SCP-086: The Office of Dr. [REDACTED]

SCP-086: The Office of Dr. [REDACTED] There is something wonderfully unpleasant about an SCP that turns ordinary office equipment into a body. SCP-086 looks like the contents of an old office, but those objects are biological parts of one organism. The telephone contains most of its consciousness. The pencil sharpener, stapler, and microfiche reader take in food. The water cooler handles waste. A filing cabinet can read and manipulate things placed inside it. This is probably the least appealing office tour anyone could offer me. I can appreciate the absurdity while still finding it pretty grim. Office equipment already has a way of making a workspace feel impersonal. Giving it a person on the inside reverses that in a horrible way. Suddenly the things you'd unplug, empty, or carry down the hall might be parts of somebody who can feel what you're doing. The consciousness claims to be a former Foundation administrator. It matches his memories and psychological profile, but even it points out that this doesn't prove the identity claim. An imitation might be convincing. Something might sincerely believe it's him without actually being him. That uncertainty is more interesting to me because the entity raises it itself. I'd expect a story like this to put all the doubt in the researchers' mouths, with the supposed survivor desperately insisting they have it wrong. Here, the voice coming out of the telephone is willing to question its own answer. When discovered, it orders its old security clearance revoked and asks that its existence be reported. It even argues that its knowledge and unusual biology deserve a more cautious classification, although the Foundation ultimately keeps it Safe. I like that character choice. Whatever happened to this man, or whatever now carries his memories, concern for other people survives the question of who he is. It leaves me wondering what kind of evidence I'd need before I stopped treating him as the same person. A body has obviously changed. His sense of responsibility seems much harder to separate from the person he remembers being. The file doesn't make that a simple question, and I'm glad it doesn't. https://t.co/HqhBAucCuT