When its twelve gates close and shut, the key opens.
Item #: SCP-L005
Object Class: Götterdämmerung1
Special Containment Procedures: Theoretical models have been so engineered as to ensure SCP-L005 is functionally autocontained within the Site-125 Advanced Ideatics Laboratory. Models accomplish this effect by limiting simulated conceptual inputs to the bare minimum required for satiation. SCP-L005 is never to open or be opened. Theoretical model failure constitutes the possibility of SCP-L005 opening, and therefore the possibility of containment failure.
In the event of model failure, the AIL is to be totally sealed and all on-Site reality anchors are to be actuated to the Full Universe (Kξ+5,000) and switched on. Reality anchors are to stabilize the interior of the facility for at least 12 hours, so as to counteract undesired effects in the event that SCP-L005 has opened; during this time, it is imperative that the AIL is completely unobserved by all personnel and equipment. Once the aforementioned decontamination period has expired, the interior of Site-125 is to be eased back to baseline ontological consistency. Specialized personnel will thereafter enter to ensure that the AIL itself remains real, at which point they will break the seal and enter the facility to close SCP-L005 if it has opened.
SCP-L005 has been reclaimed by the notional Department of Unreality and is securely contained at Site-0. Reclassification to Safe is pending.
Description: See below.
- Input: One apple, Red Delicious variety
- Distance: Center of entrance foyer
- Time: 6 minutes
- Output: There is a visible concavity on the apple, and the inside is not available. There is no core, nor seeds.
- Result:
▯ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▮ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▯
The key does not open.
Comments: Seems it opened the apple, though, for whatever that's worth. At least the GECERS interface2 is up and running now.
- Input: One standard brass padlock, locked
- Distance: Center of entrance foyer
- Time: 10 minutes
- Output: Padlock is unlocked without issue.
- Result:
▮ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▮ ▯ ▮ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▯
The key does not open.
Comments: Three gates down, nine to go. Reminder to self: place an order for more locks of different types to see if the key reacts differently between models.
- Input: One standard brass padlock, locked
- Distance: Center of entrance foyer
- Time: 10 minutes
- Output: Padlock is unlocked without issue.
- Result:
▯ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▮ ▯ ▮ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▯
The key does not open.
Comments: Feeding additional locks does not result in the sealing of additional gates — quite the contrary, as we see here. This is not the first time we've run this model; same thing twice or more, and it depreciates. SCP-L005 seems to be a semiotic function, not just a furnace for resources.
- Input: One standard combination lock
- Distance: Center of entrance foyer
- Time: 8 minutes
- Output: Input is unlocked when observed through the entrance foyer window. When removed from the entrance foyer, it is again locked, with a different combination than the one with which it had initially been set.
- Result:
▯ ▮ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▮ ▯ ▯ ▮ ▮ ▯
The key does not open.
Comments: I don’t understand. It should open whatever goes in. We’ll need to resort to trial and error on the code, it looks like.
- Input: 4kg cube of steel
- Distance: Back of entrance foyer
- Time: 20 minutes
- Output: No physical changes detected. Cube feels substantially lighter to carry, barely a quarter of its former weight according to personnel, but registers as having the exact same mass as before test. Local and universal gravity remain unaltered.
- Result:
▮ ▮ ▯ ▯ ▮ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▯
The key does not open.
Comments: It opened from the inside.
I couldn't tell you what I saw, Al. God only knows, in our line of work, you can look into one thing as deep as deep can go, you can dedicate your life to it, and you'll still have nothing to show. But I can tell you with absolute certainty that, some time not long ago, a new coefficient worked its way into the unreal series, something I'd never encountered or even accounted for the possibility of before.
I was in the office at the hallway past the Humetric purge tunnel, where you can cross over into RS DIAERESIS, into Site-0. When I factored it in, the reality curve became steeper, nearly twice as much as it was before. If we knew its true value, it would make reducing cargo to the asymptote of the PTNb3 nearly effortless. But I couldn't solve for it, because there were twelve gaping vacancies when I factored it, like holes in a sheet of cloth. I'm running this to you and the concepts engineers, because— Al, I know you might not believe me, but—
When I closed my eyes, I could see the twelve outlines of those missing figures in the shape of propped-open doors.
- Input: One sheet of printer paper, showing an image of a standard brass padlock (locked with█ut issue)
- Distance: Center of entrance foyer
- Time: 5 minutes (5 minutes)
- Output: Paper does not open. There is a key next to the lock, but the mass of the paper has not changed. The mass of the lock has not changed. The paper is not locked.
- Result:
▯ ▯ ▮ ▯ ▯ ▮ ▯ ▯ ▮ ▮ ▯ ▯
The key does not open.
Comments: Additional layers of abstraction don't seem to do much. There was no lock, but we made it look like there was. The key doesn't seem to care. The key does not open.
- Input: One (1) stand██d steel l█ck
- Distance: Entrance foyer
- Time: 10 (20) minutes
- Output: Lock is opened from the inside.
- Result:
▮ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▮ ▮ ▯ ▮ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▯
The key does not open.
Comments: Gates closed are in common with the previous locks and steel cube — anticipated. The lock is cold and does not open from the outside. Nobody has a key from the inside, so it's a closed system.
- Input: 4kg cube of apple, Red Delicious █ariety
- Distance: Back of entrance foyer
- Time: Ten (10) minutes
- Output: Object is vacant and cannot be viewed from the inside. Personnel eventually identify an "apple"-like exterior composition. The cube is closed from the outside in and open from the inside out.
- Result:
▯ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▮ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▮
The key does not open.
Comments: It's been opened from within, just like the steel cube. But nothing and nobody was ever inside these apples. They're hollow.
- Input: One stand█rd (█) pipe organ
- Distance: Back of entrance foyer
- Time: 30 minutes
- Output: Pipe organ has vanished. There is a cacophony emanating from the entrance foyer.
- Result:
▯ ▮ ▯ ▮ ▯ ▮ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▮ ▯ ▯
The key does not open.
Comments: The pipe organ may be unlocked, but the song is not open.
- Input: One 4kg apple, steel variety
- Distance: Top of entrance foyer
- Time: 8 minutes
- Output: Apple is hollowed out. There are no seeds, and no signs of habitation in the cavity. Cursory observation suggests that everyone has vacated the interior.
- Result:
▯ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▮
The key does not open.
Comments: One gate. Likely scenario: we've unlocked too many apples with this thing. It knows what happens already.
No correlation to like tests. Perhaps the key is worn out.
In fact, there's something conceptually substantive I can model in the factors you've sent us. The notions we can map out are only up to such a degree of detail — that's just the state of the technology — but geometrically, we can get the feel of it. The fascinating part is that the results with and without your twelve missing factors are conceptually interrelated. When I plot the whole expression without the missing bits, its coefficient of similarity lines up closest with ideas like "limited", "shut", "barrier", and "closed". Add the empty coefficients in where you've told me they should be, and the concept is closest to "open", or "entrance", or even "unsealed" or "unlocked".
Do with that what you will. If there was ever a time to make ontology lowering more cost-effective, it would be now, and it feels like we're on the cusp of breaking that barrier. I know NEVERAFTER is the project of our lifetimes, and Humetrics and Paramathematics are with you, if that's consolation for Command's reticence.
But John, if you find anything more, do run it past conceptual decontamination. At the end of our last talk it nearly sounded like you'd been hallucinating.
- Input: One (1) large lockbox, filled with pe█sonal belongi██s. Standa██ brass padl█ck, closed.
- Distance: Bottom of entrance foyer
- Time: 10 minutes
- Output: Chest is unlocked and open. Generic belongings are strewn on the floor of the processing chamber.
- Result:
▮ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▮ ▮ ▮ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▮ ▯
The key does not open.
Comments: Five gates closed; making progress. Previously dense objects are made empty or hollow, this much is known.
As a conceptual effect, removing specificity from the contents is novel. GECERS creates proxy objects for the input to conceptually interact with, but only insofar as the input has concepts relevant to what is being simulated. Come back to this later.
- Input: Full ribcage, sourc█d from (1) standard █adaver lab (2) without i█sue.
- Distance: Bottom of entrance foyer
- Time: 10 (10) minutes
- Output: Chest is unlocked and open. Ribs are strewn across the chamber floor in a state of severe physical disrepair.
- Result:
▯ ▯ ▯ ▮ ▮ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▮ ▮ ▯
The key does not open.
Comments: Metaphors are not precisely lost on the key, but we know now that it doesn't care for them.
Also, judging by the lockbox and organ, it has a memory.
- Input: One apple, Red Delicious variety
- Distance: Center of entrance foyer
- Time: 6 minutes
- Output: Personnel eventually determine the apple is empty and thin.
- Result:
▯ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▯
The key does not open.
Comments: To be expected.
- Input: Freestanding door and doorfr█me. Closed. Un█ocked.
- Distance: Entrance and egress foyer
- Time: 10 minutes
- Output: Door remains closed with no lock. It cannot be opened from the front-facing side, despite the presence of a doorknob. The other side of the door is obscured.
- Result:
▯ ▮ ▯ ▯ ▮ ▯ ▯ ▮ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▯
The key does not open.
Comments: Interpreting this one was tough. We were between three and four gates, but ultimately settled on three. I thought the door was closed in the front but open in the back. As if to say, if we walked around to the other side of the doorframe, it would be open where previously it was closed.
In either event, it wasn't locked coming in, and it isn't locked going out. The key does not care.
- Input: Spleen of D-7623█, extracted due t█ prior medical condition.
- Distance: In the entrance foyer
- Time: 10 minutes
- Output: Input is open and unlocked. Interior is sterile. D-76239 convulses and falls unconscious.
- Result:
▯ ▯ ▯ ▮ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▮ ▯ ▯
The key does not open.
Comments: Worst parts of the pipe organ and the ribcage combined. We already knew it doesn't like wordplay.
Structurally, this one was nothing like a lock, although I suppose the D-Class might disagree. When he finally woke up, he professed to have been opened, but… the researchers couldn't get a good look at whether he was ever locked or anything. We have no proof he was actually open.
We ought to be careful with properties and definitions, Al, through the whole affair. Because every concept we tie this thing to will raise it from unreality into concrete phrase, and I stand at a loss for what that could possibly mean, or do, whether to it or to us.
I stay at my word; there's a gateway under vanishing arches twelve-fold at the bottom of the expression, opening to some horrific heaven, and I ought to close it. I have seen, as the analysis of you and your colleagues has demonstrated, the presence of a key that must be used. No— opened, because if my theory stands, the doors are open already. What remains to open, but the key?
So, hang up your coat, and empty your pockets; you will not need them. Open your eyes, so to see, we stand on the cusp of opening it. I can nearly escape, Al, and save everyone. Save them from whatever it is they don't see.
I wonder, then. Friend, tell me your hypothesis.
- Input: O█e ██andard (█) brass key
- Distance: Front of entrance foyer
- Time: 10 minutes
- Output: A formation of shapeless brass. It has a semi-circular head and an extending riveted blade of a few inches, lined with ridges and teeth from what seems to have been the angular shaping of metal. It is presumed this object has a deliberate purpose, given the specific pattern in which the metal is molded and cut.
- Result:
▮ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▮ ▮ ▮ ▮ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▮
The key does not open.
Comments: In terms of structure, you can almost see the outline of a lock. I understand this object at a basic level, of course. But if, instead of this brass on the outside, the size and shape of the brass object was on the inside, there would be something on the outside instead of the inside of the brass being on the outside.
I think the key knows this. It turned the input around, to see if there was a lock around it, but there was nothing to unlock and nothing to open.
- Input: ██e (█6,239) Uni██e C██binati██ ke█
- Distance: Entrance foyer
- Time: 10-15 minutes
- Output: As before, there are ridges, notches, and teeth along the broad edge of the object. Said abnormalities are reoriented in a new configuration, in which they were not arrayed previously. No other property of the output can herein be entertained.
- Result:
▮ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▮ ▮ ▮ ▮ ▯ ▮ ▮ ▮
The key does not open.
Comments: I believe the key is unique. It's very interesting, because one array of this object is not selfsame with all other arrays. In fact, we could feasibly imagine a lock which would only fit one such iteration of the object.
Eight gates close like they've forgotten themselves, but I haven't forgotten the key, because the key has not yet opened.
Sir? Can you hear me? I'm—
- Input: Digit█l c███inatio█ lock f█om c█ntai███nt chamber d█or, Site-██
- Distance: Entrance foyer
- Time: 15 (Fifteen) minutes, 10 (Ten) minutes, 5 (Five) minutes
- Output: In successive intervals, the valid combination is reset, shuffled to a novel integer sequence, and reconfigured. Output is obscured; cannot be ascertained whether the object is presently locked or unlocked. The plastic exterior is covered in rust.
- Result:
▯ ▮ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▮ ▮ ▯ ▯ ▮ ▮ ▯
The key does not open.
Comments: Gates two and seven are familiar, as we should expect. A continued fascination is how combination-based inputs are reconfigured in output. The key wears away without use and opens its sustenance from the inside out, unto rust and rot and hollowness. Opening all, but never opening.
- Input: 4kg █u█e of lo██s, source█ f██m S█te-██
- Distance: Entrance foyer
- Time: Five (10, 15) ten minutes
- Output: Subjects are reconfigured in an original pattern corresponding to no known organizational algorithm. The composite whole remains in place and all substituent items are unlocked, with some hollowed in a state of rust or other disrepair. Connection to organizational or architectural constitution of associated facility is not apparent.
- Result:
▮ ▮ ▯ ▯ ▮ ▯ ▮ ▯ ▯ ▮ ▮ ▯
The key does not open.
Comments: It liked that alright, but some of them are emptied out like glass. I can see the doors they sealed in the hollow space between them, like they're still exactly where they used to be.
The empty spaces between are shaped something like a key, but it isn't clear. Change where you're standing, and the shape vanishes beneath the shifting contours of the brass and steel. With six of twelve gates closed, the key does not open. I'll see it, the picture becoming clearer, when we get closer to the key through the holes. When we can see it go open.
- Input: One (1) █ty█ical bra█s key, in t██ ██rs█nal █ossession of D-76█39
- Distance: Entrance foyer
- Time: 10 minutes (front of foyer), 10 minutes (back of foyer)
- Output: Key is emptied out from the inside, beginning with associated memories.
- Result:
▯ ▯ ▯ ▮ ▮ ▯ ▮ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▮
The key does not open.
Comments: Worthless experiment. The D-Class can't get into his room in the barracks. He tells me he opened the door and there was only a darkness on the other side; we're beginning to suspect something was eaten up with the key.
Dark, dark, dark is the path, the way we're going. I can't see you, any longer. Just the outline.
John, listen to me. Are you alright? Your past few messages have been increasingly… cloaked in metaphor, to say the least. You’re nearly incoherent.
I know DIAERESIS is your passion, but this anomaly is clearly not playing nice with your baseline epistemology. Spending so much time down there, with ideas like this—
It never was good for you, but with all due respect, doctor, it’s impossible to ignore now.
- Input: █ne (2█6) w██le sk██eton
- Distance: Center of entrance foyer
- Time: 30 full (30) minutes
- Output: Formless pile of loose collagen strands and dry shards of marrow.
- Result:
▯ ▯ ▯ ▮ ▮ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▯ ▮ ▮ ▮
The key does not open.
Comments: A dry vessel has no viscera, but it bleeds all the same. I can see to where you vanished through the cracks in the surface and the gaps between the bones. So I assure you, doctor, it will be done and there will be nothing.
Just five. Try again.
- Input: A ███st██da█d l███ (inc████c█ sha██)
- Distance: Front of entrance foyer
- Time: 10 (9, 8, 7, 6… here I come!)
- Output: Object is opened from the inside. It is narrow and thin, with no discernible interior, nearly vanishing when flipped on its side.
- Result:
▯ ▮ ▮ ▮ ▮ ▮ ▮ ▮ ▯ ▮ ▮ ▯
The key does not open.
Comments: What's left? See for yourself. Turn it around, slender and winnowed-out from within, and see it turn like the side of a flipped dime into indiscernibility.
I hear him between the cracks and behind walls and on the top of a hill; nearer, but not clearer, garbled voices from the invisible. One glimpse, through that sliver of a remnant of something having been opened, is what closes the door and seals you for good.
- Input: ██e (1) (o██) ███le (█) ██y █k█████n
- Distance: Back of entrance foyer
- Time: Key (10) minutes (15)
- Output: The item is rendered indistinct, rather than dismantled. It remains closed, after all. How can we be so foolish? Keys do not open. The key does not open.
- Result:
▯ ▮ ▮ ▮ ▮ ▮ ▮ ▮ ▮ ▮ ▮ ▮
The key does not open.
Comments: I see the imprint of his face, now. I see him in pieces, out in the darkling, and everything he lost is left between me and the first and twelfth gate.
Are you ready, John?
The walls are closing in on us, Al. On all of us. Humetrics is on fire; Gat's gone AWOL; Scranton is shattered and gone and Anna's a wreck. Mymar and Genevieve plumb the heavenly spheres for truth and still SUPERLOGIC bleeds like a stuck pig. On the other side of those twelve doors, there's something whittling systemic ontology down to the bone. Site-125 is not long for this world, and Site-19's a powder keg and Site-167 lies buried under haloes of horrific light and Site-120's lost trying to pick up the pieces and the Outposts are scattered with the winds. Zero is our only hope, because everyone else is going to be rendered into nothing, and I can already deal in nothing. We speak its language.
I know the way the key opens, Al, and I am going to see to it that the task is done.
- Input: █████ l███, █████████d
- Distance: Entrance foyer
- Time: [AWAITING MANUAL FOOTAGE REVIEW]
- Output: The lock is undone. Can, can you hear me? Can—
- Result:
▮ ▮ ▮ ▮ ▮ ▮ ▮ ▮ ▮ ▮ ▮ ▮
The key
The key
The key
The key
The key
The key
The key
The key
The key
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The key
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The key
The key
The key
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The key
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The key
The key
The key
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The key
The key
The key
The key
The key
The key
The key
The key
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The key
The key
The key
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The key
The key
The key
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The key
The key
The key
The key
The key
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The key
The key
The key
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The key
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The key
The key
The key
The key