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POI-4062: Professor D██ T███

May be attempting to use anomalous resources in the construction of artificial intelligence. It is unknown at this time whether the anomalies will be used in the programming of the AI or simply to prolong the longevity of the hardware. Professor T███ is not known to be affiliated with any major groups of interest at this time. Since he does not pose any significant threat at this time, surveillance will be maintained, but no direct action will be taken.

Present Day



I finished typing my report and hit “Send to database”. Once I clicked it, I waited until I saw the usual “pending approval” notice before closing the program.

I sat back and sighed. Why did I need to do research on this guy anyway? I was supposed to be specializing in memetics. It’d been two years, I’d finally turned 18, I should be out of “training” and doing my own thing by now. Granted, I had learned a lot since they took me in after the incident... but I still wished that they would let me do more things that I wanted to do. I guess they looked down on me because I was young. I didn’t blame them. I’d interacted with people my age.

I was about to open Skyrim; that had been my last bit of work, and my wife Mjoll and I had some adventuring to do. Until the alarm went off.

“All personnel, proceed to your evacuation shelters immediately. Repeat, all personnel, proceed to your evacuation shelters immediately.”

I quickly gathered my stuff and started to hurriedly make my way to the evacuation shelter. Too hurriedly, though. Like a horror movie cliché, I tripped and fell down on absolutely nothing. I managed to get up, but then found myself pinned to the wall by an alien-looking entity.

I knew what it was. It was the most high-risk entity we contained at our site. It had shown signs of higher-dimensional travels, but no signs of hostility.

Until now.

It looked piercingly into my eyes, its head at a strange angle. “There are plans for you.” It said in the most creepily calm and stoic voice, and then everything went black.

12,000 years later

My name was Kira Yumatori.



Was.

I grew up like any other Octoling: oppressed and militaristic. We were taught only what we might need to know on the battlefield or supporting those who would be.

Once or twice I thought about asking “Why?” But those thoughts were quickly pushed down by the brainwashing and the hypnotic music that supplemented it.

I wished I knew more about the music. I felt like I should. I always felt... different like that. Like there was another part of me that knew more things than I should.

Those thoughts were quickly pushed back down, too.

Until that day.

Our leader, DJ Octavio, was going to be battling an inkling who had been terrorizing us and stealing our power sources. The squid was there to try and take our ultimate power source, the Great Zapfish, back for itself.

We all watched the battle eagerly, hoping for its defeat.

Until we heard that song.

Something clicked into place.

Honestly, my first thought was just “It sounds pentatonic”. An inconsequential thought.

But I didn’t know what pentatonic meant.

Until I did. I knew everything. Or, it felt like everything.

I clutched my head. I could barely stop myself from screaming right there and then. I was flooded with memories, with knowledge, of inconsequentiality and of importance.

They must have missed me, curled up on the ground, desperately trying to figure out what was going on.

When I finally was able to get up, everyone was gone. The inklings, the zapfish, the other Octarians, everyone.

And I was finally able to ask myself, “Why do we deserve all the resources? Why shouldn’t they be spread equally?”

I was... free.

I met others who had been freed by the song called Calamari Inkantation. They too were questioning everything that they had had drilled into them since they were able to understand.

But none of them were like me. None of them had these thousands of memories to sift through, figuring out what happened.

I began trying to write down everything I remembered.

My name was Caroline Gentara. I was a junior researcher for the SCP Foundation. I had been killed or transferred or something by an entity that had breached containment.

I was... human. But not anymore.

We had learned some about humans, mostly because their structures and remains still existed alongside us. But we had been taught little other than they were destroyed long ago.

But I had been one. A very long time ago.

Then who was I, really? My body was still Octarian. I still remembered growing up, overpowered by the memetic music.

Yet now I knew it was memetic.

I spent two years trying to sort it out.

First, I started writing down every little fact I could remember. I had hated reading books by Charles Dickens in high school. The lyrics to Bohemian Rhapsody. Even as much of the Bee Movie script I could remember. But I just couldn’t catalogue everything. And... it wasn’t helping my identity to write this all down. I still was confused to who I was. I didn’t know if I was Caroline Gentara, or Kira Yumatori.

For two years I searched for anything. Some kind of reason for all of this. Maybe a way out, a way to get back to the old Foundation site. I knew where it was. Maybe some data had survived.

But on the day I was finally close to getting out... something happened.

I was walking towards my destination, checking my map occasionally, when suddenly I was attacked. Two inklings, an older one and one who looked about my age, seemed to have mistaken me for hostile. I tried to tell them I wasn’t going to hurt them but before I could finish I felt something ensnare me, a strange, different sensation, and then everything faded away.

I woke up slowly, feeling cold stone ground beneath me. When I opened my eyes, I saw the older inkling who had been fighting me standing over me. I quickly shrieked and jumped back, pressing myself against a wall.

I guess he realized that I wasn’t a threat to him, and because we both agreed that we had no idea where the hell we were, we decided to work together to find a way out.

He introduced himself as Captain Cuttlefish, and then we got moving.

The area seemed to be some kind of subway. The only trains we saw were non-functioning, but there were train tracks everywhere.

Maybe we could take the train out.

After clearing the way a little bit, we found what looked to be a station, but there was still no train. There was, however, a telephone. It looked to be from the early 20th century of humanity, said my old memories.

It started ringing.

There was nothing to do but answer it.

(Edit: It has come to my attention that Yumatori is the name of a Yu-gi-oh ship. My character's last name is not a reference to that.)