Black Box - SCP Foundation

by AnActualCrow

Recommended reading music

Operation 326: "Disseminated for Our Own Safety"

There's been an information leak among the D-Class personnel across various sites. Knowledge of SCP-6400's existence has been rapidly spreading, and the Department of Human Resources has raised concerns regarding the psychological effects this may have on them. We've considered multiple approaches to curbing any attitudes that would disrupt the Foundation's workflow. While amnesticising all psychologically afflicted personnel is the most obvious solution, it would be incredibly costly and may not plug the source of the leak, resulting in D-Class re-adopting the same non-optimal attitudes. We have instead devised a solution that aims to be more cost-efficient and more effective in the long term.

Course of Action:

For recordkeeping purposes, SCP-6400 will be considered declassified.

Copies of "Black Box".Personnel requesting the name of the author will be given a generic name such as "James White" or "Muhammad Abadi." will be disseminated to all D-Class involved with the Foundation. It's unknown whether knowledge of SCP-6400's existence helps further the operation's objective. Results of this operation will be recorded for the future.

Black Box

Three weeks. That was how long they told Clancy he had to stay in The Box. They never told him why— claimed it was classified. They also didn't tell him that time itself would be locked up in another room, separated from The Box that now held the withering husk of a man. At first, his decay was physical. He hit his shin on the bench after what may have been 20 minutes or 20 days. Not on purpose, mind you, but because The Box's singular light bulb had burnt out long ago. None of the staff had bothered to replace it. And so he cradled his leg in the dark, feeling his pulse through his injury. The pulse confirmed that he was a man, a living human being that was above this degradation, this exercise in meaninglessness. And for what might have been a couple hours or a couple years, his pulse kept him occupied.

Eventually, the pain faded. Once again, Clancy was left with the nothing that slowly eroded his mind. So he began drumming on the walls. Tap, tap tap, two knuckles rapped against the cruel concrete. And when they felt like they were about to shatter, he switched to the next pair of knuckles. He didn't stop until his whole hand felt like it was made of glass and his skin was every shade of raw.

A slot at the base of the door opened. A Styrofoam food tray slid through. The man stuck his hand out— not for the food he wanted, but the harsh white light he needed. The slot closed.

The man felt for utensils in the dark. His fingers found what could only have been a plastic spoon, its handle sitting in the nutrient mush. It was only food by technicality, but the alternative was to starve— to regress into the nothing surrounding him. The man fed himself. It felt like mashed potatoes soaked in milk. It tasted… well, he wished it had tasted bitter. Or sour. Or something. It tasted like nothing, like his tongue was tricked into believing there was food in his mouth when it was actually empty. He dipped his finger into the mush just to make sure. It was as real as the walls of The Box, as real as the door and floor and ceiling and the command from his superiors that held him. Another spoonful. Another taste of unbearable nothing. Again. Again.

The decay went on. The man didn't know when he slept or when he woke up. No matter how hard he looked, the trays of mush seemed non-existent until his feet fell into them. Sometimes he didn't know himself. He would run his hands along, from his feet to his head, affirming that he was still there. That he was still human. He would touch his dry lips as he tried to say his name. Usually, all he could do was mouth out the syllables. But even that was better than when he tried to deduce why he'd been ordered to trap himself in The Box— to figure out what crime against nature would warrant this.

Sometimes he'd whistle a note or two. Sometimes he'd do a pushup before collapsing on the icy floor. Sometimes he'd wrap his hand around his wrist and think about how the gap between his skeleton and his skin was getting smaller and smaller. Sometimes this, sometimes that, never enough to stop the decay.

One day, there was something new. A window, circular and pristine, was now a part of the far side of The Box's wall. The man could see Montgomery. He could see the cars on the road and the faces in the cars. He could see the morning sun peaking out from behind the clouds. It was yellow and orange and so warm he could feel the heat when he touched the glass.

His eyes stung. His skin itched and peeled. He'd been staring for hours. This time, he knew: he'd started staring at dawn and stopped in the blue and purple hours of twilight. 12 hours, he thought to himself, I've been staring out the window for around 12 hours. He knew when he slept through the night and when he woke up in the morning. And when he put his open palm up to the glass, his fingers casting long shadows on him like cell bars, he knew he had to escape.

The first punch sent fire through his right hand. The second sent fire through his left. Red specks flew towards The Box's floor, catching fleeting sunlight in their descent. Another hit, another wave of pain staving off the ocean of nothing. Clancy's heart throbbed in his chest as he threw everything he knew was him into the window. Elbows, shoulders, legs. It was all him. Again. Again. Clancy's bones and the window's glass cracked in tandem. In one final thrust, one manic shoulder bash of a restored man, the window chipped. It disappeared in an instant, its place taken by cold concrete.

Before the man could feel his heart break, The Box returned to darkness.

Objective:

Indirectly inform D-Class personnel that disruption of our modus operandi will never benefit them. While other disciplinary methods (such as those described in "Black Box") have been somewhat effective methods of curbing unproductive D-Class behavior, they ultimately rely on external motivation. In other words, D-Class live by The Foundation's values to avoid disciplinary measures. Consequently, they act undesirably when they believe that they are not monitored. The proposed method attempts to intrinsically motivate D-Class to avoid uncooperative behavior. In other words, they will follow desired D-Class behavior even when unmonitored because they have internalized that rebellion will only cause them further harm. We will not need to police them if they police each other. We will not need to police them if they police themselves.