Link to article: SCP-7390 Fragment 8.
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[[=image https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/local--files/scp-7390/Voices.jpg]] … and gets heads. ‘Wait,’ Grimsley says. He stares at his lucky Coin – experience says the flight data will be the most illuminating, but experience also says the Coin points in the best direction. ‘Sir?’ ‘Do the cockpit recording instead.’ //The Coin says swap – what am I going to do, flip again to decide if I’ll listen? Besides, Lance looks comfortable, so there probably isn’t anything in the data – he would’ve stepped in if there was, or something.// The agent nods, mildly displeased, then sets the half-unscrewed blackbox aside to work on the other. ‘It’ll take a few minutes.’ George turns to Grimsley from his laptop. ‘Sixty-sixty-five was shockwaves, not explosions, and it wasn’t entirely random – there’s evidence it was an accident caused by someone, but we don’t really know who, or how they did it.’ Grimsley casts a sidelong glare at Lance, who simply takes a puff from his pipe. //… maybe that’s something. An accident he’s trying to cover up? But this doesn’t look like an accident at all…// For a few moments Grimsley idly juggles the Coin in one hand, surveying the dwindling activity around him. ‘Has anyone heard anything about those bodies yet?’ No replies. ‘Someone give me the number for 137, I’ll find out. George, you help Lydia with those phone calls.’ George nods, giving the number to Grimsley as he puts the Coin back in its case, pulls out his phone, and idly walks over to the edge of the valley. The wreckage is almost completely gone. Forty minutes to go, and all that remains is two broken sections of the fuselage, the rearmost two; the wings and cockpit are long-gone, and the tail section has probably already been dealt with. The call connects. Grimsley goes through the usual motions, ensuring the line is secure, identifying himself, then asking for the Area’s morgue. He watches as the clean-up crew attach one of the remaining segments to a crane, preparing to remove it. ‘Morgue.’ ‘This is Assistant Director Grimsley Trudge, Investigations. A pair of bodies were sent to you over an hour ago and I wanted an update. Have the bodies arrived?’ A sigh. ‘Where are they coming from?’ ‘Death Valley crash site. Two bodies --’ ‘Yeah I heard you the first time, just give me a damn minute.’ Grimsley blinks. ‘Excuse me?’ A pause. ‘Sorry. Sir. We’re getting flooded at the moment, it’s hard to keep track of everything.’ ‘What happened?’ ‘Flooded. Literally flooded. I am currently wading through waist-high water that’s contaminated with defrosting corpse-juices to get your answer for you.’ Grimsley grimaces. //Guess I’m not the only one having a rotten day.// ‘Doesn’t sound fun.’ ‘Could be worse. There’s a floor below that we need bodies from, so… ah. Two pilots, FM-2439?’ ‘That’s the ones.’ ‘Arrived, autopsied, shelved, must’ve forgotten to report it. Nothing much of note, broken clavicles, scapula --’ ‘Just a synopsis, please.’ ‘The crash killed them, broken faces, crushed chests, that sort of thing. --Traces of blood belonging to a third individual, though.--’ Grimsley’s brow furrows. ‘--Belonging to who?--’ ‘--No idea.-- Can’t get any more samples now, though, since they’re both below the waterline.’ ‘Right. Thanks anyway.’ Grimsley sighs, hanging up and pinching the bridge of his nose, lingering for a few moments before returning to the concentration of activity. The cockpit-recording blackbox is open, the agent removing the chips from it and plugging them into a computer; Lydia is busy talking on her phone – she shakes her head when Grimsley glances at her – and George is following suit, though he ends his call after a few seconds. ‘Anything?’ he says. ‘--How many people were aboard the plane?--’ Grimsley says. ‘Just the two pilots, why?’ ‘Did anyone get hurt down in the wreck? Cut a hand or something?’ George glances at the other agents around; they all shake their heads, or shrug. ‘--There was blood from a third person.-- Any ideas?’ Everyone looks to each-other, confused; except Lance, who raises an eyebrow. ‘--From who?--’ he says. ‘No way of knowing, the morgue is flooded. Why? --Who do you think it could be?--’ No response. Lance turns and steps away, pulling out his mobile phone and dialling someone. Grimsley’s brow furrows – --then his eyes widen. //A third person in the cockpit should show up in-- --// ‘Got it,’ the agent working on the recordings says. ‘Full two hours --’ ‘Skip to the last fifteen minutes,’ Grimsley says, taking a seat beside him and putting on a pair of headphones. A garbled, unintelligible mess of rapid speech plays through the headphones as the agent skips through the majority of the two-hour recording. ‘//-m telling you, take her out. I know this great--//’ ‘//Oh yeah, like I’m going to take your advice on--//’ ‘Double speed,’ Grimsley says. The pilot’s conversation flies by, intermittently peppered with flight adjustments that Grimsley repeats for everyone to hear – George taking the initiative to transcribe. The topic shifts continually; advice on restaurants around Los Angeles, where to buy shoes, upcoming movies to see, then a rant about the Marvel franchise. ‘//--Doyouhearthatwhatiswhere--//’ ‘Stop,’ Grimsley says. ‘Normal speed, go back a minute.’ The agent nods. ‘Two minutes to impact.’ ‘//-ing you, Secret Wars is going to suck. There’s no way they can wrap up Phase Six without doing some stupid multiverse reset like they keep doing in the comics, and then they’ll just start this all over again.//’ --A dull, faint noise occupies the silence between speech.-- ‘//Fantastic Four was pretty good.//’ ‘//Fantastic Four had a low bar. Sure, they kept that guy from the Office, but the Thing was a terrible actor.//’ An extended silence. Grimsley’s brow furrows as he focuses --on the sound, slowly growing in volume--. ‘//--… Do you hear that?--//’ ‘--There’s a noise,--’ Grimsley says. ‘--Like a… metallic scraping, or wheezing. Stuttered like it’s coming through a fan.--’ ‘//--What is… where is that coming from?--//’ --The sound continues to grow in volume. Something else catches Grimsley’s attention;-- he presses the earphones against his ears, straining to hear… --‘//-sing altitude to-//’-- --A faint, dull thud.-- ‘//--What the hell was that?--//’ --‘//-Caroll engine is-//’-- --Another thud. Another. Then,-- a distinctly louder thud – an explosion. A swathe of alarms go off, joined by the sound of the aircraft shuddering through turbulence. --Several more faint explosions join it.-- ‘//Bank right, bank right! Mayday mayday, this is Foxtrot-Mike-Two-Four-Three-Nine, we are--//’ Grimsley winces at the volume of the next explosion; the largest or closest of them yet. ‘//--We’re hit, we’re hit!-- Get the--//’ The deafening sound of tearing metal, then sudden, total silence. Grimsley takes the headphones off, dropping them onto the desk. He leans back in his seat, covering his mouth with one hand, staring blankly ahead. ‘Sir?’ George says. A pause. Lance finishes his phone call, returning to the group; he notices everyone staring at Grimsley and follows suit. ‘--Shot down,--’ Grimsley says, turning to glare at Lance. ‘--The plane was shot down.--’ ‘Explain,’ Lance says, brow furrowing. ‘--Several explosions.-- Sounds like one --hit-- the engine, another the body – but the pilots --saw them,-- banked south --to avoid them, and specifically said they’d been hit.--’ ‘--What about that wheezing noise?-- What was that?’ George says. Lance raises an eyebrow. ‘--Metallic, stuttered wheezing,--’ Grimsley explains. ‘--I have no idea, but there were voices too, fainter than it was. Two extra people, I couldn’t hear much, but one of them mentioned a “Caroll engine.”--’ --Lance’s eyes widen. He sternly marches across the gazebo, straight for the computer, ripping the recorder’s cards out of it and shoving them in his pocket.-- ‘This investigation is concluded,’ he says. ‘Now hold on,’ Grimsley says, jumping to his feet. ‘This is my investigation, I’ll decide when --’ ‘You were required to determine the cause of this incident. You have now done so. Surrender all evidence, clear the area, submit a non-copied report directly to me, then the matter is concluded.’ ‘We don’t even know --’ ‘I will direct further investigation into this. This is not the conclusion of the matter, only your involvement. I //will// take action to ensure this does not recur.’ A pause. Lance takes a puff from his pipe, meeting Grimsley’s glare with an indifferent stare. ‘You can’t just work us half to death then --’ ‘You and your staff may keep the remainder of the day to yourselves,’ Lance says, ‘in addition to tomorrow. Clear the area and submit the report.’ Grimsley shakes his head, then throws a hand up in the air. ‘Do as he says.’ Lance nods, turning and stepping over to the valley’s edge, whistling to get the workers’ attention. ‘That’s it?’ George says as everyone around sets about their tasks. ‘That’s it.’ ‘Won’t he just… hide this?’ ‘The important parts, definitely. The Director might get the truth, but none of… none of you ever will. And if you try poking around, you’ll just wake up tomorrow with no memory of this, wondering why Lance demoted you. We’ve done all we can, just accept it and move on.’ George nods, frowning. He turns to pack up the laptop he had been working on. ‘Leave that, I’ve got to do that report. And hey, Vegas is just around the corner – you could do with a proper break after all this.’ That cheers him up. He heads off, Grimsley taking his seat at the laptop. He logs out of George’s account – making a mental note to remind him about it – and into his own, opening the program he uses to write his report. He glances to the valley’s edge, just in time for Lance’s head to disappear below it. He opens a search engine for the Foundation’s database. **{{> --CAROL ENGINE--}}** **{{No Results.}}** **{{> --CAROLL ENGINE--}}** **{{--1 Result: SCP-7390--}}** Grimsley closes the search engine, --opening the main catalogue. He types in the number 7390,-- then opens the file. ----- [[div style="width: 99.7%"]] [[include :scp-wiki:component:s7-apcs scp-number = 7390 | scp-class = euclid | non-standard-class = Any_value | lineFirst = Security Clearance Level 5 | lineSecond = Department of Logistics | lineThird = Assistant Director Lance Scrimshaw | danger-select-1 = Portal | danger-select-2 = Extradimensional | danger-select-3 = Electronic-affecting | danger-select-4 = | danger-select-5 = | danger-select-6 = | activation = Condition-state | threat-ind = 5 | contaiment-risk = D4 | k-class = none]] [!-- http://scpfoundation.net/sandbox:s7-apcs-guide --] [[/div]] [[include component:image-block name=https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/local--files/scp-7390/Engine.png |caption=[IMAGE REDACTED] |width=100% |align=center]] ----- [[=]] ++ Special Containment Procedures [[/=]] SCP-7390 is currently █████████ ██████ the Department of Logistics’ ███████ ██-███ █████, ████████ ‘████████’. SCP-7390 must ████ ██ ████████ by authorised members of Distributed Task Force Epsilon-7 ('Sign Here Please') Division 6 ('Guns 'n Roses'), ███ ████ ██ █ █████████ ████-██████. ███ ████████████ ███████████ ██████████ ██ ███████ SCP-7390 are to be terminated on sight. The security protocols for ‘████████’ must be strictly enforced; as a result, the unredacted version of this file is restricted to Level 5/Logistics, with all potentially-sensitive information redacted at general Level 5 clearance and below. ----- [[=]] ++ Description [[/=]] SCP-7390 is the Carroll Engine, a ████████████ ████████████ produced by Project █████ ████ █████████ ██ █ semi-autonomous defensive system. The design, technology, and functions of SCP-7390 derive from ███ ████-███/██ ‘███████ ██████ ██████’, █ ███████-████████, significantly more robust ███████ ██ ███ ███████████ ███████████ ██████ (███), which appears to incorporate ██████████ from an SCP-████ throughout it; further information regarding ████ ██████ is available in the documentation of Project █████. █████ ██████, SCP-7390 induces a ███████ ████████████ █████ ███████ ███ ████████ ███████ ██, ███ ███████ randomly-selected aircraft, resulting in ███ ██████████ ██ ████ ███████████, ███ ███ ████████ ██████████████ occupying the ████ █████████ ████████. This causes a temporary ███████ ██ █████████ ████████ ███████ ████; in essence, any ████████ █████████ ██████ ████████ ██ ██████ ████████, such as projectile fire, weather hazards, or anomalous influence, will instead ██████ ███ █████ ███████, ███ ████-█████. This enables the SCP-7390 ████████ ██ ██████ ████████████ ██████████ ███ ██████████████ at the expense of ███ █████ aircraft, and consequent ██████ ███████████ ██ ███ █████████ ██ ████████; as a result, SCP-7390 is intended for use only as a last-resort. For the duration of ████ █████, all individuals and recording devices within and around ████ ████████ ████ hear a stuttered, metallic scraping or wheezing noise; ████ ██ █ ██████████████ ██ ███ ███████ ██████ ██████ ████ ███ ████ ███████████████ preserved in SCP-7390. The cause is unknown. Due to ███ ████████, ███ ███ ██ SCP-7390 is theorised to be directly responsible for an unknown number of historically (███ ████, ███████████) significant aircraft losses, potentially including; * The disappearance of █████ ██████ ███████, █ ████ ████ (suspected translocation due to anomalous influence, █████████ ████ ██ ████ 2020); * ████████ ████████ ██████ ███, a civilian aircraft that disappeared while en-route from █████ ██████ to ███████, █ █████ ████ (suspected artillery fire, █████████ ████ ██ ███████ 2023); * ‘██████ ██’, a series of ███ ██████ ████ ████ ████ ██ ███ Bermuda Triangle (suspected systems interference caused by SCP-████, █████████ ████ ██ ████████ 2024). ----- ----- [[div class="blockquote" style="padding: 30px"]] [[=]] +++ Aegis Ending (3/4) ||||||||~ [https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-7390 Start] || ||||||||~ [https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-7390/offset/1 Heads] / [https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-7390/offset/2 Tails] || ||||= [https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-7390/offset/3 Heads] ||||~ [https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-7390/offset/4 Tails] || || [https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-7390/offset/5 Heads (1/4)] || [https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-7390/offset/6 Tails (2/4)] ||~ [https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-7390/offset/7 Heads (3/4)] || [https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-7390/offset/8 Tails (4/4)] || [[/=]] [[/div]]