SCP-073: Cain

SCP-073: Cain SCP-073 is someone you could apparently sit down and have a decent conversation with. He calls himself Cain, helps the staff, knows an enormous amount of history, and can remember an entire dictionary after quickly flipping through it. The Foundation even lets him walk around the facility and eat in the canteen. Then you get to the restrictions, and the picture becomes a lot more complicated. Anything grown in soil dies within twenty meters of him. The affected ground becomes barren until the necessary bacteria are reintroduced. Wood and paper break down when he touches them, and growing something hydroponically doesn't get around the problem. His surroundings have to accommodate an effect he doesn't seem able to simply switch off. Trying to hurt him is another problem. Damage directed at Cain comes back onto whoever caused it. Even taking a blood sample produces the researcher's own blood instead. Indirect methods don't avoid that reflection either. But Cain says he still feels the pain. That detail changes the way you look at those experiments. Watching him remain physically unharmed doesn't mean nothing happened to him. He's actually asked the researchers to stop putting him through particularly painful tests. His metal limbs and other artificial body parts bring up questions he says he can't answer. He doesn't remember receiving them. There's also a symbol on his forehead that visibly distresses him when people bring it up. The Foundation eventually decides to use his memory as a backup for its information in case of a catastrophe. He agrees to keep it secret. That's a huge responsibility to give somebody whose own past still has so many gaps. And when SCP-076 comes up, Cain recognizes the information but won't elaborate. His advice is that they shouldn't meet. The file leaves that warning hanging, alongside a man who seems willing to help people but can't safely share something as ordinary as a walk outside. https://t.co/mzVRecxizQ