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SCP-4463: Ecosystem Restore Point

Author:

$ghosthorses$

(More from this author)

Image Sources:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aklais_mire.jpg (Creative Commons)

Thanks:

Lt Flops and PhamtomGuy for allowing me to make an article from the description they wrote of an ancillary anomaly seen in SCP-3309, and for feedback/discussion and support.

RockTeethMothEyes, SoullessSingularity, AndrewOBT, and ModernMajorGeneral for crit.

Fun fact: The Energy Policy Act of 2005 "Exempts hydraulic fracturing from federal oversight under the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974… With such an exemption, companies are not required by the federal government to disclose the chemicals being used in their fracking fluid."

(from: https://www.fractracker.org/resources/oil-and-gas-101/fracking-fluid/)

SCP-4463

Item #: SCP-4463

Object Class: Keter

Special Containment Procedures: Foundation geological surveyors and range scientists are to be dispatched to the affected territory for data and sample collection.

For populated areas that are imminently within the radius of SCP-4463's effect, an explanation of the proceeding events is to be publicly incited by Foundation influence, using either the principles of hydrogeography (recommended for rural populations) or infrastructural failures (for urban populations) as a basis for the disinformation campaigns. Campaigns are to emphasize that the water is not fit for consumption or use.

Mobile Task Force Tau-29 ("Cultus") is tasked with preemptively reinforcing local crop fields under such campaigns by which to impede the ingress of water, and to help ensure the continuation of agricultural production.

Description: SCP-4463 is a complex water-based spatial anomaly affecting parts of the Chihuahuan desert in the state US states of Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, as well as the Mexican states of Coahuila, Sonora, and Chihuahua. SCP-4463 describes the transformation of a large area of desert into an equivalent area of wetlands. According to calculations modeling the current rate of expansion, SCP-4463 is capable of flooding the North American continent within 50 years.

Since 1990, desertification of southeastern Arizona began to occur at a rate of roughly 2 km2 per month. This desertification increased at a rate of 0.5% per year until 2008, when approximately 1,200 km2 of previously arable land had been rendered incapable of bearing healthy vegetation.1 At this point, the government of Arizona considered this phenomenon an ecological disaster and enacted plans to attempt to reverse the spread of desertification. This occurred as a response to the mass protest by members of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe in the nearby Tucson region beginning in November of 2006.

In August of 2008, approximately 60% of desiccated topsoil per square meter began to transform into water by an unknown anomalous effect. No causative precipitation has accompanied the transformation. At the time of writing, 45% of the previously desertified area has been transformed into mires,2 complicating and in some cases preventing human and native animal occupancy in this territory. No anomalous qualities of the resultant flora have been observed.

Chemical analyses reveal that water produced by SCP-4463 contains high concentrations of proppants3 and is consistent with known formulations of fracking fluids.4 In their observed concentrations, the chemical components are not compatible with biological life.

Addenda

1. In-Field Interview: PoI 4463-1

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Interviewed: █████████ - Pascua Yaqui Tribe (PoI 4463-1)

Interviewer: Dr. John Moisson - Level-2, Research, Geologist

Foreword: ██/██/█████. Level-2 Foundation Junior Researcher John Moisson is dispatched to confirm information from satellite images of lone human activity within an otherwise abandoned small town, vacated years prior due to the encroachment of SCP-4463 and floral overgrowth. The town was previously populated by a small community of Pascua Yaqui descendants. Introductory conversation and other extraneous dialogue has been removed and notated accordingly.

[BEGIN LOG]

Moisson: Thank you. I think… I think there's a wolf at your door.

█████████: Yes, there is. His name is Paco. He is probably the last one of his kind you'll ever see, too.

Moisson: How do you know that?

█████████: We knew all of the cuetlāchcoyōtl,5 when there were more of them. Not many, but more. We've watched them dwindle in numbers over the years, and then… this happened. I don't know if any survived.6

Moisson: Did the people of this town domesticate them?

█████████: No. I don't believe you can domesticate wolves, by definition. You can domesticate the descendants that share a common ancestor with the wolf… but. They would cease to be wolves and become something like the artificial breed that shares the name of this region.

(Moisson does not respond.)

█████████: …The Chihuahua.

Moisson: Ah. I'm um… embarrassed I didn't catch that. But you know the wolf's name?

█████████: Oh yeah. I knew that wolf from my childhood. Before I left the reservation. It was no pet, but they— I mean we as a people had a healthy respect for the wolves. We could know to expect certain events from the activities of the group. So we kept a close eye on them, and them on us, it seemed. That one I named when I was a boy. I know it is the same because of the scar on his nose.

Moisson: I didn't realize wolves live that long.

█████████: They don't.

Moisson: Where did you go when you left the reservation?

█████████: Into Phoenix. We had just succeeded in establishing the Indian Civil Rights act of 1968. We were on top of the world then — felt like we were on a roll, like we hung the moon in the sky. This was well before your time; it was all about justice. The age of tribal tyranny had ended, and the U.S. Government was our hero. I left as a representative of my people, had the enthusiasm of my friends and family, and entered into the politics of the state, then of the nation.

Command reports via Moisson's earpiece that facial recognition software has positively identified the individual as █████████, a well-known politician active in environmental regulatory affairs of crude oil and gas production. Moisson is advised to pursue this in conversation.

█████████: But I soon found it was at a great cost. All the incorporation, protection, status increase… wealth. It all came at a price. Smells awfully like protection racket these days. Like being an complicit accomplice. I fear that price was a healthy portion of part of our culture.

Moisson: I recognize you now, senator. Took me a second, but… just like the Chihuahua. (Forces a chuckle)

█████████: (No laughter) Then maybe you know why I've chosen to return. And stay. Until I die.

Moisson: No, I can't say I know.

█████████: I betrayed my people. (Pause) And I caused this mess. Well, I don't know if that's true… but I'm sure I didn't help, not like I could have.

Moisson: How did you do that?

█████████: (Sighs.) I was instrumental in the decision of Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez.7

Moisson: I don't know about that one, sorry.

█████████: Good. The influence it generated directly quelled the Arizonan government's impact on the response to the desert crisis. When they— my people I mean, started the protests, I was forced to see their poverty. I had to face how big the gap had become. I became paranoid, thought I was seeing things; things like Paco. But then, I pet him. He just looked at me, with no expression. There was something strange about his eyes… cataracts, but there was something off about them. Something… textured. No movement from him except his gaze that followed me. There wasn't even the exhalation of breath from his snout upon my hand. I knew then that he and the others I had seen, they were messengers.

Moisson: Are you suggesting that the wolf outside isn't real?

█████████: That is what it sounds like, isn't it? I can't see them as anything but the most real things I've known. The visions de-seated me from wealth and luxury in Washington D.C. and brought me here — poor, starving, and alone… taking shelter in the house that was once my parents. They asked me to rebury them and led me to their bodies. Told me the water from the ground flooded many of my ancestors' burial grounds. I got here and found it was true; it had surfaced them.

Moisson: Oh I'm sorry to hear… that's awful.

█████████: Sure. But it wasn't water they were in. What they were hemorrhaging. It was oil.

Moisson: There are oil pools here?

█████████: Oh yes. There are now. (Pause.) You lusting for them? Thinking of what they could afford you? It's okay, I feel it too. No one is above it. But… I wouldn't touch the stuff now. Do you know what oil is?

Moisson: Sir, I am a geologist.

█████████: I mean really is? I wonder if you've been paying attention in a way that I didn't.

(No reply.)

█████████: It's blood. Our planet's. Sitting below the skin in a subterranean vasculature.

Moisson: That's poetic.

█████████: No it isn't. That's the point; it isn't. Our planet is anemic. But as long as it is alive, it will find ways to create life for its own supply. New ways if it has to. Strange ways.

Moisson: You're here to try and stop it? To reverse the damage done?

█████████: You can't make straight what has grown crooked. It's the price that I have to pay. Besides, the planet doesn't need me to help it; it is perfectly capable of helping itself. Always has been. In great irony, but I believe with great purpose, things from now on will be worst for those most dominant. Just like it has always been in extinctions. And you know what all of our corpses will become given time?

Moisson: Oil?

█████████: That's right — blood. Lots of it. There is much of it on my hands, young man. That is why I am here. To return it. I am going to die here and allow myself to finally contribute to a solution, as I promised my family I would, so long ago.

(Pause.)

█████████: Do you know what the thickest black is, son?

Moisson: …Oil?

█████████: (Chuckles.) I like you. Close, but not quite… (Pauses and leans forward.) It's the kind that you breathe in.

[END LOG]

Closing Statement: █████████ is officially designated "PoI-4463". The aforementioned wolf is not relocated upon the researcher's exit from the home. A mobile flowmeter indicates no concentration of thaumaturgic particles in the dwelling or area. The conjectures of PoI-4463 are not confirmed; no cadavers or oil pools are discovered in the nearby areas or in any area affected by SCP-4463.

2. Incident 4463-2

██/██/████. Reflections seen in surfaces of pools of water that originated from SCP-4463 are noted to contain visual anomalies. Reflections of the sky observed upon these surfaces include what appears by all accounts to be a stationary replica of the moon. The visual anomaly appears irrespective of the time of day and does not abide by seasonal positioning. This phenomenon is not reproducible in lab.

The reflected object is currently 200% the size of the typical lunar profile and its surface appears significantly darkened. Comparative analysis of known topographical features confirm that images of the moon’s far side and the reflected image are otherwise identical.

3. Incident 4463-3

██/██/████. An individual identified as PoI-4463-1 (see Addendum 1) is observed by stationed Foundation researchers to be wading into a body of water produced by SCP-4463. This pool is the adjacent to the abandoned town PoI-4463-1 inhabits, measures 1.5 acres, 4.5 meters in depth, and housed no known anomalous qualities on prior assessment. Update: Post-event assessment reveals no changes.

PoI-4463-1 is reported to be unclothed, of altered mental status, and initially non-responsive to attempts at communication. Personnel retrieve the individual, stabilize and process him at the nearby research outpost, and conduct the following interview:

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Interviewed: █████████ - Pascua Yaqui Tribe (PoI 4463-1)

Interviewer: Agent Jeremiah Morlock - Level-3, In-Field Ops

Foreword: ██/██/█████.

[BEGIN LOG]

Agent Morlock: (Away from mic, quietly) Some documentation was filed on him the other week, I remember seeing it. Get me a print of that please.

Agent Morlock sighs and studies PoI-4463-1.

Agent Morlock: What in God's name were you doing?

(No reply.)

Agent Morlock: Were you trying to kill yourself?

No reply. The previously-addressed employee returns with a copy of the transcript seen in Addendum 1. Agent Morlock reads it.

Agent Morlock: So you were trying to kill yourself.

PoI-4463-1: Yes.

Agent Morlock: Well it didn't work, huh?

PoI-4463-1: No.

Agent Morlock: (Sighs, to another, quietly) We've gotta get suicide precautions on this guy, see if we can scrummage up someone who is off-shift to take some minimal incentive pay or something. (To PoI-4463-1) So what exactly went wrong?

PoI-4463-1: I… I was going to drown myself in the water. I remember jumping in headfirst. But I jump in, and I don’t feel pain. The waters around me are quiet and calm. I open my eyes. And deep. I can see for what seems like miles. There is a turquoise ocean before me, and a gentle current… it feels just like a breeze. It bats my eyelids and plays with my hair. In the distance I see a horizon. It is thin and dark gray. I am floating, at peace. I think, "I am dying". Then I think, “No, I am dead.”

Agent Morlock: Parts of that pool are pretty shallow. Sounds like you hit your head.

PoI-4463-1: (Continues) I realize that the horizon is growing larger. It is moving towards me, or I towards it. As it gets closer, I begin to see the continuous line is made up of individual pieces, and I start to make out shapes. They are animals. They’re on all fours, running towards me. Like they are charging. It is a battery of wolves, and they stretch as far as I can see to my left, and as far as I can to my right.

They pull like a team of wild horses — side-by-side, their heads down. Their necks are broken, swaying limply with their steps. They are pulling a sound. And I hear it. It's not far behind them, motivating them like a battle cry.

Agent Morlock: Okay… they were howling? You might have heard some actual wolves, land-bound ones I mean. The staff has reported hearing a lot of them around here.

PoI-4462-1: No. The wolves are not howling. Something else is. Something bigger than all of them. I hear it in that pool and it frightens me, and shakes me out of my serenity. It is a noise of chronic death. It enters through my feet and takes too long to move up the rest of me. I can’t describe the sound. But… I believe… I believe I can reproduce it here. Now. If that would help.

Agent Morlock scoffs and has an expression of amusement or disbelief.

Agent Morlock: What, you mean like, sing or something? Well yeah. Yeah yeah sure, whatever makes you happy. (To others) Hey guys, come in here for a minute, won’t ya?

Two additional personnel enter the room and the last closes the door behind him.

Agent Morlock: (Quietly, to personnel) This should be good. (To PoI-4463-1) For reporting purposes. Go ahead, we’re all ears.

PoI-4463-1: I can reproduce it for you here. Now.

Agent Morlock: …Go on, we're all ears.

PoI-4463-1: (Looks upwards.) Mother. (Closes eyes.) Forgive me. (Opens eyes.) Forgive your Oedipal son.

PoI-4463-1's mouth opens. At the apex of the jaw's natural gape, PoI-4463-1's mandible unhinges. Abrupt sounds consistent with the snapping of ligamenture are heard. The forces required for such trauma cause the rest of the cranium to violently shift contralaterally with recoil as each side of the jaw is forcefully displaced out of socket. Further musculoskeletal and guttural noises can be heard as the jaw descends past the clavicles. These noises are somewhat obscured on footage by the vocal responses of the personnel in the room.

PoI-4463-1 displays agonal breathing and marked cyanosis; the skin becomes pale, blue, and diaphoretic. PoI-4463-1 gargles, then produces a multitude of simultaneous vocalizations. Analysis reveals a minimum of thirteen separate timbres. The volume of the vocalizations cause those in attendance to cover their ears. Microphones on the recording devices clip with the input of the sound, and algorithms designed to prevent damage to equipment and to the human ear automatically mute the playback system after 55 milliseconds.

Large streams of a dark fluid spill from all orifices in PoI-4463-1's head, including the mouth which curtails the vocalization (ambient audio returns). PoI-4463-1’s abdomen and limbs swell as fluid escapes. The room is quickly flooded and the personnel within are submerged.

[END LOG]

Closing Statement: Water damage to the room's surveillance equipment prevented further logging of the event. Additional personnel were able to extract Agent Morlock as well as Junior Researchers Scott Carmike and Rowan Nolan-Peoples from the room safely and without need for further medical attention. The body of PoI-4463-1 was not recovered. The fluid was later determined to be a chemical mixture of blood, crude oil, human tears, fracking fluid, and residual fractions of DNA that match known genetic sequences of Canis lupus baileyi (the local Mexican wolf).

Footnotes

1. This aridification, albeit accelerated, is well-described by current range science theory, the increased incidence of violations by oil and gas operators on state lands, and overgrazing from invasive species and poor animal husbandry; thus is not considered anomalous.

2. A type of wetland that emerges as a result of deficient decay of organic matter.

3. Chemicals selected for their ability to facilitate the extraction of oil and natural gas from subterranean repositories.

4. Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is the process of infusing fluid at high pressures into subterranean layers of the Earth in order to tap concentrations of oil or natural gas for the purposes of fuel production.

5. Loosely translates to "perceptive coyote".

6. The previously EW (extinct-in-the-wild) and recovering population of Mexican wolves, assumed prior to be free-roaming within the region (estimated at only 7 in the wild at the onset of SCP-4463), has vanished from tagging surveillances.

7. 1978. Greatly mitigated the impact of The Indian Civil Rights Act. U.S. courts deliberately denied to give defense to sexist injustices performed by the tribe’s leadership. (Tribe membership was denied to children born of women who married outside of the tribe whereas inclusion was given to men born in the same fashion.)