SCP-191: Cyborg Child

SCP-191: Cyborg Child SCP-191 breaks a video game disc during a test because she has trouble controlling her hands. Before the researcher can bring back another copy, she reads the data from the broken disc and gets the game running anyway. Then she apologizes and asks him not to be angry. She has done something the researchers couldn't do themselves, and she's still afraid she's going to get in trouble for it. That tells you quite a bit about this child before you get into the long list of things that have been done to her. Her body has been altered so extensively that the Foundation considers a full reconstruction impossible. A doctor used her for experimental surgery, replacing parts of her brain, limbs, senses and internal organs with machinery. Some of it gives her remarkable abilities. Some of it has left her unable to speak, move normally or eat ordinary food. Her exact age is redacted, along with the doctor's name and the group he was suspected of belonging to. Most of the left half of her face and skull has been removed. Her eye and ear on that side have been replaced with a system that can send and receive signals across the electromagnetic spectrum, from low-frequency radio through high-energy gamma rays. Her lower jaw, teeth and larynx are gone. She breathes through an air filter and receives nourishment through a tube at the back of her neck. Sometimes her breathing speeds up when she's distressed, but she can't talk. There's a device in her right forearm where the radius and ulna used to be. It has connections for USB, Ethernet, FireWire, DIN-8 and seven formats the Foundation doesn't recognize. A twenty-four-core processor array in her brain lets her read and write computer data through the implanted equipment. Fiber-optic cables run through her nervous system. Putting that equipment in damaged her brain stem and cerebellum. Her motor skills are badly impaired. Her right hand and lower right leg have also been replaced, and exposed tissue around the alterations is easily injured or infected. Nerve damage makes it harder for her to feel pain and temperature in her limbs. Reconstructive surgery has helped, but she still needs antibiotics and pain relief. https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-191 Adapted from “SCP-191” by “DrClef” and “Sylocat,” and “Experiment Log 191” by “Sylocat,” SCP Wiki. This adaptation is released under CC BY-SA 3.0. Her heart, lungs and major blood vessels are mechanical replacements. The Foundation says they could restart her bodily systems after death. The rest of that finding is redacted. Her digestive system has been changed enough that ordinary food is dangerous. Waste drains through a system in her lower back. Her reproductive organs were removed to make room for something else. The doctor's notes describe them as non-vital components. Hormone treatment has been proposed, but the Foundation is still considering possible complications. There are at least fifteen other modifications whose purpose the researchers don't understand, plus several redacted entries. They suspect the doctor was trying out procedures he intended to use on other subjects. He died in the raid that recovered her, leaving a half-burned notebook and some cryptic references to a higher purpose. There isn't enough left to settle what he was trying to accomplish. The Foundation and the Global Occult Coalition carried out that raid together. She was the only test subject recovered alive. The others were either killed by the doctor or killed as hostiles by the task force. Their disappearances were later blamed on a local serial killer, and his death in prison was arranged while he awaited trial. She's classified Safe and currently lives in a six-by-six-meter room at Site-17. It has a futon, a power outlet and a hazardous-waste system. Her clothes and bedding need regular sterilizing. Staff bathe her daily, feed her twice a day through the neck tube and check for injuries. She can manage some of her own care, including draining waste and charging her batteries. Changes in her power use have to be reported. Two armed guards must be in the room whenever personnel interact with her. Her components are protected against electromagnetic pulses, which makes the usual methods of disabling a computer ineffective. But Dr. Glass describes her behavior as docile and cooperative. When nobody is interacting with her, she mostly sits still or curls up. He thinks those positions may be easier for her physically. Conversation is difficult. She needs people to speak slowly and use simple words, and she needs to be walked through complicated tasks. That sits alongside an ability to process computer information extremely quickly. She appears sad, rarely makes eye contact unless asked and hasn't asked to see anyone she knew before her abduction. When she communicates through a computer, she says she feels well. The experiment log gives her a little more room to express herself, sometimes without meaning to. With a basic drawing program, she can copy photographs in seconds using only the pencil tool. After the test, researchers discover she has kept drawing in other files. She says she hadn't realized she was still doing it. One picture shows the raid and the death of the doctor who altered her. Another shows an adult taking a child trick-or-treating, with the girl wearing Frankenstein makeup. Some of the other material is redacted. Asked again how she's feeling, she says she's fine and that the drawings don't mean anything. The Wii experiment is the one with the broken disc. After reading its data directly and loading the game, she completes a perfect run without making the corresponding controller movements. Even when the researcher tells her she's doing well, she still seems worried about being reprimanded. Then the researchers try the sort of video enhancement that detective shows get away with. They give her cafeteria security footage and ask her to read distant license plates, fill in what's outside the frame and recreate the scene from another camera's position. It takes a lengthy explanation and step-by-step guidance before she understands the assignment. Once she gets started, she finishes in less than seven minutes, including at least three minutes spent waiting for the software to render. The results look convincing, but the missing information stays missing. She produces detailed license plates, complete with scratches and dents, that don't match the actual cars. She explains that she had to guess because the data wasn't there. The area she adds around the original video looks seamless and gets the cafeteria wrong. When she recreates the second camera's view, the visible information carries over accurately, but the parts hidden from the original camera have to be invented. In one of those invented areas, she puts the doctor and agent supervising her at a table having lunch together. A lip-reader studies the conversation. What they appear to be saying is redacted, but it makes the real doctor uncomfortable, and the agent declines to comment. The made-up license plates also include IAM-191 and 191-ISA, bringing her own designation into the scene. Several staff members can't tell her constructed footage from the real recordings. The experiment log begins with a reminder that she's a research tool. Then you get a child drawing pictures she didn't mean to draw, worrying about a broken disc and trying to keep the adults around her happy. The Foundation is keeping her alive and has done some work to ease her injuries. It also keeps measuring what she can do, while we learn very little about what she wants. She hasn't even asked for anything to furnish her room or keep her entertained.