Item #: SCP-1873-JP
Object Class: Keter Safe Neutralized
Special Containment Procedures: N/A
Description: SCP-1873-JP is a roughly human-shaped bronze statue, approximately 1.7 meters in height, created by GOI-012 "Marshall, Carter and Dark Ltd." and GOI-565 "La Roue de Fortune"1. Its head, torso, and legs are carved with a (possibly intentional) crude, barely human outline, making it impossible to determine the age, gender, ethnicity, and other external characteristics. By contrast, its arms have been sculpted with extreme precision, which the Foundation art critics have described as representing a genuine admiration for the skills and achievements of the person on whom this statue was modeled after.
SCP-1873-4. When a person carrying this painting walks down an alleyway, they experience an accumulative spatial extension that maintains a consistent landscape.
SCP-1873-JP is activated at irregular intervals and begins autonomous activity despite the lack of machinery or power to make it possible. Its behavior is typically limited to repetition of uniform gestures and seemingly pointless wandering. However, only when appropriate art materials are present in the vicinity, it will initiate creative activities with them. Four campus oil paintings (SCP-1873-JP-4 to 7) obtained in the initial post-containment experiments all show anomalous properties, and their painting techniques are consistent with those of PoI-4636 "Carolina Cáceres". At present, attempts to communicate with SCP-1873-JP have not been successful, and it is unclear whether the object has any significant intelligence.
Discovery: SCP-1873-JP was recovered along with several anart works (SCP-1873-JP-1 to 3) during a raid by Mobile Task Force μ-3 on an MC&D affiliated facility in 2000. As ritualistic markings consisting of a myriad of unknown symbols were found at the scene, SCP-1873-JP is believed to have been implanted with or reproduced with a high accuracy in the painting technique of PoI-4636 through anomalous means.
Recovered Documents:
The following are transcripts of correspondence between La Roue de Fortune member "Albert Hoover" and MC&D employee "Louis Burton", presumably referring to the origins of SCP-1873-JP.
To Louis
I would like to sincerely thank you for all the favors you have offered me in doing this trip, and I want to apologize for the delay in telling you about it. Please forgive me, as I have been so depressed for a while since my return that I haven't been in the mood to hold a pen, or even a chisel.
To summarize, my original goal of saying a final goodbye to Cara was not fulfilled. When I arrived at the church you specified, that little basilica… I couldn't regard what I saw there as Cara. There was only the image of the Virgin Mary, and there was nothing else left that could be called Cara. It was already nothing more than a mass of flesh in the same form. Since I kept looking away from her, who was being consumed by the disease, I didn't realize such a simple fact until I actually saw it in person.
It is no longer possible to exchange thoughts with her, and her fingers are unable to paint a bright vision of the world. For us it is an unbearable pain. The world is devoid of this one color and has lost its former liveliness. The vision of the future and part of the passion we had in my youth is gone with her, and it will never return.
Where should we go in a world without Cara?
My dear Albert
I'm sorry that I've caused you so much grief because of my undue care. We, too, are saddened by the loss of a great artist. I have enclosed a check for your comfort, though I am afraid that it might not be helpful. I hope it could assist in healing your heart, even if only a little.
I can still vividly recall the day I first met Cara. In the spring of 1963, the pastureland of Kars — I saw a small mountain of wool. Cara's canvas was about to be completed, and then it replaced the entire surrounding hillside with wool that was rooted in the ground. Young fellows were sent out to rescue the female painter buried in it, and that was my first job as a new employee. When the sun touched the ridge line, the wool of a century's worth of work was sheared, and I began to seriously plan my escape from the hardship, we finally dug out who we wanted.
Can you believe what she was doing then? She was finishing up her work in a ball of wool that makes it difficult to move or even breathe. I was truly ashamed of myself for having only taken a lowly interest in her beauty that I had heard so much about. At that time, I became one of those who were fascinated not by her outer shell, but by her inner radiance. The sight of her painting made me think that she would never let go of her brush, and she was in fact a great painter until the end of her career.
That's why I think it's too sad to call this her end.
There is a container that once had Cara in it, right? It's just a husk as you say, but from it we may be able to extract a fragment of her former glory. We have the means and the experience to make it possible. If we have your approval, we would like you all to undertake one commission — that is, the construction of a vessel capable of housing the soul of one great artist.
Her spirit will be freed from the yoke of flesh, and the wheelroue will begin to spin again. Carolina Cáceres will have the opportunity to show her true worth to all without distortion.
Louis Burton
In order to evade MC&D's request for the return of SCP-1873-JP under the SUSEOCT7, the External Affairs Department consistently denied involvement in the raid and ownership of SCP-1873-JP. Accordingly, the information relating to SCP-1873-JP was classified; however, MC&D soon launched a series of attacks to retake the SCP-1873-JP. This started with spying and infiltration at the containment site, intensified into more direct means such as intimidation and bribery of personnel, and eventually resulted in an armed assault by a group of mercenaries.
Citing growing tensions and concerns about the continuation of SUSEOCT, the O5 Council voted to hand over SCP-1873-JP to MC&D, with several conditions. In an arranged meeting, MC&D agreed to the terms of the transaction, under which MC&D would provide their assets and connections for several hard-to-containment cases in return for the Foundation's "commitment to the search and discovery of SCP-1873-JP". An agreement was reached under which the Foundation would allow MC&D to retain possession of SCP-1873-JP and to trade in its byproducts for as long as this collaboration was maintained.
After 87 days from the handover of SCP-1873-JP, MC&D unilaterally notified the Foundation that they were terminating the agreement. MC&D declined to state the reason, but subsequent information suggested that MC&D had had some kind of trouble with La Roue de Fortune members over SCP-1873-JP. It is believed that this caused SCP-1873-JP to no longer be considered a valuable asset to MC&D. SCP-1873-JP was returned to the Foundation's custody and remained in a state of long-term inactivity thereafter.
Recovered Document:
PoI-5222
The following is a transcription of a letter sent to several members of La Roue de Fortune from one of its oldest members, PoI-5222 "Thaddeus Abakanowicz", who had essentially retired from creative work by then8. PoI-5222 was found dying alone in his home a few days after the letter was posted, and was secretly buried by a group of people who claimed to be his friends, probably La Roue de Fortune members. These events roughly coincide with the time MC&D abandoned ownership of SCP-1873-JP and are believed to be related to the troubles that caused it. Notably, the caretakers and cleaners who entered PoI-5222's residence after his death mentioned several occult sigils left in the room.
The reason why this old bastard has strapped a pen to his hand to spell this out is not to apologize or excuse, much less express regret, for the actions I am about to take. It's just that I felt it would be a shame to let something extraneous lie between our friendships by causing you to walk away from the thoughts I hold.
We once were equally outraged at the deeds of those morons who were dazzled by the superficial beauty of Cara and committed the folly of disrespecting her art. Despite we were artists who had devoted our lives to the pursuit of beauty in color and form… no, that is why we found her value in the invisible, the unheard and the untouchable. Her personality, her intelligence and nobility, and her cultivated skills and capabilities… We believed that the intangible brilliance that transcends even the chemical reactions generated by the electrical signals and neurotransmitters in the brain is the truth and all of Carolina Cáceres, and that anything else is a deception that clouds the eyes —
Is it really so? If everything shapeless is shifted and lost, is there nothing precious in what was left behind? I disagree. Humans, the life, should never be that simple. Her hands are still warm, her heart is still pulsing, and her eyes are still looking back at us. That would be enough of a reason for us to be there for her.
Everything tangible decays, even the soul does not stay in one place. She and I will eventually go to where we should be. So until then — please. Please don't take anything from her.
Later investigations revealed the existence of a medical care facility that PoI-5222 frequently visited, and an elderly woman who identified herself as ████ ███████ (PoI-1873-JP), who recovered from an unexplained coma around the time of PoI-5222's death. Although PoI-1873-JP's biography did not reveal any significant flaws or association with anomalies, her unusual isolation meant that she lacked a third party to verify her actual existence. Directly questioning her about the validity of her identity was not possible due to her Alzheimer's disease, which was severely advanced at the time of her admission to the care facility in 1998.
PoI-1873-JP produced more than a thousand paintings during her subsequent life at the facility, but none of them showed anomalous properties, and attempts to find significant technical features failed due to their poor quality. Without confirmation of her true identity, PoI-1873-JP died of aspiration pneumonia in 2005, four years after her discovery.
Shortly after PoI-1873-JP's death, SCP-1873-JP was activated for the first time since its re-containment, and art supplies were provided for observation. Although SCP-1873-JP had frequent discrepancies with the optimized art supplies, it completed a portrait (SCP-1873-JP-8) that seemed to be modeled after the slightly younger PoI-1873-JP in about 220 hours. The painting technique found in SCP-1873-JP-8 differs from that of PoI-4636, and is rather similar to that of PoI-5222. After this activation, SCP-1873-JP did not exhibit any signs of activity and was reclassified to Neutralized class after a predetermined observation period.
SCP-1873-JP-8. Individuals who continue to look directly at this portrait in the vicinity will experience hallucinations spanning multiple senses, such as breathing, pulsing, and a faint sense of warmth.
