Looking For Someone To See The World With



SCP-4454: Looking For Someone To See The World With

Author: Mortos

If you like this, you can find more of my stuff here!

Photo of SCP-4454 taken during assembly, prior to the manifestation of its anomalous properties.

Item #: SCP-4454

Object Class: Keter

Special Containment Procedures: Any witnesses to events caused by SCP-4454 are to be amnesticised, and appropriate cover stories generated for any related damage. Acceptable cover stories include gas explosions, meteorite impacts or damage caused by falling space debris.

Images left by SCP-4454-1 at impact sites are to be recovered. Research into practical methods of containing SCP-4454-1 are ongoing.

Description: SCP-4454 is a KH-9 "Hexagon" photographic reconnaissance satellite currently situated in an irregular orbit around the Earth. SCP-4454 is able to target arbitrary objects in the area directly below its current orbital position; targeted objects are pulled into orbit at a speed of approximately 150km/h, and stop once within 1km of SCP-4454. Depending on the current position of SCP-4454, this process can take between 14 hours and 16 days.

Once the targeted object has reached SCP-4454, it will be rapidly launched back towards Earth, reaching top speeds of between 1500km/h and 35,000km/h. Due to the apparently random nature of the objects undergoing this effect, many of them burn up on re-entry. Those that survive re-entry have universally been destroyed upon impact, with the exception of SCP-4454-1.

Approximately one hour after the projected impact time for the object1 SCP-4454 will target another object and repeat the process.

SCP-4454 was originally the last in the line of KH-9 reconnaissance satellites. Its anomalous properties manifested immediately upon entering stable Earth orbit, at which point it stopped responding to remote commands and began altering its orbit. Personnel involved with the satellite were amnesticised and a failed launch was staged as a cover-up.

Incident 4454-01: On 17/04/2012 a person, later identified as David White and now classified as SCP-4454-1, was targeted by SCP-4454 and pulled into orbit. Despite the lack of atmosphere, tracking photos confirmed that SCP-4454-1 was still alive and conscious. It is currently unknown if this is a new effect of SCP-4454's anomalous properties, or a separate and unrelated anomaly specific to SCP-4454-1.

Incident 4454-01 Update 01: Following SCP-4454's regular behaviour, SCP-4454-1 was launched back towards Earth at a speed of approximately 16,000km/h. SCP-4454-1 survived both re-entry and impact with the Earth without apparent injury, after which it was pulled back into space by SCP-4454. This process has currently repeated three times; SCP-4454-1 appears to have been conscious the entire time despite a lack of food, water, or protection against the vacuum of space.

Addendum 4454-01: Crude drawings have been discovered at the last four impact sites of SCP-4454-1, scratched into stone surfaces or drawn with charcoal. Each drawing appears to be an aerial view of a different location on Earth.

Addendum 4454-02: The drawings found at SCP-4454-1 impact sites are currently theorised to be drawn by SCP-4454-1, and have been rapidly increasing in detail and accuracy, despite the limitations of the mediums being used to create them. The drawings now feature accurate details of the areas they depict, viewed from varying heights above the surface. Of note is that in one case the drawing featured accurate representation of a Foundation facility normally hidden from satellite and aerial views. No link between the areas depicted in these drawings has been found.

Addendum 4454-03: Drawings produced by SCP-4454-1 have begun to depict views of things other than the surface of Earth. Examples include a cluster of impact craters determined to be present on the surface of the moon, an asteroid passing by Mars, and a detailed representation of the north pole of Saturn. The relevance of these drawings is unknown - investigations into the areas depicted have revealed nothing of note.

Addendum 4454-04: Containment teams were able to intercept SCP-4454-1 before it was pulled back into orbit. Though they were unable to contain it, the following conversation was recorded.

[+] Show Conversation Transcript

[-] Hide Conversation Transcript

Transcript of a conversation recorded between Agents Antoni Barela and Fiona Mackenzie of MTF Zeta-8 ("Sky-scrapers") and SCP-4454-1.

Barela: Command, we have visual on a nude human male at the impact site, white, estimated 30 years old. Appearance is consistent with SCP-4454-1. Approaching now.

Command: Acknowledged. Proceed, Zeta-8. Full containment unit is en route, but is 20 minutes out.

Mackenzie: Hello?

SCP-4454-1 pauses drawing briefly and looks up.

SCP-4454-1: Oh, hi.

Mackenzie: David, right?

SCP-4454-1: That's us. We haven't spoken to anyone in a long while. Feels odd.

Barela: We?

SCP-4454-1 gestures vaguely at the sky.

Mackenzie: The satellite?

SCP-4454-1: We didn't really have a name before we met, so now we're just David.

Mackenzie: I see. Are you okay? How do you… how have you survived all this?

SCP-4454-1 laughs, and resumes drawing.

SCP-4454-1: No idea. And yes, we're fine.

Barela: It doesn't hurt? What about when you're in space? Don't you need to breathe?

SCP-4454-1 laughs again.

SCP-4454-1: It doesn't hurt at all. You'd think it would, we land pretty hard sometimes, but it doesn't really feel any different from flopping onto a mattress. And no, apparently we don't need to breathe. Honestly we think all the things that supposedly happen to you in space are just exaggerations. We're fine, after all.

Mackenzie: And before all this started, was there anything… special about you? Anything odd you noticed?

SCP-4454-1: You mean could we survive without air and withstand hitting the ground at thousands of miles per hour?

SCP-4454-1 laughs again.

SCP-4454-1: Not that we'd noticed.

Mackenzie: Tell us about your drawings.

SCP-4454-1 visibly becomes more attentive, and turns to Agent Mackenzie.

SCP-4454-1: Oh, you found them! We're glad. No point in them if no one can see them.

Barela: What are they?

SCP-4454-1: The things we see, obviously. That's what we were created for, to send pictures of the things we see. We ran out of picture capsules2 when we first woke up though, so now we just draw them instead.

Barela: What do you mean "woke up"?

SCP-4454-1: Hmm? Oh, sorry. This was before we met, but we…

SCP-4454-1 hesitates briefly.

SCP-4454-1: It… told me - yeah. Sorry, it's been a while, it's hard to separate us from us. Me. Anyway. We were told. We were sent into space, but when we got here and woke up, we were confused. Scared. We panicked a little. Started triggering our systems, trying to work out who or what we were. All our capsules were launched, and we accidentally ruined our orbit.

Mackenzie: You're saying the satellite became aware?

SCP-4454-1: Yeah. It was scary, and lonely, those first moments. So lonely… we think we heard voices from Earth but we didn't understand what they wanted us to do. Eventually they stopped. Earth started getting too far away, so we reached out and pulled ourselves towards it, but then it started getting too close, so we had to push away. Stable orbits are hard work.

Mackenzie: You've been pushing and pulling on the Earth for 30 years just trying to stay in orbit?

SCP-4454-1: We didn't want to drift off into the darkness.

Barela: Why do you keep pulling things off the surface?

SCP-4454-1: We were lonely. We'd try and talk to the things that came to us, but nothing ever spoke back so we sent them home. We had nothing. No way of sending back all the things we've seen, no one to talk to. Nothing until David. Me. Us.

Barela: Are we talking to David now, or the satellite?

SCP-4454-1: Yes.

Brief silence. SCP-4454-1 continues to draw.

Barela: Tell us more about the pictures. Why those specific scenes? Why did you start drawing things in space?

SCP-4454-1: Those are the most interesting things we've seen since the last time we were down here. We don't have too much time to draw, so I can usually only draw the most interesting things.

Mackenzie: And the space drawings?

SCP-4454-1: Fascinating, aren't they? When we met, we realised that there was much more out there than just the Earth to see. We'd never even looked at the moon before, can you believe it? There's so much beauty out there, it would be a waste not to look at it. Still it's our purpose to observe the Earth, so we try and focus on that.

SCP-4454-1 stops drawing.

SCP-4454-1: Anyway we're all done here, so we'll be leaving soon. You might want to stand back a little.

Mackenzie: We're going to try and find a way to stop this from happening to you. Keep you here on Earth.

SCP-4454-1: Why would you do that? That isn't what we want.

SCP-4454-1 suddenly launches straight upwards, rapidly leaving visual range. Barela recovers the drawing made by SCP-4454-1, depicting the "red spot" on Jupiter in a surprising level of detail.

Addendum 4454-05: Further attempts at communicating with SCP-4454-1 have been unsuccessful; it has been immediately pulled back into space on the previous two occasions that containment teams have gotten close.

Footnotes

1. Regardless of whether it actually impacts or burns up.

2. The KH-9 line of satellites was equipped with a number of recoverable film return capsules designed to allow safe re-entry of the photographs taken by the satellite.