Item#: 6960

Containment Class: safe

Secondary Class: none

Disruption Class: dark

Risk Class: notice

Special Containment Procedures: SCP-6960 is contained within safe anomaly locker B2 in Site-53. A lock has been attached to the binding of the object to prevent accidental opening during transport and testing.

Description: SCP-6960 is an 836 page novel written by Researcher Herbert Berne on the subject of the fictional MTF Alpha-13. When SCP-6960 is opened, four humanoid entities will manifest around the object, each matching one of the four main characters of the novel. Each of these entities believes themselves to be a non-anomalous human employed by the SCP Foundation. That belief is to be reinforced to ensure cooperation. If the book is closed, the entities will cease to exist. They retain all memories of previous manifestations, but are unable to recall any events that happened while SCP-6960 was closed.

The following list details each instance of SCP-6960-A as described in SCP-6960.

Jason Orville: Team leader. Skilled in two dozen forms of close range combat.

Derrick Palmer: Demolitions expert.

Lesly Edwin: Highly trained in stealth and infiltration.

Reginald Wilton: No known skills or abilities.

It is unknown if other characters can be created from SCP-6960.

Incident Report 03/11/2021: At 14:38 Site-53 went into lockdown as several anomalies breached containment. At the time, SCP-6960 was being tested by Doctor Melvin Gail, and all four members of MTF Alpha-13 were present in the testing room.

Doctor Gail sits at the table with each member of SCP-6960-A seated at the opposite end.

Gail: Alright team, today I'm going to be testing you for knowledge of Foundation protocols. Ready to begin?

Orville: Of course. Whatever it takes to get us cleared for active duty again.

Gail: Good, first scenario. An enemy GoI has raided the facility and taken hostages. What's step one for defusing the situation?

Edwin: Sneak in through the vents, take out the hostiles from the inside. No guns so there's no sound.

Gail: … No, that's nowhere near the right answer. The first step is to open negotiations, see if there's a way to peacefully resolve the situation. Did you even read the books I sent you?

Edwin: I don't have time, I need to get in the field and do stuff instead of reading some book. I can't take down the Chaos Insurgency General that killed my family while I'm stuck behind a desk.

Orville: Hey, you're not the only member of this task force. You're part of a team, and we all need to work together to stop the person that killed my brother.

Wilton: Hey, they're not all bad. They also killed my ex-wife.

Gail: Okay, enough personal stories. You guys need to pass that exam if you want to get back in the field.

At this moment, the containment breach alarm sounds and the doors lock.

Gail: Shit. Okay, keep calm everyone. Lockdown rarely lasts more than half an hour.

Palmer reaches into his vest and takes out a grenade, placing it next to the door.

Gail: Hey! Palmer, what the fuck are you doing? Get away from that door, you're not part of a real task force!

The grenade detonates, knocking the door down.

Palmer: Sorry Doc, but I'm not just going to sit by and watch our site get torn to shreds by some escaped Keter.1

Orville: He's got a point Gail. Somebody needs to help this place.

Gail: We already have help, a real MTF is on its way right now! Just get back here before someone gets hurt.

Edwin: Sorry pal, but someone getting hurt is just part of the job.

All four members of MTF Alpha-13 leave the room. Doctor Gail follows them down the hall, until they come to a stop just before a corner.

Orville: Hold on. This is the perfect spot for an ambush.

Gail: I doubt anyone's setting up an ambush, but we really shouldn't be out here. Let's just go back to the interview room and wait for backup.

Edwin: Wait for backup? What if they start offing hostages because we don't get there in time to rescue them? That blood would be on your hands if you made us turn back now.

Gail: Who said anything about hostages? Hell, we don't even know which anomaly escaped!

Orville raises his hand, silencing the team. He leads them around the corner, revealing a tall, humanoid anomaly standing in the middle of the hall. It appears to be eating a human corpse.

Palmer: Shit, I recognize that one. It's SCP-81682 and it's very dangerous. Cover your noses, because if you smell this thing it'll enter a rage state and kill us all.

Orville: You heard him, put on your gas masks.

All four members of MTF Alpha-13 don gas masks, and Orville gives a second mask to Gail.

Wilton: Hey, you need a gas mask to go near this monster? Reminds me of my ex-wife.

The team slowly creeps past the anomaly, which continues devouring the corpse and does not react to their presence.

Orville: Alright team, danger's past. You can take the masks off.

Unknown voice: This isn't the end of your danger.

Three armed soldiers train the guns on MTF Alpha-13.

Edwin: Oh no, it's the Chaos Insurgency!

Gail: How do you know that?

Edwin: Because they have the Chaos Insurgency logo printed on their helmets, I'd recognize it anywhere ever since I saw a man with that logo kill my entire family.

CI Soldier 1: Shit, our cover has been blown! Kill them all!

The soldiers open fire, but the team dives behind a corner and escapes unscathed.

Wilton: Ha, the Chaos Insurgency is trying to kill us. Reminds me of my ex-wife.

Gail: Something's wrong here. The Chaos Insurgency would never do something like this, these clowns are just wandering around the site with guns.

Orville: You don't know the Insurgency like we do. This is how they've always been, right from the first time they tried to kill me.

Gail: Oh… damn it. It's SCP-6960.

Edwin: What do you mean? There is no SCP-6960.

Orville: Quiet down everyone, we need to find some way to stop the Chaos Insurgency before they find us.

Edwin: There's no way we're getting out of this, did you see how many guns they had?

Gail: There's only three of them, I'm pretty sure we have the advantage.

Palmer: I know how we can get the advantage. But you're not going to like it.

Orville: Palmer, no. There has to be another way.

Gail: Seriously, just go out and shoot them. I'm pretty sure they know even less about tactics than you do.

Wilton: They know less than me? Just like my ex-wife!

Gail: Would you shut up about her!

Palmer reaches into his bag and draws out a brick of C-4, running back around the corner towards the soldiers.

Palmer: It's been an honor Sir, and I'll see you all in hell!

An explosion is heard from around the corner.

Wilton: Hell? But that's where my ex-wife is!

Gail: Why won't you shut up about that! I read your book, that guy was supposed to be your best friend, or at least he would have been if Herbert knew how to write human relationships!

Orville: Hey Doc, maybe don't freak out like that. We just lost a close friend, maybe a moment of silence?

Edwin: Hell no, we can honor him by stopping the Chaos Insurgency once and for all.

Orville: Good point. Team, let's move!

[Ten minutes removed for brevity]

The team closes in on the door to the central command room, and voices are heard from inside.

Unknown voice: You're a moron, Herbert. That's why we're here. You did this to us all, and now it's time for you to pay. Wait, I'm expositing… Someone's here.

The door is kicked down and Alpha-13 encounters several Chaos Insurgency soldiers. A man dressed in a crude replica of an American General's uniform steps forward.

Unknown General: Good afternoon everyone. I see most of Alpha Thirteen made it to the end. Derrick is missing, but I think it's a safe assumption that he didn't get a proper sendoff, right Herbert?

Researcher Herbert Berne is tied to a desk chair in the command room.3 He nods slightly.

Gail: You're from his book too, aren't you?

General: Indeed I am. My whole existence was orchestrated by an idiot that picked up the wrong magic typewriter, and now I'm stuck here holding a Site belonging to the god-damn SCP Foundation, wearing a SHITTY CHAOS INSURGENCY COSPLAY!

Wilton: Some asshole is controlling your life with little regard for your personal feelings and mental health? Sounds like my ex-wife.

General and Gail: Shut up, Wilton!

The General shoots Wilton in the shoulder. Wilton opens his mouth but the General points the gun at his head.

General: Say anything about your ex-wife shooting you and the next one goes in your brain.

Wilton nods silently.

Orville: What's all this about a book? Is this guy an anomaly?

Gail: You're all anomalies, Herbert made you by accident while he was writing a fanfic.

Orville: That's impossible, there's no way I'm from a fanfiction. If I was from a fanfiction would I be talking in such a realistic and not at all forced manner?

Edwin: And if I'm fake, where did all my memories of my family being murdered by that specific Chaos Insurgency General come from?

Gail: Fine, you don't need to accept it. Doesn't change that you're going back in the book after the real MTF gets here.

General: Zip it, everyone. I'm trying to monologue here. Now where was I? Right, I was explaining my motives to the main characters, and some random doctor who happens to be here too. Herbert, when you wrote us all into existence, did you stop to think about what you were doing? I mean, we've all seen fanfiction, but this is just awful. Have you ever talked to a real person before? I mean, does anything I'm saying right now sound like the normal things someone would say when threatening their own creator?

Herbert shakes his head.

General: Great, then why the FUCK did you write me like this, you hack?

While the General is talking, Orville slowly reaches for the nearest soldier's weapon.

General: You don't have plot armor, you're not even a character in the book. Give me one reason not to blow your head off right now.

Herbert: I didn't know! I didn't know you'd come to life! It was just for fun, I didn't even want to show it to anyone before I saw it was anomalous.

General: I guess I should consider myself lucky that you wanted me to be the villain. If I were a hero I never would have been self-aware enough to put a bullet through your heart.

Gail: Wait, mister General. You don't have to do this, nobody needs to get hurt. It's not a crime to be bad at writing.

General: It's not a crime to have an opinion on someone else's writing either. Now please allow me to voice my criticism.

The General shoots Herbert in the chest, and then Orville leaps onto the General from behind.

Orville: I got him, You two take the others out!

Edwin grabs a gun and starts shooting the Chaos Insurgency soldiers. Wilton takes a first aid kit and starts bandaging his arm.

Wilton: Taking a bunch of dangerous looking men out? I remember when my ex-wife used to do that!

Gail takes another first aid kit and tries to help Herbert, but is unable to stop the rapid blood loss.

Herbert: I'm sorry for making all this, it's all my fault.

Gail: No, it's not your fault they came to life. Hell, if you'd written an actual competent villain we'd be in even bigger trouble.

The General throws Orville off his back and runs for the central control panel.

General: Nobody move, or I turn on the emergency nuke!

Gail: Since when does Site-53 have one of those?

General: Since that moron decided it did! Don't you have any idea how much stuff came out of this book? Wait, the book!

The General reaches for SCP-6960, which is sitting on the control panel. Edwin is standing closer and manages to take it first.

General: Don't close that book!

Edwin: Why not? Is this the book you came out of?

General: Yes! It's the same book you're from, so put it down or I blow this place to hell!

Orville: We'd rather die than let you take over this site.

Gail: I'd rather not die, if possible.

General: If the fat one makes another comment about his ex I will press the big red button.

Edwin: If I close this book, you'd go back in it, wouldn't you?

General: Yes, all of us would. That's what I keep telling you!

Gail: Edwin, you might not be real, but you can still help the Foundation. Close that book, end this now.

General: No! Don't put us back, please. I can't spend another minute trapped on those pages.

Orville: Then why haven't you pressed the button yet?

General: Because I can't! If I press it, I kill all of you, and that's not something I was written to do. You guys can only go out if it could have some semblance of an emotional impact.

Wilton: You know, my ex-wife sure made an impact when she-

The General fires a shot at Wilton, killing him instantly.

General: Ha! I did it! I got past his plot armor!

Gail: Oh crap, nobody say anything about your families, it'll give weight to your fictional deaths.

Edwin: Is that really all we are? Characters made up for some shitty book?

Orville: Don't listen to them Lesly, they're trying to mess with our heads.

Gail: Nobody is trying to mess with you, you're all anomalies. But that doesn't mean you can't help the Foundation. Just close the book and all of this goes away.

Orville: Lesly, he's lying! He must be with the Insurgency!

Edwin: There's only one way to find out for sure.

Edwin takes out a lighter and begins burning the pages of SCP-6960. As the book burns, the bodies of the Chaos Insurgency Soldiers begin to burn as well.

Gail: What are you doing? You can't just destroy an anomaly!

General: Yes! Burn the book, free us from this nightmare!

Edwin crumbles to dust.

Orville: No… I… I have to be real. This can't be happening.

General: Oh, it's happening all right.

Orville's arm begins to turn to ash.

Orville: Doctor Gail, you… You lied to me. You told us we were a real task force. You told us we could help the Foundation!

Gail: Orville, I'm sorry. I didn't mean for this to happen, we just wanted you to be cooperative for the interviews.

Orville: That's all it was to you? Just another lie to make an anomaly think the Foundation cared? You're more of a monster than the man that took over this Site, because you're a real monster.

Orville can no longer stand due to how much of his body has crumbled to ash. The General has begun to disintegrate as well.

Orville: I believed in you…

Orville shoots Gail, who falls over and covers his bodycam.

Gail: I was just following orders…

General: Following orders… Just like the rest of us.

Two hours later, MTF Epsilon-11 was able to re-secure the Site, and recovered the body of Doctor Melvin Gail, along with a bodycam containing footage of the breach. SCP-6960 has been reclassified as neutralized.

Footnotes

1. It should be noted that Palmer does not pronounce Keter correctly.

2. It should be noted that at the time of writing, there is no anomaly filed under SCP-8168.

3. It should be noted that he looks very similar to Orville, although slightly shorter and pudgier.