And that feels like… I dunno. Like falling down a well. Like losing your home. Like your home not recognizing you.
Dr. LeBlanc: I don't want to diminish that, but I think this situation is even… Not worse, obviously I wouldn't say worse, but harder to wrap your mind around. People getting sick and forgetting you? That's terrible. People treating you like a stranger, like you don't belong, when you know you do? That's…
Dr. Blank: Gaslighting.
Dr. LeBlanc: Only it's the universe gaslighting you. Gaslighting everybody. Those people are right to believe what they believe. And so are you, even though there's no way the two things should be true at the same time.
Dr. Blank: It sucks.
Dr. LeBlanc: It does.
Dr. Blank: Would you say you've, if not gotten over it, found a way to handle it? Live with it?
Dr. LeBlanc: Yeah, I think I have.
Dr. Blank: How?
Dr. LeBlanc: The problem was a break in the narrative. The narrative of my life. So I started a new one. The people that I knew were gone. So I found new people.
Dr. Blank: What if the old people had still been around? Would you have wanted to rebuild what you had?
Dr. LeBlanc: I have no idea if I would have wanted that.
Dr. Blank: Okay.
Dr. LeBlanc: But you know what I did want, more than anything?
Dr. Blank: What?
Dr. LeBlanc: To be able to make that decision. To decide for myself if I wanted to try.
<Transcript ends.>
Addendum 8056-9, Decommissioning Proposal: Though still rejecting requests for consultation, the Temporal Anomalies Department had apparently opened a file of its own on SCP-8056. On 29 May 2024, the following proposal was forwarded by Assistant Director Aoife Konjit of the TAD to Director Calvin Bold of the Decommissioning Department.
SCP Object Decommissioning Proposal Form
Item #: SCP-8056
Object Class: Necropsar
Head Researcher: N/A
Supporting Personnel:
- Assistant Director Aoife Konjit - Representing Temporal Anomalies Department
Please check off or fill in the applicable boxes regarding the reasons for submitting your proposal:
☑ Excessively High Risk of Lifted Veil Scenario
☑ Excessive Danger
☑ Ability to Decom. Apollyon-Class Object
☑ Expense
☑ Ethical Concerns Over Necessary Containment
☑ Legal Concerns
☑ High Risk of K-Class Scenario (if so, please state which type(s): AK, CK, IK, LV, OK, PK, TK, UK, XK, ZK, ÞK)
☑ Other (please state): Subject represents a potential point of failure in the interstitial multiversal membrane.Summary: Subject is an undocumented extradimensional alien. It is unattested in any governmental database, and its attestation would be a costly and dangerous venture with no clear benefit. Its discovery by parties beyond the Foundation risks the integrity of the Veil of Normalcy. Its person represents an obvious error in the sorting algorithm of baseline temporality, a loophole which must be closed. Maintaining the illusion that this subject belongs in baseline temporality is tantamount to gaslighting, an abuse forbidden by Ethics Committee guidelines without special dispensation. Its presence may be interpreted as a violation of the ban on cross-timeline trade outlined in the Multi-Foundation Pact of 1981, endangering your local Foundation's membership in the Multi-Foundation Coalition itself. Its presence is a known violation of Temporal Anomalies Department Guidelines. If its continued existence is allowed, the fabric of space time may be subject to unknown stresses potentially leading to any manner of catastrophic K-class events. At the very least, the ongoing security snafu at Site-43 is almost certainly linked to this subject's presence. It must be decommissioned posthaste.
— Assistant Director A. Konjit
Director Bold responded the following day:
Decommissioning Department
Proposal Response
In all my years at the DeD, never once has a more frivolous and histrionic proposal crossed my desk.
Every box is checked — I can only assume by "Ability to Decom. Apollyon-Class Object" the petitioner means that we are capable of killing a baseline human being who is, according to them, capable of initiating almost every K-class scenario I've ever heard of. (LV-Class Lifted Veil Scenario is not only not K-class, by the way, it's already covered by the first checkbox.) The alarmism on display here is, frankly, alarming; I have been over Dr. Ngo's research files (the decision to imply that SCP-8056 has no Head Researcher is particularly petty and misleading) and find nothing there to support a single one of the above claims.
As the Temporal Anomalies Department is unable to provide me with concrete evidence backing their rationale for this course of action — and as my correspondence with Chief Kuroki of Site-43's security force leads me to believe there is no correlation between SCP-8056 and the "security snafu" alluded to here — I am unable to provide them with an endorsement for said course.
Since I am also unable to achieve contact with Director Xyank, the matter has been forwarded to the Overseer Council for mediation.
— Dir. Calvin Bold, Decommissioning Department
Addendum 8056-10, Research Partnership Consult: Drs. Blank and Bradbury finally consulted on the matter of SCP-8056 on 05/30/2024, resulting in the interactions transcribed below.
<Transcript begins.>
Dr. Bradbury: We're on the record?
Dr. Bradbury.
Dr. Blank: We're a test case. This is a new one for the books.
Dr. Bradbury: Hooray.
Dr. Blank: You don't have to talk it through with me. We don't have to transcribe it all.
Dr. Bradbury: I think we do? Otherwise I'll never agree to go through with it. I need the push.
Dr. Blank: Okay.
Dr. Bradbury: Okay.
Dr. Blank: Are you waiting for me to…?
Dr. Bradbury: Do it like an interview log. Ask me what my deal is.
Dr. Blank: Why won't you meet with her, Melissa?
Dr. Bradbury: Because you and I wasted our lives.
Dr. Blank: O…kay.
Dr. Bradbury: I sat in my house, and you sat in your office, and we let the best years of our lives slip by, and now we're fat and old and useless.
Dr. Blank: You're not fat. And they were the worst years of my life, actually.
Dr. Bradbury: That's what I mean. They shouldn't have been.
Dr. Blank: We're making up for it now.
Dr. Bradbury: Are we? That girl—
Dr. Blank: Woman.
Dr. Bradbury: That woman, her parents changed their world. They made it better, for her. They achieved so much, under so much pressure. What have I achieved?
Dr. Blank: You clawed your way back to normal from a long way down. You kicked ass.
Dr. Bradbury: I cried myself to sleep so many times, I lost the capacity for tears. I telecommuted until my legs almost atrophied. You were saving the world, but when I finally saw you again? You'd had a week's worth of personal development that took you hundreds of times too long.
Dr. Blank: Hey.
Dr. Bradbury: Most people don't wait until middle age to knock on their crush's door.
Dr. Blank: There were mitigating circumstances, if you'll recall.
Dr. Bradbury: Not that mitigating. We waited twenty years, Harry.
Dr. Blank: Not quite twenty.
Dr. Bradbury: Longer, actually. A quarter century. We should have been together when the new millennium struck. For us, it didn't mean anything. A new millennium, and it didn't mean anything.
Dr. Blank: They never mean anything. Nothing more than we pretend they mean.
Dr. Bradbury: We had more than twenty years to make that human being exist, Harry. And we didn't.
Dr. Blank: Okay.
Dr. Bradbury: And you've met her. You've talked to her. You killed her, do you understand? I killed her too. We killed our daughter.
Dr. Blank: Don't go getting pro-life on me.
<Dr. Bradbury laughs.>
Dr. Bradbury: I hate how you do that.
Dr. Blank: Do what?
Dr. Bradbury: Trivialize things to defuse them.
Dr. Blank: It was already trivial, Mel. We didn't kill her. That woman I've been talking to? She isn't our daughter. She's theirs. And they lived very different lives. They're different people.
Dr. Bradbury: The potential for her existed in this universe. In us.
Dr. Blank: So what?
Dr. Bradbury: So what?
Dr. Blank: Yeah! Do you think we have some moral responsibility to reproduce, literally reproduce every potential person we're aware of in the multiverse?
Dr. Bradbury: No, but—
Dr. Blank: Because we know now that we could have had a child, it's morally wrong that we didn't then?
Dr. Bradbury: No…
Dr. Blank: Then what? What is this argument? What's so terrible about the road we took? Just that it didn't lead to her?
<Silence on recording.>
Dr. Blank: Melissa, it wasn't your fault.
Dr. Bradbury: I know.
Dr. Blank: Your body didn't do this. Neither did mine. We can regret our choices, but we can't blame ourselves for them. For wanting what we wanted.
Dr. Bradbury: I know!
Dr. Blank: And the other versions of us had so much more reason to bring a child into the world. They were never separated. That Melissa was never attacked. Their world was depopulated. They were together, and they had a moral imperative. We were apart, and we prioritized other things. We had that luxury, even though it didn't feel like one.
Dr. Bradbury: I know all of this, Harry. I know it. But this isn't about me.
Dr. Blank: No?
Dr. Bradbury: No. Sort of. No.
Dr. Blank: I don't understand.
Dr. Bradbury: What do you think she sees when she looks at you? What would she see when she looks at me?
Dr. Blank: Her parents?
Dr. Bradbury: No.
Dr. Blank: What, then?
Dr. Bradbury: Two people who had the chance to become her parents — two people who had the opportunity to bring her into existence — and decided they had better things to do.
<Silence on recording.>
Dr. Bradbury: We aren't looking at a road less travelled. We're looking at the loser of a contest for our attention. And she knows that's what she is.
Dr. Blank: She… knows she could easily have never existed in her world, either. Knows she was never inevitable. Was never better than unlikely. She knows there's a point at which she could have been wanted so little, she would never have been born. In a way more precise than any of us could ever know.
Dr. Bradbury: That's right.
Dr. Blank: Well.
Dr. Bradbury: Yeah.
Dr. Blank: It seems to me there's an obvious way to address this problem.
Dr. Bradbury: Do tell.
Dr. Blank: Show her she's wanted now.
<Silence on recording.>
Dr. Blank: You know what I think?
Dr. Bradbury: Something stupid, probably.
Dr. Blank: I think you're just mad I impregnated another woman.
<Dr. Bradbury laughs, and shoves Dr. Blank.>
Dr. Bradbury: Fuck off! Asshole!
<Transcript ends.>
Addendum 8056-11, Ethics Committee Report: Prior to the above, Assistant Director Konjit of the TAD attempted a further circumvention of the command hierarchy by contacting the Ethics Committee. She received a response the following day, reproduced below.
Ethics Committee
Report: SCP-8056
The Temporal Anomalies Department has appealed the Decommissioning Department's ruling on SCP-8056 to this office.
Given that:
- Subject is a baseline human being;
- Subject possesses no overt anomalous qualities:
- Subject is emotionally linked to two senior researchers;
- Subject's maintenance poses no significant resource drain;
- Subject may be the single surviving representative of a tangent reality;
It is the opinion of this liaison that subject's decommissioning would represent a breach of Ethics Committee regulations.
— Dr. Eileen Veiksaar, Ethics Committee Liaison, Site-43
Concurring:
— Dr. Jeremiah Cimmerian, Ethics Committee
— Dr. Odongo Tejani, Ethics Committee (Chair)
Addendum 8056-12: In order to further establish a rapport with SCP-8056 and determine her personal chronology in a less stressful setting, Drs. Blank and Bradbury accompanied her to Crabby Joe's Bar and Grill in Grand Bend for a dinner reservation. Transcribed audio of this event is excerpted below.
Date: 06/02/2024
Officers of Record: Dr. H. Blank (Chair, Archives and Revision Section, Site-43), Dr. M. Bradbury (Chair, Research and Experimentation Section, Site-43)
<Excerpts begin.>
<Audio consistent with a mid-size franchise restaurant during the dinner rush hour.>
SCP-8056: This is so weird.
Dr. Blank: Right?
SCP-8056: I mean, for me. I've never been to one of these before.
Dr. Bradbury: Stronger minds than ours have been broken by the experience of a Crabby Joe's.
Dr. Blank: I think she means—
SCP-8056: A restaurant. Yeah. Any restaurant.
Dr. Bradbury: Oh. Wow.
Dr. Blank: Something for the… other box.
SCP-8056: Ugh. Yeah. I'm getting confused again, sorry. I've definitely been to a restaurant before. What the hell am I talking about?
Unknown: For three?
Dr. Blank: Yeah. We've got a reservation, under Blank.
Unknown: Under…?
Dr. Blank: Blank. Like, the name.
<Unknown laughter.>
Unknown: I didn't know that was a name.
Dr. Bradbury: Imagine how I felt.
Unknown: Okay, they're just cleaning the table. It'll be a couple minutes, tops.
Dr. Blank: No problem.
SCP-8056: Were they always this busy?
Dr. Blank: I honestly don't remember.
SCP-8056: Why not? Whose favorite restaurant is this?
Dr. Blank: Nobody's, I think.
SCP-8056: Wow.
Dr. Bradbury: All of our favorite restaurants are closed.
SCP-8056: Why?
Dr. Blank: Same reason we don't know if they're normally this busy. We haven't been in a real restaurant since COVID started.
SCP-8056: Ohhhh. Shit. I knew that.
Dr. Blank: Yeah.
SCP-8056: So we're in the same boat!
Dr. Bradbury: Hooray!
<Audio consistent with a more enclosed space in the same restaurant. Sounds of cutlery and consumption.>
SCP-8056: Do you still have that boat?
Dr. Blank: Boat?
SCP-8056: Our sailboat. The one we vacation on.
Dr. Blank: Oh. Well, no. Sold it years ago.
SCP-8056: Really? The flat one?
Dr. Blank: Yeah. I still think about it, though. A lot.
SCP-8056: You have those nightmares.
Dr. Blank: I do.
SCP-8056: They were getting worse…
Dr. Blank: They're still getting worse. Yes.
SCP-8056: I guess you probably get nightmares too, eh?
Dr. Bradbury: Cheerful dinner conversation topic.
SCP-8056: It's all I could think of.
<Silence on recording.>
SCP-8056: I'm gonna miss that boat.
Dr. Blank: We could rent one.
SCP-8056: Wouldn't be the same.
Dr. Bradbury: Nothing ever is.
<Audio consistent with the same space, though ambient sound has decreased in volume and frequency. Sounds of cutlery and consumption are less frequent.>
Dr. Bradbury: Why do you know about the nightmares?
SCP-8056: Huh?
Dr. Bradbury: My nightmares. Why do you know about them?
SCP-8056: I don't understand the question.
Dr. Bradbury: I was attacked? By 5056?
SCP-8056: Of course.
Dr. Blank: And yet you were born.
<SCP-8056 frowns.>
SCP-8056: It kind of… hurts. When I try to think about it. But I know you were only out for a little while. And as soon as you were back, the two of you… well.
<SCP-8056 frowns.>
SCP-8056: You know.
Dr. Bradbury: Yeah.
Dr. Blank: Yeah, we know that part. So, we were together in 2003?
SCP-8056: Of course.
Dr. Bradbury: Mmm.
Dr. Blank: I wonder what made the difference.
Dr. Bradbury: Nothing made the difference. This never happened.
Dr. Blank: Melissa.
SCP-8056: It's okay. She's telling the truth. I need to get used to it.
Dr. Blank: You've still got your memories. Happy memories, I hope.
SCP-8056: Most of them.
Dr. Bradbury: Only most of them?
SCP-8056: It wasn't always easy.
Dr. Blank: No?
SCP-8056: No. You guys… Well, never mind.
Dr. Blank: You know we have to mind.
<Silence on recording.>
SCP-8056: You fought a lot.
Dr. Bradbury: Really?
SCP-8056: Yeah. Kind of… All the time. When I was a kid.
Dr. Blank: Why? What about?
SCP-8056: Mom was always very sad. Always having those nightmares. And not always at night. She didn't want to do anything. You felt like… I'm sorry. This feels wrong.
Dr. Bradbury: Keep going.
SCP-8056: Dad felt like we weren't enough. For you to get out of bed in the morning. It took him a long time to realize that just because you were still with us, didn't mean you were okay.
Dr. Bradbury: Ever the optimist.
Dr. Blank: How long did it take? For things to actually get better?
SCP-8056: Years.
<Silence on recording.>
SCP-8056: A lot of years.
Dr. Bradbury: Well. I guess it's sort of nice to know it wasn't a paradise.
Dr. Blank: I just kinda thought…
Dr. Bradbury: I know.
SCP-8056: Nothing fixes everything. And it's nobody's fault.
<Silence on recording.>
SCP-8056: It took me a long time to figure that last part out.
<Audio is consistent with the previous excerpt.>
Dr. Blank: So, you heard they can't send you back.
SCP-8056: Yeah.
Dr. Blank: How do you feel about that?
SCP-8056: How do you feel about that?
Dr. Blank: Pretty good, actually.
SCP-8056: Mom?
Dr. Bradbury: Of course it's a relief.
SCP-8056: Of course.
Dr. Bradbury: I mean it.
SCP-8056: What reason would I have to doubt you?
Dr. Bradbury: You could try answering your father's question.
SCP-8056: I feel relieved too. But not for the same reason.
Dr. Blank: You don't remember being from there.
SCP-8056: Right.
Dr. Bradbury: So they don't really mean anything to you. The people you left behind.
SCP-8056: Right.
<Silence on recording.>
Dr. Blank: What's wrong?
SCP-8056: I feel sick.
Dr. Bradbury: Something you ate?
SCP-8056: Probably not. Sweet potato fries have never backed up on me before. At least as far as I know. For what little that's worth.
Dr. Blank: I get it.
SCP-8056: No you don't.
Dr. Blank: I really do. I've forgotten entire worlds before. Six times.
SCP-8056: Worlds you visited. Never the world you're from.
<Silence on recording.>
SCP-8056: It's completely gone, isn't it?
Dr. Blank: Yes.
SCP-8056: What am I supposed to do with that information?
Dr. Blank: I don't know.
Dr. Bradbury: Archive it, I suppose.
SCP-8056: What?
Dr. Bradbury: You're an archivist. Like your father. Do what comes naturally. Remember.
SCP-8056: The point of archiving something is that you think it might someday become useful.
Dr. Bradbury: You never know.
Dr. Blank: There's enough possibilities out there to fill… Well, at least half a dozen realities. One thing I've had to come to terms with is that this thing, the thing that brought us together, never really ends.
Dr. Bradbury: Until it does.
SCP-8056: It ended for my parents.
Dr. Blank: I'm sure they'd be pleased that it didn't end for you.
SCP-8056: I can sympathize without empathizing.
Dr. Blank: I hope you don't mean that.
SCP-8056: I think I'm entitled to a little self-pity. I'm the last daughter of Krypton.
Dr. Blank: There's a thought.
SCP-8056: Eh?
Dr. Blank: Maybe they sent you here. Maybe you're here for a reason.
SCP-8056: Maybe you're Ma and Pa Kent, you mean?
Dr. Bradbury: I would give anything to have Diane Lane's hair.
Dr. Blank: We don't talk about Man of Steel in this household.
SCP-8056: You really think I could be here because of them? Something they did?
Dr. Blank: You were talking about a breach, when you arrived. But the only thing, literally the single only thing that came through was you. That seems oddly targeted.
Dr. Bradbury: There's all those glitches…
Dr. Blank: I honestly don't see the connection.
SCP-8056: I don't suppose there's any way to find out if that's what happened. The whole… sent me here, that thing. If my parents had something to do with it. There's no way to know for sure. Right?
Dr. Bradbury: Nope.
SCP-8056: I guess it's as good an explanation as any. For now.
Dr. Blank: Good enough that you can choke down the rest of your steak?
SCP-8056: Eye it all you want. You already had yours.
Dr. Blank: A good steak is just… You don't realize you were missing it, until you've got it.
<Ambient audio has further decreased. Cutlery and consumption sounds have ceased, save for the occasional consumption of fluids.>
SCP-8056 at Crabby Joe's.
Dr. Blank: Did we ever tell you anything about our work, Jennifer? The stuff you weren't technically cleared for?
SCP-8056: Not really. I know you guys were working on some weird, top secret thing. Something really dangerous and important. But you never told me what it was.
Dr. Bradbury: Any suspicions?
SCP-8056: It had you guys really freaked out.
Dr. Blank: When was this?
SCP-8056: Last couple of years.
Dr. Blank: Was there ever a time in your memory that we were totally happy?
SCP-8056: Was there ever a time in yours?
Dr. Bradbury: How about you? Were you happy?
SCP-8056: I think I was. I think we all were, in our own ways. Are you guys happy now?
Dr. Blank: Yes.
Dr. Bradbury: Yes.
SCP-8056: Without me.
Dr. Blank: And with you.
Dr. Bradbury: Mmm.
SCP-8056: Mmm.
Dr. Bradbury: Yes. With you.
Dr. Blank: It was [EXPUNGED]. We were working on [EXPUNGED]. Stopping it.
Dr. Bradbury: Harry!
Dr. Blank: She's going to know about it soon enough. Everyone is.
Dr. Bradbury: Still, we're in public.
Dr. Blank: They probably think I'm talking about the next election.
SCP-8056: [EXPUNGED]. That… explains a lot. Yeah.
Dr. Blank: So it happens in every version of our reality, then.
Dr. Bradbury: ███ ██████ ████ ████.
SCP-8056: George Harrison.
Dr. Blank: We ever listen to the Traveling Wilburys?
SCP-8056: Hell yeah.
Dr. Blank: Always made me feel like things were going to turn out for the best.
SCP-8056: Me too.
<Silence on recording.>
SCP-8056: We let music lie to us like that.
<Audio consistent with a streetscape, transitioning to the interior of a motor vehicle.>
Dr. Blank: I wonder how the alternate timelines would have shaken out if you had been in there.
SCP-8056: What do you mean?
Dr. Blank: 5243. Six alternate timelines. How would they have been different if you'd been incorporated? Just five, actually. You weren't born until the first one was over.
Dr. Bradbury: She was born in the first one.
Dr. Blank: Yeah, but you know what I mean.
SCP-8056: You never told me.
Dr. Blank: Never told you what?
SCP-8056: What happened in those timelines.
Dr. Blank: Yeah, well. You obviously weren't cleared for them.
<Audio event consistent with internal combustion engine turning over.>
SCP-8056: I don't think that was the reason.
<Silence on recording.>
Dr. Blank: It only just now occurs to me that I shouldn't be talking to you about this.
SCP-8056: Gonna erase it from the tape?
Dr. Bradbury: He's not a cop.
Dr. Blank: Thank god.
<Audio consistent with motor vehicle travel.>
SCP-8056: Well, while you're already going to get into trouble…
Dr. Blank: Sure. I'm wondering if maybe the me from your version of events saw the same alternate timelines that I saw. I wonder if they're constants.
SCP-8056: Meaning I didn't exist in them.
Dr. Bradbury: I can certainly see why he wouldn't have wanted to tell you that.
SCP-8056: If that's true…
<Audio event consistent with turn signal.>
Dr. Blank: It's just a thought.
SCP-8056: …I wonder how he felt about that.
Dr. Blank: Terrible, I imagine.
SCP-8056: I wonder.
<Audio consistent with exterior wooded space.>
Dr. Blank: This was nice.
Dr. Bradbury: This was nice.
Dr. Blank: We should do it again.
SCP-8056: I'd like that.
Dr. Blank: Maybe you can pick the restaurant next time.
SCP-8056: If any of my picks still exist.
Dr. Blank: We're all still climbing out of the wells, Jennifer. Not the same wells. But it's a shared experience.
SCP-8056: I'm not entirely sure I understand what you're saying.
Dr. Blank: None of us recognize the territory of this new world we're walking through.
Dr. Bradbury: Do you remember him saying junk like that?
SCP-8056: All the time.
<SCP-8056 laughs.>
SCP-8056: It's nice to have landmarks.
<Excerpts end.>
Addendum 8056-13, Executive Discussion: On 06/05/2024, the last of Site-43's security vulnerabilities was successfully patched. No further ontokinetic fluctuations of any kind were detected. The following day, the Site was placed in lockdown while MTF Alpha-1 ("Red Right Hand") secured the facility ahead of an Overseer's arrival via the topside elevator. Director McInnis met with O5-8 and Assistant Director Konjit of the Temporal Anomalies Department in the Chairs and Chiefs Boardroom. A full transcription of their meeting is appended below.
<Transcript begins.>
O5-8: I'm sorry it had to come to this.
Dir. McInnis: It hasn't come to anything yet, sir.
Assistant Director Konjit: But the result is foreordained.
Dir. McInnis: A curious statement from someone in your position, with your knowledge.
O5-8: You need only concern yourself with your own position, Allan. You have always served at the Council's pleasure.
Dir. McInnis: And the pleasure has often been mine. But not today.
O5-8: You don't have to like it. But you do have to go through with it.
Dir. McInnis: I must beg to differ.
<Silence on recording.>
Assistant Director Konjit: What?
Dir. McInnis: Presumably you're talking about the termination of Jennifer Blank.
O5-8: That's right.
Dir. McInnis: Which we will not be carrying out. Nor will we be allowing any other party to do so.
Assistant Director Konjit: That's not for you to say.
Dir. McInnis: But I have said it.
O5-8: Is this a mutiny, Allan?
Assistant Director Konjit: Over the fate of one woman, Dr. McInnis?
Dir. McInnis: Director McInnis. I'm the Director of Site-43. And as such, I am invoking Protocol GYRUS.
O5-8: Over this? I can't wait to hear your justification.
Assistant Director Konjit: What's Protocol GYRUS?
O5-8: You aren't cleared. It's timeline-local. [EXPUNGED].
Assistant Director Konjit: Timeline-local. First of all, man, look in your own backyard! All the trouble you've been having since she arrived! All those systems failures! You can't keep a rogue variable in the mix like this. You're endangering everything you've built.
Dir. McInnis: That matter is very nearly under control already, and nothing I've seen beyond coincidence suggests Ms. Blank is involved.
O5-8: Second of all?
Assistant Director Konjit: Second of all, this is a multiversal threat!
Dir. McInnis: The fate of one woman?
Assistant Director Konjit: Don't essay irony, Director. You're too straightforward to be good at it. You know better than most what a difference one person can make.
Dir. McInnis: And that is my reasoning. We are fighting a losing battle with [EXPUNGED], and I will not see us squander any potential resources for reversing that trend.
O5-8: You don't really think she's that important. This is just you trying to excuse your usual humanist bullshit.
Dir. McInnis: We contend with inhuman forces. That we are humane is rather the point. And frankly, I am disturbed by the Temporal Anomalies Department's interest in this matter. Why such vehemence? And where is Director Xyank?
Assistant Director Konjit: I'm not here to exposit for you.
Dir. McInnis: You don't know, do you? You don't know.
O5-8: Allan.
Dir. McInnis: I have had rather enough cryptic oversight from this unaccountable, unappointed watchdog agency, sir.
Assistant Director Konjit: You are talking mutiny, then.
Dir. McInnis: I would use the term insubordination, if necessary.
O5-8: Stop this, both of you. What basis do you have for declaring this anomaly vital, Allan? Under your jurisdiction?
Dir. McInnis: The circumstances of her appearance are linked, beyond all reasonable doubt, with SCP-5243 and [EXPUNGED]. We do not fully understand her — why she is here, what her appearance represents, how entwined she might be with baseline temporality now, despite her origins. It would be irresponsible, potentially catastrophic to remove her from the equation before these things are understood. I cannot condone her decommissioning under the present circumstances.
Assistant Director Konjit: We don't need your permission to remove this threat. We've sent agents into your facility before, and your permission was just a formality.
Dir. McInnis: You're claiming your multiversal prerogative here?
Assistant Director Konjit: Yes. The safety of the timestream is paramount, trumping any strictly local concerns — which, by the way, is how you yourself have characterized this.
Dir. McInnis: Very well. If a multiversal response is what you seek, then you shall have it.
<Dir. McInnis thumbs his intercom button.>
Dir. McInnis: Send them in.
<The double doors open. The All-Sections Chief, Dr. Harold Blank, Dr. Karen Elstrom, Dr. Trevor Bremmel, Dr. Melissa Bradbury, Dr. Eileen Veiksaar, Chief Delfina Ibanez, Dr. Lillian Lillihammer, Dr. Ilse Reynders, Dr. Udo Okorie, Thilo Zwist, Dr. Nhung Ngo, Dr. Daniil Sokolsky and Dr. William Wettle enter the room. They find their seats.>
Assistant Director Konjit: What's this? Your Chairs and Chiefs?
O5-8: And an outsider.
Zwist: Hello.
Assistant Director Konjit: I thought you'd understand and respect the hierarchy a little better, Allan.
Dir. McInnis: I don't believe you're qualified to call me that.
Assistant Director Konjit: What?
Dir. McInnis: We are determining the fate of a citizen from another world. The identity of that world has been conclusively proven. And I am not its Director of Site-43.
Dr. Wettle: I am. Apparently?
Dir. McInnis: Unless things have changed very much in the intervening years, my title there was Administrator.
<Dir. McInnis gestures at the assembled personnel.>
Dir. McInnis: And these, according to our debriefing record, were the Architects of the A5 Council. They who laid the Cornerstone. Chief Nascimbeni and Dr. Corbin regrettably cannot be with us, and there may have been roster changes on the other side to which we naturally are not privy, but I suspect this gathering still constitutes a quorum. And I assure you we are quite united on the subject of SCP-8056. Aye?
"Architects" (together): Aye.
Dr. Sokolsky: I was apparently the contrarian of the group, but I'm honestly not feeling it right now.
Dr. Wettle: You're not executing a member of my staff. Sir. Sirs? Sir and ma'am.
Dir. McInnis: And certainly not in my facility.
Dr. Bradbury: And not my fucking daughter.
<Dr. Blank reaches across the table to take her hand.>
Assistant Director Konjit: This is preposterous. The reality you're all… roleplaying about no longer even exists. It was only a blip.
Dr. Bremmel: Not even a true reality, if what Du tells me is true. And don't tell him I said this, but his data's not wrong. That tangent is really just our world, rearranged.
Dir. McInnis: So only a blip, and a local one at that. Not a multiversal matter at all. And if it is, you are almost certainly acting in contravention of the wishes of its highest authority. Tantamount to circumventing the Overseer Council. Is that your policy, Assistant Director?
Assistant Director Konjit: I…
O5-8: Know when you're beaten.
Dir. McInnis: Thank you.
O5-8: You'll know it yourself, Allan, soon enough. This display was just short of farce.
Dir. McInnis: Given the stakes, sir… better farce than tragedy. Wouldn't you agree?
<Transcript ends.>
Addendum 8056-14, Containment Breach: On 06/14/2024, a series of explosions triggered automatic lockdown protocols across the main facility of Site-43. It was later determined that an unknown Group of Interest had planted incendiary devices in the bedrock surrounding the Site's protective sheathing and second skin; Security and Containment Chief Hachiro Kuroki reported that the attacks mostly closely resembled an attempt to gauge structural weaknesses and surveillance blind spots. He also expressed the view that the ongoing security difficulties first discovered when SCP-8056 manifested were in actual fact preparatory action by the unknown aggressors, and entirely unrelated to her presence or [EXPUNGED]. This thesis has been widely accepted by the Site's systems, security, and scientific experts.
Unidentified sigil.
The bulk of the incendiary devices were completely destroyed, but some fragments of material were recovered bearing a badly burned and obscured sigil which to date has not been positively identified. The Groups of Interest Research Group has been engaged on the matter, and their report remains pending.
At the outset of the lockdown, Dr. Blank immediately proceeded from his office at Archives and Revision, through the Habitation and Sustenance Section, to Dr. Bradbury's office in Research and Experimentation. These actions are consistent with his behaviour in previous containment breaches, and represent a pattern of behaviour for which he has been reprimanded by Security and Containment staff. Upon assuring himself of Dr. Bradbury's safety, Dr. Blank attempted to return to the corridor, but was directed to remain with Dr. Bradbury by S&C personnel. Both doctors protested, but were compelled to respect the lockdown until it was lifted three hours later.
Addendum 8056-15, Aftermath: Subsequent to the above event, when the lockdown was fully lifted, Drs. Blank and Bradbury attempted to ascertain the location of SCP-8056. She was found to be occupying her dormitory, with the door locked. She declined to allow either doctor entry.
Dr. Blank and SCP-8056 met the following day, in the Archives and Revision Section main offices.
<Transcript begins.>
<SCP-8056 is standing near Dr. Blank's desk. He moves to stand in front of her. Neither moves to take a seat.>
Dr. Blank: You asked to be transferred.
SCP-8056: I asked about being transferred.
Dr. Blank: I'm sorry, Jennifer. Old habits…
SCP-8056: Did I even cross your mind?
Dr. Blank: Of course.
SCP-8056: That's worse.
Dr. Blank: I've known your mother for decades. I've known you for a couple of weeks.
SCP-8056: I thought I'd known you my whole life, but I don't know you at all any more.
<Dr. Blank walks around the desk, and sits down heavily in his chair. SCP-8056 remains standing.>
Dr. Blank: I lost her in a containment breach. Lost her in a few of them, actually. Got her back in one, too. We've been through a lot together, and a lot more apart. We built something. Building something takes time, and when you have it, you want to protect it.
SCP-8056: Were you protecting her from me? Or was it her idea to stay away so long?
Dr. Blank: We're all raw about this, Jennifer. There's no way around it.
<Dr. Blank sighs.>
Dr. Blank: When you're young, you only see one road. When you're our age, you can make out the others in the distance. Your eyes get worse and your brain gets fuzzier, but you get more philosophical. You can see where you might have ended up, if you'd taken a different turn. And it sucks. Because nobody ever walks the optimal path.
SCP-8056: My parents — my real parents — didn't either. It took a global genocide to detour them so bad their paths finally converged. Probably nothing less dramatic could have done it. I'm… contingent.
Dr. Blank: Everybody is contingent. And every thing.
<SCP-8056 pulls a chair from the nearest cubicle, and sits down. She fidgets, and looks down at her hands.>
SCP-8056: You're wrong about age and the other roads. I can see them too. And I can see that only one of them leads to me. Statistically, by the numbers, I don't exist.
Dr. Blank: Historian's fallacy.
<SCP-8056 looks up.>
SCP-8056: What?
Dr. Blank: Something happening a certain way doesn't mean it had to happen that way.
SCP-8056: Tell that to the TAD.
Dr. Blank: We already did.
SCP-8056: What's that supposed to mean?
Dr. Blank: I… can't tell you.
SCP-8056: Great. So it's just your word that you guys give a shit, against all the evidence to the contrary. What fallacy is that? Ignoring the evidence to believe what you want to?
Dr. Blank: That's not a fallacy. That's just bad science.
SCP-8056: Exactly. Try this on for good science: I think I understand why the memories I have still don't properly fit with the way this timeline played out.
Dr. Blank: Go on.
SCP-8056: There's nothing that could have changed here that would have allowed me to be born.
Dr. Blank: But you were born.
SCP-8056: Not here. This is a world completely hostile to the concept of my birth.
Dr. Blank: But you exist anyway. You're your own proof.
SCP-8056: Proof that I'm a fluke. And if you don't want me, maybe they didn't either.
Dr. Blank: We never said we don't want you.
SCP-8056: You didn't have to.
Dr. Blank: We do. Want you.
SCP-8056: That's not what I've seen.
Dr. Blank: In how long?
SCP-8056: What?
Dr. Blank: How long have you had to see? How long have we had to show you? We haven't even had time to come to grips with the fact that you exist. That you could exist.
SCP-8056: People have been having babies for a long time.
Dr. Blank: Not individually they haven't. It's the first time, every time, for everybody. It's always a dramatic detour from the beaten path. And this one was a whole lot twistier than usual.
<Silence on recording. SCP-8056 looks away.>
Dr. Blank: You need to give us a chance.
SCP-8056: So I can get a bad imitation of a thing I already had, at best.
Dr. Blank: So you can see that your parents would always have loved you, no matter the circumstances.
<SCP-8056 looks out the bank of windows on the southern wall, in the direction of the approach to Acroamatic Abatement Facility AAF-D.>
SCP-8056: If my parents sent me here — which sounds more and more like feel-good bullshit, by the way, and I notice that none of the super scientists are giving that theory the time of day — if my parents loved me and they sent me here, then they made a mistake.
Dr. Blank: No.
SCP-8056: Because it means they thought you'd take care of me the way they would.
Dr. Blank: Jennifer…
SCP-8056: They thought you were the same, but you're not.
<SCP-8056 turns to look at Dr. Blank again.>
SCP-8056: You aren't my father.
Dr. Blank: I am, actually. In a profoundly literal sense.
SCP-8056: Not in all the ways that matter.
Dr. Blank: It was my consciousness in 2004. The year you were conceived. I was inhabiting that version of myself. That's how 5243 works, how the alternate timelines work. I'm your father.
SCP-8056: Not in all the ways that matter.
<Silence on recording.>
Dr. Blank: I tried to stay with you. Well, I tried to stay with your mother. In the tangent. I tried.
SCP-8056: Did you?
Dr. Blank: I did. That was the first deadline..Internal PTF Sampi-5243 terminology for the SCP-5243 tangents. We had no idea the Breach was going to come again, that we were going to get the chance to go back to baseline, but it's not like we weren't prepared for the possibility. We were very prepared. But I didn't want to go.
SCP-8056: I mean… That's kind of awful, isn't it?
Dr. Blank: Go on.
SCP-8056: All those dead people…
Dr. Blank: Yeah.
SCP-8056: You must have really loved her a lot.
Dr. Blank: Always.
<Silence on recording.>
Dr. Blank: Although…
SCP-8056: What?
Dr. Blank: It's not like I remember it. It was taken from me. Like it was taken from you. All I have is my own debriefing record.
SCP-8056: I don't even have that.
Dr. Blank: You have something. You know you loved your parents enough to go half mad with fear when you didn't know if they were okay.
<Silence on recording.>
SCP-8056: I wonder if those versions of you guys ever fought.
Dr. Blank: It's like you said. Nothing fixes everything. No family is perfect. But whether or not we can prove it… I don't think it hurts to imagine that you're here because of how much your parents loved you. That maybe, just maybe, they loved you all the way into existence. Twice.
<Silence on recording.>
SCP-8056: Still. I wonder.
Dr. Blank: It cost us a lot, coming back home. Every single time.
<Dr. Blank sighs.>
Dr. Blank: Well. Maybe not every single time. But most of them.
SCP-8056: Was I born in any of those other tangents?
Dr. Blank: No. We talked about this.
SCP-8056: So you never actually gave me up, when the time came around.
Dr. Blank: How could I have ever done that?
SCP-8056: You don't think you could have?
Dr. Blank: No.
SCP-8056: Not even to save the world?
Dr. Blank: No. I don't know.
SCP-8056: Then how can you suggest that they did it?
Dr. Blank: Because this is different. Because this gave you life. Parents would do anything for their children.
SCP-8056: Or so you've heard. Not really a thing you've experienced firsthand.
Dr. Blank: No. It isn't. But I'd like to.
SCP-8056: Now that it's easy.
Dr. Blank: Yes.
<Silence on recording.>
Dr. Blank: Did you expect me to deny that?
SCP-8056: I kinda did.
Dr. Blank: I'm not going to lie to you about who I am now. But I'm always in the process of becoming someone else. All of us are. It doesn't take a temporal anomaly to change the course of your personal history. Sometimes it's as simple as finding something you never knew you lost.
<Silence on recording.>
Dr. Blank: I might not be your father, but I do want to be. Doing the job is nine tenths of having it.
SCP-8056: Well, you showed up late for work. Very late.
Dr. Blank: So, demote me. But don't fire me. Or your mother.
SCP-8056: It's going to be a long time before I can think of either of you that way.
Dr. Blank: We have a long time.
SCP-8056: Do you?
Dr. Blank: We spend most of every day trying to make sure that's the case. I don't intend to stop now. And you can help.
<Silence on recording.>
SCP-8056: I wonder if it would have seemed like a fair trade.
Dr. Blank: What do you mean?
SCP-8056: I don't remember them. I'm never going to see them again. I'm here, and they're gone. Forever. Would that have seemed…
Dr. Blank: Yes.
SCP-8056: It was a rhetorical question.
Dr. Blank: The answer is still yes. Being a parent means… being willing to make sacrifices.
SCP-8056: How would you know?
Dr. Blank: Because I wasn't willing. Not until now.
<Silence on recording.>
<SCP-8056 stands, smoothing out her clothes. She averts her eyes, and hugs herself.>
SCP-8056: I'm changing my name.
Dr. Blank: Yeah?
SCP-8056: My last name. I don't want people thinking I'm your daughter. I don't want to answer their questions.
<Dr. Blank looks down at his desk.>
Dr. Blank: I suppose that's fair.
SCP-8056: I'm going to try and get recertified for Foundation work.
<Dr. Blank looks up again.>
Dr. Blank: I can help—
SCP-8056: On my own merits.
<Silence on recording.>
SCP-8056: I mean. You already did help. The first time around.
Dr. Blank: I guess.
SCP-8056: Maybe there's an entry level job at Site-12.
Dr. Blank: You should stay here.
SCP-8056: Dad…
<Silence on recording.>
SCP-8056: I don't even know what to call you.
<Dr. Blank stands.>
Dr. Blank: Stay here.
SCP-8056: It'll be weird.
Dr. Blank: So what?
SCP-8056: We have nothing in common.
Dr. Blank: That's not true.
<Dr. Blank smiles.>
Dr. Blank: We might not share a history, but we can still share history. And… every day forward, is the same day for both of us.
<Transcript ends.>
Addendum 8056-16, Present Status: SCP-8056, under the alias Jennifer Vide, is at present a junior researcher in Archives and Revision under the supervision of Dr. Harold Blank.
The Temporal Anomalies Department has lodged a formal protest re: the above with the Overseer Council. The matter remains in deliberation.
SCP-8056.