¢ Medical monitoring systems 

* Fire and disaster alarms 

* Computer hardware alerts, including beep codes and 
emergency shutdown actions 

¢ Computer software alerts, including virus and critical update 
alarms 

* SCP containment alarms (See Addendum 768-1) 


SCP-768 will cause any automated responses to such alarms to 
trigger, but does not appear to cause what might normally trigger 
these alarms to occur. A phone ringing due to SCP-768 activating 
may cause an answering machine to start, but nothing will be 
recorded as no connection is made. 


SCP-768 came to the Foundation's attention after routine monitoring 
of municipal incident reports turned up a case in City, in 
which hundreds of fire and car alarms were set off simultaneously in 
a residential area. Investigation led to the discovery of SCP-768 in 
the possession of a Mr. . Subject claimed to have 
bought the clock from an online shop ( ), which 
recommended the clock as being "fit to wake the dead". Subject 
passed a polygraph test, but agents failed to locate the shop in 
question, and Mr. was released after being administered a 
class A amnestic and given a replacement clock of similar make and 
model. 


Research on SCP-768 to determine its method of operation and 
possible applications have been approved. 


Addendum 768-1: Incident Report 768-01 


Initial experimentation conducted with SCP-768 caused the 
triggering of multiple containment breach alarms at Site, including 
that of Euclid-level SCP- ,SCP-_ , and Keter-level SCP- 
Automated defense systems and self-destruct mechanisms were 
armed before the research team managed to alert site security and 
stop the response. 


Due to the potential for triggering emergency responses, future 
research with SCP-768's effects must take place outside of the 
range of any alarm systems connected to critical systems or SCP 


were a child, have you not?" 


Zhakh nodded. "He said it was important for me to understand the 
things we must do to keep at bay the forces that caused the Great 
Breach. | have spent much of the last five years in study and prayer 
over the subject. | have read all there is to read on the subject, from 
the Holy Scripture itself, to what ancient documents survived the 
Great Breach, to the musings and studies composed on the Rite by 
those Holy Doctors before me." 


"And what was the finding of your thesis?" 
"That the Rite of Montauk should be abolished." 


The cardinal raised his eyebrow. "Do you know what would happen 
if the Rite of Montauk were not performed as the Holy Containment 
Procedures instruct, aspirant?" 


"No," Zhakh said. "None know but the Lord Bright, for those pages 
have been expunged - and He speaks only when He wishes to do 
so. St. Agatha said that it was not performed during the Great 
Breach, and that much calamity ensued because of it." 


"Then why would you insist that such a thing be allowed to happen 
again?" 


"| have learned," Zhakh said, "that the Mother of Demons, she upon 
whom the Rite must be performed, is not she who today lies in 
chains beneath the Nineteenth Monastery. St. Alto on his deathbed 
confessed that he had killed her during the Great Breach, and the 
Lord Bright Himself confirmed it when He spoke, through a D-Caste 
bearing the Holy Amulet, to the Synod of New Denver in 237." 


"Then who is it upon which the Rite is performed?" 


"There have been eighteen," Zhakh said. "This | learned from the old 
records of those civilians taken by the Monastery and placed among 
the D-Caste for their crimes. Whenever one dies, they find a young 
woman who has not known a man and she becomes the subject of 
the Rite. | believe that whatever act was committed centuries ago 
that created the Mother of Demons, they perform also on this 


woman - so that the Rite can be enacted upon her." 
"You believe this?" the Cardinal asked. 

"Those pages have been expunged," Zhakh replied. 
"And what do you propose?" 


"That the need for the Rite has passed if the Mother of Demons is 
dead; and there is no need to create a new Mother simply so that 
the Rite can be performed upon her." 


The cardinal paused. "Is it not possible," he asked, "that there must 
always be a Mother of Demons, whether we wish it to be or not?" 


"The Holy Containment Procedures speak of no such thing," Zhakh 
said. "It cannot be known unless..." 


".,.Unless we test it and see what happens?" 
"Yes, my lord." 


"It is written,” the cardinal said, "that the last words spoken before 


the Great Breach were ‘test it and see what happens’. 


"Are we not protectors?" Zhakh asked. "Is it not our duty not only to 
protect the world from devilry, but to protect the devils from 
themselves? This is why | must ask to be dismissed - we cannot do 
our duty to protect these unfortunate women if we are so terrified by 
the unknown." 


The cardinal opened his mouth, then paused in contemplation for a 
moment. The look on his face changed - gone was the academic, 
the cleric, the cold, detached visage of a man whom protocol 
demanded ignore that his own son was before him in the midst of a 
crisis of faith. "Did | ever tell you,” he said, "about the time the Lord 
Bright spoke to me? In the flesh?" 


"No," Zhakh said. 


"When | was a child and my father occupied this office," the cardinal 
said nostalgically, "| was not as... deliberative in my studies as | 


could have been. | thought, much as you surely do now, that 
procedures written six hundred years ago by men now dead were of 
little importance, and that much of what they described must now be 
dead, or broken, or lost forever in the darkness. | hated spending my 
days learning to recite the procedures, memorizing ancient 
interviews, being yelled at by my father for giggling while he led the 
initiates in reciting Bright's Prayer. | thought | could find some way to 
prove that it was all hogwash - and then | thought of this." He 
gestured to the amulet encased in glass on his desk. "If | picked it 
up, and nothing happened, so | thought, it would prove that Jack 
Bright was gone forever and there was nothing to the Holy 
Containment Procedures but old superstitions. 


"| convinced one of the D-Caste to let me in after my father had 
excused himself to perform his duties. | had him break the case and 
take the amulet out to hand it to me. As soon as he laid hands on it, 
he... changed." 


Zhakh gasped. "So this is..." 


"This is the real one," the cardinal responded. "| knew right away 
that the man before me was no longer a slave whose great- 
grandfather had been indentured for stealing chickens, but our Lord 
and Director Himself. He looked right at me, and He spoke." 


"What did he say?" 


The cardinal sighed deeply. " ‘Dammit, not this again. 
"And then what?" 


"Then," the cardinal said, "He grabbed a quill off my father's desk 
and He stabbed Himself in the eye. By the time | could find anyone 
to help Him, He was already dead." 


"What happened when your father found out?" 


"| told him what | had done and asked him to dismiss me, much as 
you ask me for dismissal now. He refused. He ordered me to be 
confined alone in my cell and to contemplate and pray day and night 
until | could tell him what the Lord Bright had been trying to teach 


me when He took His own life so." 
"And what was that?" 


"That all actions have consequences," the cardinal said mournfully. 
"And that when those actions involve the Scripture, the 
consequences can cost lives. And that once in a great while, when a 
man acts without considering what may happen if his assumptions 
are wrong, then another heaven and another earth must pass before 
all is as it was before." The cardinal was silent a moment. "Do you 
understand why | have told you this, aspirant?" 


"Yes, my lord." 


"Your request to be dismissed is denied," he said. "You may remain 
here tonight and depart for your cloister in the morning. Begin your 
research anew and present a thesis that does not involve the Mother 
of Demons or the Rite of Montauk. Go in peace." 


“Thank you, my lord." Zhakh rose and left the room. The guardsman 
had gone - Zhakh made his way alone down the hall back to the 
antechamber, and from there towards the sleeping quarters where a 
cell and a bed had been provided for him. The audience had not 
gone as he anticipated, but he nonetheless felt a strange 
satisfaction. It would be years before Zhakh would be ready to 
present a new thesis - but perhaps, if he kept the faith, someday he 
might find himself on the other side of that ancient desk, as his own 
son asked to be dismissed. 


A Chance at Freedom 


The facility's power supply had been cut for the past twenty hours. 
God knows what put the lights out, but the more belligerent 
occupants were grateful. The darkness of the site blanketed every 
cell, granting the many objects contained within a perfect cover to 
slip the militias sent out to keep order. 


One such object slipped through the veil of blackness, scuttling 
behind the back of an unsuspecting mercenary. The man was 
spraying boiling lead into a crowd of orange jumpsuit wearing men 
and women, each vying for an escape from the hellish facility. 


The object couldn't help but feel contempt for such a worthless 
creature, blasting its own worthless kin with primitive weaponry. A 
firecracker with a bit of metal stuck on it, jettisoned down a tube. It 
was akin to a caveman throwing rocks, at least to the object. If only 
he had retained his weaponry upon arrival to this damnable 
dimension. Why, he'd have the whole organization in flames... 


The object shook off the grandiose dreams of revenge. It didn't 
matter, time was vital and he had to locate his partner. Poor boy, he 
wasn't ready for such a mission. He would hear his partner's 
panicked, almost incoherent wailing deep into the night. He was a 
fresh body at the academy, right in his prime. He didn't deserve this 
hellish dimension and its ghastly occupants. 


“I've gotta keep a clear head,” the object thought to himself. His 
partner was likely either in a panic or near catatonic somewhere 
nearby. He hadn't been too far when the pandemonium of the 
breach caused them to get separated. Nonetheless, he felt bad. He 
had been the senior officer assigned to the new cadet, and he failed 
him at every turn. 


He thought back to when they first landed in that field. They had 
already lost their weaponry, and the mayday they issued appeared 
to fall on deaf ears. The bipedal beasts, the ‘humans’ as they 


referred to themselves, seemed dangerous but stupid. The object 
sighed to himself, he didn't like to say it out loud, but he did 
underestimate those bipedal brutes. 


Another type of beast raced through from behind the object. The 
gentle sound of a crack and a scream cut short were the tell-tale 
signs of it. 


It stood somewhat larger than a human, and was crafted in an 
exaggeration of their visage. Somehow, it seemed even more 
disturbing to the object than the humans. Still, the object had 
learned through the passing comments of the humans and 
observation that the beast had an easily exploited weakness. 


The object turned, but he did so with a deliberate, slow motion. It 
was a meek attempt at putting off having to stare into that awful 
form's green, lifeless gaze. 


His sight affixed to the sculpture, freezing it in its tracks. He must've 
only gazed at it for a few seconds, but that short passage of time 
had mutated into hellish hours within the mind of the object. 


The guttural call of one of those humans finally broke the 
showdown. The object felt the greasy, wretched hand of the human 
on the top of his head, brushing down his sensitive sensory organ, 
causing a chill to run the length of his body. 


“Thanks 131, you really helped us out in containing 173!” 


The human grabbed the object, who was unable to do anything but 
swear worse than any sailor. Swears that, to the human, sounded 
like nothing more than cute little bleeps. 


“Let's go find your friend, little buddy.” 


Freedom would not come today. 


A Chance Encounter 


“...in three, two, one, mark,” said the pilot as the ship blinked in from 
hyperspace. “All systems normal, and... there’s the landmark 
beacon. It looks like we’re ready for the nineteenth system when you 
are, Captain.” 


“Wonderful,” responded the captain. “Bring up the cloaking device, 
start heading in then, standard trajectory, you know the routine.” 


A moment later, the intercom on the bridge squawked to life. “All of 
our guests are showing stable vital signs, captain. Shall | wake the 
ones in stasis?” 


“Yes, please do, doctor,” the captain replied into the intercom, “and 
also let them know we'll be nearing the first gas giant in a few 
hours.” 


“Captain, you need to see this,” exclaimed the pilot without looking 
up from the display. “I’ve checked this several times but....” 
“What, pilot?” 

“It’s the satellite of the blue rock. It’s... gone.” 


“Gone?” repeated the captain incredulously. “The great white 
satellite? How can it just be gone?” 


“I... have no idea, captain, but it’s not showing up anywhere in any 
spectrum.” 


The captain was silent a moment before speaking again. “What 
about the third planet itself, pilot?” 


“It’s still there,” responded the pilot while scanning through multiple 
readouts. “There seems to be a lot of energy coming from it, but 


we're still too far out to get any details.” 


“Hmm... our itinerary has us going to the rocky planets soon 
enough. Continue on toward the outermost giant, but keep your 
sensors on the third planet. | want to know what’s happened to its 
satellite, and I’m sure I’m not the only one. | need to let them know 
back home what we know so far.” 


“What about the guests?” 


The captain groaned. “I have to let them know as well, but you and | 
both know they’ll be disappointed if something’s happened to the 
biggest draw in the system.” 


The rendezvous with the outermost giant came and went without 
incident, and it had been several hours since the ship had changed 
course heading toward the ringed giant. The anticipation amongst 
the guests was more subdued than usual on approaching the sixth 
planet, and the fate of the third planet and its satellite remained a 
popular topic of conversation for guests and crew alike. 


On the bridge, the doctor and the pilot were poring over readouts 

from the ship’s array of sensors, most of which had been directed 
toward the third planet. The captain was sitting nearby, reviewing 

updates on the ship and its contents, when he received a page on 
his private comm. 


“The energy coming off the third planet is still off the scale across all 
spectra,” said the doctor. “It would be a miracle if anything were to 
have survived, no matter what actually happened in the first place.” 


“All right, we'll check it out,” muttered the captain as the comm 
channel closed. “Pilot, bring up visuals of the red rock. I’ve gotten 
reports that several guests have seen something unusual in that 
direction through their scopes. Something tiny, but not moving like 
any sort of pebble.” 


As the pilot worked to bring the visuals up, the doctor started calling 
up sensor data from the region of the red rock. A moment later, a 
complex sensor image of the fourth planet appeared on the main 


viewscreen, and it wasn’t long before the doctor spoke up. 


“I’ve found it, in the sensor logs, which would put it about... there,” 
declared the doctor, pointing to a spot on the viewscreen. Instantly 
the image changed as the pilot zoomed in on that spot. The doctor 
rechecked the sensor log, pointed to another spot, and the pilot 
zoomed in again.