Item #: SCP-3796

Object Class: Safe

Special Containment Procedures: SCP-3796 is to be kept in a Safe-class object locker in Site-73. No personnel are allowed to touch or otherwise play SCP-3796.

Description: SCP-3796 is a 7-inch 45 single by American soul group The Bees (consisting of Ossie Floriston, Sam Brooks, Jamal Jones, and Richard Denton), and released by St. Louis based label Troubadour Records. No record of this group or this label has ever existed, however all personnel involved (studio musicians, songwriters, back-up musicians, producers, label executives, and The Bees themselves) have proven to be real individuals, who remember their time creating SCP-3796. The A-side of SCP-3796 contains a song called "The Time I Spent With All of You", written by Isaac McClintock and Ben Green. The B-side contains a song called "Tomorrows", written by McClintock, Green and an individual named Beckett Beebe, who has not been identified. Both songs are non-anomalous, consisting of standard, slow soul ballads popular at the time it was released (1966). The songs can be copied and listened to successfully without contributing to SCP-3796-1.

The physical record aspect of SCP-3796 is home to a highly aggressive Class VII noncorporeal, ideatic, noosphere-based sapient personality matrix1. It is designated SCP-3796-1. According to analysis via Tolstoy Loss Rate algorithms derived from SCP-3045, observing and quantifying the memetic output of SCP-3796-1 indicates that unlike similar personality matrices found in non-anomalous objects, SCP-3796-1 is extremely complex, consisting of over 300 personality fragments corresponding to real world individuals. Testing with SCP-3796 shows that SCP-3796-1 grows via simple touch or listening.2 The sheer number of fragments comprising SCP-3796-1 and the level of noogenesis present within SCP-3796 indicates that it is the largest personality matrix ever recorded, and probably the most psychically active as well. The behavior of SCP-3796 is somewhat apian in nature, although this is not always the case.

Analysis of SCP-3796-1, via introduction of D-Class personnel, indicates that most fragments within SCP-3796-1 correspond to type consistent with the audience for the record. The oldest fragments seem to be African-American teenagers from the 1960s. Gradually the newest and newest fragments correspond to Radio DJs, listeners within the broadcast radius, record shop owners, distributors, soul fans outside the original demographic, antique shop owners, and so forth. The head researchers for SCP-3796 theorize that the effect is spread to all extant copies of the record, as so to account for the large number of fragments for one object. This would be cause to track down and recall these copies, however the only additions to the matrix have originated with SCP-3796, and no other copies of the single have been identified or recovered, despite public memories indicating otherwise.

There are several fragments within SCP-3796-1 that do not match up with the usual patterns of contribution, all of which exist towards the very bottom of the matrix. They include two white supremacists formerly belonging to the Ku Klux Klan, a group of five Kyrgyzstani alchemists, and a single common Western honey bee (Apis mellifera). Except for the alchemists, none of the other fragments could be conclusively identified, and all evidence points to them not existing. It is unknown what personalities exist at the exact bottom of the matrix. Although it is theorized to be personnel related to the production of SCP-3796, this cannot be measured or proven due to the large ideatic weight of SCP-3796-1 preventing accurate analysis.

Although at points the mass of fragments swarm in a typically apian fashion towards a central gestalt consciousness, the apparent constant and large pain that the fragments express prevents this from happening in total. In as such, SCP-3796-1 is constantly in flux, and will occasionally lash out to nearby attack mental bystanders and attempt to convert a segment of their noospheroid based level consciousness into itself, thereby subjecting a fragment of the bystander's overall consciousness to the same pain that they express. The person is typically left unharmed save for some discomfort during this process, and a general inability to remember the past two hours. This can be abated with a small mnestic regimen.

Addendum:

(D-345688 was introduced to SCP-3796's containment safe and ordered to interact with it in order to ascertain the nature of the SCP-3796-1 fragments state. A record player was provided. The safe and record player were moved to a testing chamber.)

D-345688: Alright, so I've opened the safe. Is this the record I'm supposed to play?

Dr. Tudorsmith: That is correct. Please proceed.

D-345688: Fair enough, I've seen worse.

(D-345688 picks up SCP-3796 and begins to mentally interact with SCP-3796. He halts for a second following the removal.)

Dr. Tudorsmith: Are you okay?

D-345688: No. I'm fine. I just got a headache. Like a rush to my brain like I just stood up too fast. I'm fine.

(D-345688 moves haltingly to put SCP-3796 on to the record player. After putting the needle down, he moves back hesitantly. "The Time I Spent With All of You" begins to play.)

D-345688: Not bad actually. I actually was expecting worse. Not a fan of soul music, actually.

(D-345688 seizes up, then begins to vocalize quickly and seemingly at random, switching voices and accents.)

D-345688: No. I'm fine. I just got a headache. No. I'm fine. No. No. No. We're reaching an Omega Point. Momma, but I love this kind of music! No, no wait it's entering this reality. I just got a headache. And that was "Tomorrows" by The Bees. Great band, lotta good stuff. Very cheap. Alright The Bees, good band. I'll give you a good price on this. No. Elijah, listen to this! We're coming together, and pulling apart. Y'all didn't erase it entirely it seems! Serve the queen. Fight the other hive. Fight the other hive before it destroys us. It hurts, so much. I can't breathe. No. I need y'all to do something to this here [SLUR REDACTED] album. Can y'all manage? No. No. Everything in my body is on fire! We are the gestalt. We'll meet in the Klavern. We are the Omega Point. The singularity. This will destroy the record label totally. God, those lyrics. A-one, A-two, A-one, two, three, four. Hit that guitar Reggie! (D-345688 begins to scream.)

(D-345688 slumps to the ground briefly before opening his eyes.)

D-345688: Where am I? Dr. Tudorsmith?

Footnotes

1. An angry, thought-based psychic spirit composed of multiple consciousness. A personality matrix consists of the psychic fragments of an object’s owner, and functions somewhat similarly to the concept of kami in Shintoism.

2. In a non-anomalous record, the personality matrix, or psychic attachment, would be inert and nonsapient, added to only by the individual self-designated as the owner. In the case of SCP-3796-1, broadcasting the songs within SCP-3796 across the radio would be enough to grow SCP-3796.