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Nines (Dr. ██████ "Phoenix" ████████ )
Art by shininguponthestars | |
|---|---|
| About | |
| Creator | lilyveselka |
| Usage | Provide attribution (tag me!) |
| Pronouns | She/her |
| Age | Unknown |
| Aliases | Phoenix, Nines, 963 |
| Affiliations | GOC (former), Foundation (present) |
| Position | DCOM researcher |
- Doctor Glass
Profile
She responds to being called "963," but prefers the diminutive "Nines," since it makes her feel a little bit less dehumanized. If she's close enough to someone, she'll let them call her Phoenix, which is her old GOC call sign. Most of her original identity has been forgotten across the hundreds of iterations she's gone through, and anything about her old life has been redacted heavily enough by her higher-ups that it doesn't even ring a bell for her. Her call sign is one of the only things she remembers, along with a collection of random snapshots of memories that she can't quite manage to sort, so "Phoenix" is the closest thing she has to a real name. Her original body was female, and she considers herself a woman no matter what body she takes, although she'll begrudgingly accept whatever pronouns match her current form.
Unstable and electric, Nines embodies the most chaotic parts of immortality. She can't trust her mind, can't leave containment, and suffers very few lasting consequences — as a result, she'll do just about anything to feel like she isn't trapped in a cage. Starved for sensation and connection, she'll indulge in sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll, intense gambling, or even increasingly dramatic and painful suicide methods, as long as it makes her feel like she's something close to "alive." With each new body — and, let's be honest, there are a lot of them — pieces of her original mind get left behind, replaced with a patchwork of all the people she's killing just to stay alive. She's scared that she's losing herself. Or maybe that she's already lost herself. Or maybe that there was never a "self" to lose in the first place. Instead of facing that fear, though, she just pushes it down and distracts herself by throwing herself headlong into anything that will have her.
Nines is distrustful and abrasive, usually failing to get along with her colleagues, since she sees them more as jailers than anything else. Even when she's shown genuine kindness, she's been betrayed enough times that she sees it as some kind of manipulation — and at this point, genuine kindness is few and far between, given the number of bridges she's burned with her constant manic behavior. The only person who's willing to keep on sticking his neck out for her is her current psychologist, Dr. Glass, who sees her as a project to be fixed and is willing to put himself on the line to prove that growth can happen.
…Yeah, she doesn't get along with him very well, either. Even when he's not trying to save her from the person she's actively choosing to be, she lets her mistrust and hostility get the better of her, and she tends to start problems just to watch him try to clean them up. She's also drinking buddies with Dr. Clef, whose intentional outrageousness really strikes a chord with her; she likes to call him "old man" just to rile him up, even though she's decades older than him, and all things considered, he's probably the closest thing to a friend that she has around here.
SCP Classification
Special Containment Procedures
Item #: SCP-963
Object Class: Keter
Containment Procedures:
SCP-963-A instances are to be held in a standard humanoid containment cell. An instance is only permitted to exit its holding cell if it is accompanied by at least one member of Foundation personnel with minimum Level 3 clearance. [EDIT 7/█/2003: SCP-963-A instances have been granted unrestricted access to all non-clearance areas in Site-17, contingent upon cooperation with Foundation restrictions. Any attempt to exit Site-17 premises is to be met with deadly force.]
If possible, lobotomizing or inducing coma in an instance is recommended, as this will prevent SCP-963-A from attempting to intentionally infect new host bodies through self-mutilation.
Any body that SCP-963-A is inhabiting is to be given a stay of execution until it experiences spontaneous brain death. This should be a period of approximately every two years. Additionally, SCP-963-A is on indefinite suicide watch, and may not access any sharp objects or other potentially dangerous articles. However, per request from the psychiatry department, SCP-963-A is only required to attend monthly counseling meetings, rather than the standard daily or weekly.
Description
SCP-963 is a simple, coin-like disk, 35 millimeters in diameter. It is composed of an unknown metal alloy, although testing has revealed that a significant quantity of that metal is tungsten. The front side of the disk is slightly convex, with a decorative rim around the outside and a single red diode at its center. The back is a blank face with a single puncture hole. Through this opening, an internal 3-millimeter hollow-point needle will extend and retract. Besides this, SCP-963 is completely smooth and featureless.
When the flat side of the disk is placed against the exposed flesh of an adult human subject, the diode will immediately light up solid red. The needle will extend, piercing the subject's skin and injecting a mild paralytic; after approximately █ seconds, strands of biologically compatible silica glass will begin to "grow" from the puncture site into the host body, mimicking the pattern of the human nervous system. SCP-963 cannot be removed from the host at this point without invasive surgery.
Once these strands reach the central nervous system, they will begin to physically overwrite the brain matter of the subject, replacing the body's existing neurons with a new neural schematic. This pattern is derived from and identical to the brain schema of Dr. ██████ ████████, who will be referred to from this point as SCP-963-A. Once the silica glass conjoins with the nervous system, the subject should be considered an instance of SCP-963-B.
[EDIT 9/█/19██: The SCP-963-A pattern is not truly identical. Schemata that fail to manifest properly in a body are replaced with similar neural information from whatever host 963-A is currently inhabiting. This new personality matrix will be replicated into the next 963-B instance, rather than the original schematic. Unclear how 963 determines what information is replicated.]
Request that potential 963 host bodies are no longer selected from D-Class to avoid potentially dangerous neural degradation.
For approximately a week after initial contact, SCP-963-B instances will be able to continue daily activities as normal, maintaining their own brain and nerve function. This period may be up to 17 days if SCP-963 is attached to an extremity rather than to the torso or head, and may be as short as 3 days if SCP-963 is attached directly to the nape of the neck. It is common for SCP-963-B instances to report "tingling" or "pins and needles" radiating outwards from the point where SCP-963 has attached itself to their body.
After this period, the nervous system is fully conjoined. The 963-B instance will begin experiencing severe and rapid changes to personality and mood over a span of approximately two days. 963-B instances may report intense migraine-like pain, flashes in their vision, periods of unconsciousness, hallucinations, feelings that do not belong to them, difficulties with short-term memory, and other physical or psychological symptoms. This is normal in all cases, and should be ignored for the purposes of containment. These symptoms will subside once the SCP-963-A personality has fully replaced that of the original SCP-963-B instance, and any instability will no longer be present. The instance should now be considered a replica of SCP-963-A.
[EDIT 5/█/20██: I would not personally describe Nines to be "stable." -SG]
The synthetic fibers growing throughout the body will, for a period of time (typically between 6-9 months, although this can vary greatly), augment the physical capabilities of the host, granting the 963-A instance qualities such as enhanced reflex speed, stamina, and strength. Following this, the fibers will begin impacting muscle and organ tissue, as well as occasionally perforating bone; once this process begins, it is common for SCP-963-A to report incrementally increasing levels of chronic pain, fatigue, weakness, and difficulty with completing ADLs. This is normal in all cases, and should be ignored for the purposes of containment. The body will remain capable of maintaining itself until approximately two years have passed, at which point the damage is great enough that brain death occurs in all specimens. In some cases, fatal perforation of vital organs may occur before this point; it is recommended that, in these cases, the SCP-963-A instance is to be kept alive through biomedical means for as long as possible (i.e. until the brain itself is nonfunctioning).
Following brain death, the SCP-963 object will retract the central needle and drop from the host body, leaving all synthetically created biomass inside the previous host. When not attached to a body, the diode's light is off.
[EDIT 2/█/19██: Total brain death is not necessary for SCP-963 to disconnect and begin searching for its next host. Via testing, it has been determined that this effect can also occur if more than approximately 80% of the subject's brain matter is destroyed. A lower level of cerebral damage may be induced without a new host being required. In cases where a meaningful portion of the subject's brain remains operational, it is recommended that the SCP-963-A instance be kept alive through biomedical means until total brain death.]
Individuals coming into skin contact with SCP-963 while it is not attached to an instance report feeling a "connection" to the object, as well as a strong desire to place it on their person (particularly on their neck or back, closest to the spinal column). It is unknown what causes this property; a low-grade memetic quality is theorized but unconfirmed. Personnel should refrain from interacting with the SCP-963 item directly. Any personnel who attempt to place SCP-963 on their person without prior consent from the O5 Council are to be immediately terminated.
Background
SCP-963-A, or Dr. ██████ "Phoenix" ████████, was an early PTOLEMY operative with the Global Occult Coalition, specializing in technological development. She is of Irish Catholic descent, and is believed to have grown up in San Francisco prior to the 1906 earthquake; she was one of the first women to work with the GOC immediately following its inception in 194█. She defected from her position on █/█/19██, following her creation of, and subsequent synthesis with, SCP-963. SCP-963 was located and recovered by the Foundation following numerous civilian reports of missing persons and [DATA EXPUNGED]; however, Dr. ████████'s body was never found, nor were any of the [DATA EXPUNGED].
From 19██ until 19██, SCP-963 was kept in artifact storage at Site ██. However, per recommendation from the ethics department, SCP-963-A has been allowed to retain a room in humanoid containment in exchange for its continued cooperation with Foundation testing and containment procedures, and it may be permitted to engage in relevant subjects of research alongside Foundation staff. At present, due to its expertise and work history in the field, SCP-963-A is authorized to work with the Decommissioning Department (DCOM) as an asset to their research and development team. Ongoing monitoring of its behavior is still required.
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