Commander McGrath, one of the most influential
members of Mobile Task Force Alpha-1, better known as the Red Right Hand,
had been summoned by his masters for one of the most important missions of
his life. It was so above top secret, even he would likely need to undergo amnestic
treatment once he’d seen the job through. It comes with the territory when
you’re dealing with SCP-006. The Red Right Hand is no ordinary Mobile
Task Force, either. They were the personal enforcers of the O5 Council, the thirteen
most powerful members of the SCP Foundation, and by extension, some of the most
powerful human beings on earth. Commander McGrath stood
before the assembled Council, trying to suppress the tremors of
fear and awe running through him. He’d gone toe to toe with SCP-076, Able, one
of the finest humanoid warriors ever known, during one of his many containment breaches.
He’d led strike forces after a fleeing SCP-682, the Hard to Destroy Reptile, after it escaped
its acid tank and began charging towards the nearest populated area intent on causing
mass death. He’d personally taken out more people than you’ve probably even met, all
at the behest of his Foundation superiors. And yet, standing right here, before them, he
couldn’t help feel a twinge of deep terror. It was like staring right into the face
of God, and waiting for it to blink. With his well-honed military observation skills,
he noted that O5-2 wasn’t among the council this time, but he knew better than to ask why. He was
employed to take orders, not ask questions. And this time, his orders were something special:
He wasn’t given any more information than this… “McGrath, we need you to lead an
elite team to Astrakhan in Russia, on the double. Procedure 006 is now
in effect. You know what to do.” McGrath nodded. He’d been prepared for this
day. His predecessor, Commander Richards, had only needed to enact Procedure 006 once in his
long and storied career with the Red Right Hand. It was truly a once in a lifetime assignment, and now, the torch had been passed to him. The
only question was whether he’d be up to the task, but McGrath didn’t have time to ponder on
this question. Time was of the essence. First, he needed to assemble a team - small, but
focused. Loyal men who’d keep their heads down, complete the mission, and take the forbidden
knowledge no further than the bounds of said mission. McGrath selected three
operatives: Bennett, DiMaggio, and Stuart, all of whom had proven valuable
assets in prior missions. They would be the ones to accompany him on this most valuable
and secretive of directives: Procedure 006 But before they could execute the mission
itself, they needed to be trained, briefed, and fitted with the proper equipment.
For a mission this sensitive, and dealing with an anomaly as deadly as SCP-006, they needed
to wear modified Class VI BNC suits. These are the ultimate, total-exclusion hazmat suits,
designed specifically by the SCP Foundation. They offered such a degree of protection that
they made regular hazmat suits look like bikinis. Commander McGrath actually knew
very little about SCP-006 and how it worked. Like many of the more top-secret
anomalies contained by the Foundation, only the O5 Council understood the full scope
of it. Everyone below them were only told the specific fragments of information they needed
to do their job. After all, filling your head with the wrong kinds of knowledge can get your
memory wiped, or worse, at the SCP Foundation. SCP-006, as far as Commander McGrath knew,
was the more traditional kind of toxic. He’d been briefed using the SCP-006B Infopack,
a heavily redacted description of 006: Safe Class, liquid in nature, but one
of the most toxic substances known to man. It made mercury and uranium look like a
glass of mineral water. And more dangerous still, if someone came into contact with even
the tiniest quantity of SCP-006’s liquids, they would not only be marked for certain death,
they would also become a vector for transmission. A veritable plague rat. A
walking danger to all mankind. That’s why the Class VI BNC suits needed to be
tested. McGrath, Bennett, DiMaggio, and Stuart suited up in a secure Foundation training facility
and fully submerged themselves in a training pool. This was how they made sure that there
were no vulnerabilities in the suits. If any bubbles were generated, it meant
there was a leak. And if there was a leak, then the person wearing the defective suit was
as good as dead when they reached the real 006. Lucky for them, no leaks. They were ready
to proceed to the next stage of the mission: Making their way to Astrakhan, Russia, where
SCP-006 was contained. The pressure was on, with the council growing more impatient by the moment,
so they needed to make the journey immediately. Every minute counted, and Commander McGrath
was painfully aware of the time slipping away. Though he couldn’t possibly fathom why they’d
need a toxic chemical like this with such urgency. They made their journey in a covert cargo plane.
It was beyond important to keep all Foundation activity around SCP-006 under wraps. A number
of Group of Interest cells were active in the area - including the Church of the Broken God
and the Serpent’s Hand. And if ever the dreaded Chaos Insurgency caught wind of SCP-006’s
existence and triangulated its location, the damage it could do would
be unprecedented. That’s why nobody but the O5 Council could truly be
trusted with this almost sacred knowledge. When they touched down in Astrakhan, they met with
a Foundation courier who would take them on the final leg of their journey to the Foundation
site, roughly 60 kilometers West of the town. McGrath and his team had no idea what they were
heading towards, or the insane history of the land they traversed, all because of SCP-006.
The Foundation had first become aware of the anomaly back during the 19th century, but
were unable to gain control of it until 1991, due to it being fiercely guarded by a
procession of territorial Russian rulers. The blood of hundreds of thousands had been
spilled on this land in historic wars and conflicts over SCP-006. So many had wasted their
entire lives unsuccessfully trying to find it. During the several hour car trip to the
site, Commander McGrath had no idea of the true value of the anomaly he and
his small team were heading towards. But he would, in time. Though an
innocent would have to die first. The courier dropped the four operatives off
outside an abandoned chemical plant in the styx, far from what anyone would call civilization.
It was the kind of industrial decay you could expect in the badlands of rural Russia, a
huge complex, weathered and broken by time. But what the untrained observer wouldn’t
realize is that the plant was actually full of heavily-trained, and even more
heavily armed Foundation security personnel. As McGrath’s team approached the
building, they had no less than eight sniper rifles pointed at them from
various vantage points within the plant, just to be safe. The Foundation couldn’t
afford to take any chances with SCP-006. They arrived at the gate and provided their
clearance credentials. They were envoys, here on behalf of the O5 Council themselves, and
if they weren’t allowed to complete their mission, then the 006 personnel would have the
death of a Council member on their hands. With that, the team was given a free pass into
the site, under close observation. Anyone seeking to interface SCP-006 was forced to do so under
almost microscopic scrutiny. Even when inside the building, McGrath and his men needed to pass
multiple secure checkpoints throughout the halls, each time restating their security credentials. Eventually, they reached a different
section of the building. Forbidding, anonymous hallways gave way to what seemed
like a mix of a garden and a jungle. But the plants were...different. The trees, the
shrubs, even the weeds, were unlike anything members of the team had ever seen before.
It was like stepping into an alien world, or perhaps this would, but as it was a few million
years prior. It was terrifying and wondrous. They suited up in their Class VI BNC suits,
fearing airborne contaminants from SCP-006, before proceeding further. They walked through
this new jungle, being watched at every turn by security cameras and personnel posted throughout
this overgrown portion of the facility. It didn’t take long for them to reach
their destination, the legendary SCP-006: A small natural spring jutting out of a
rock, surrounded by rich, emerald grass. It looked more like a nice place to have a picnic
than a dangerous and highly secretive anomaly, but McGrath wasn’t paid to question things, only
to carry out Procedure 006. The only object they had with them was a Quad-Sealant Container,
an ultra-secure liquid containment unit specifically designed for safely transporting
samples of SCP-006’s water between sites. The team members descended into the spring,
and began filling up the container. It was nerve-wracking, knowing the stakes of their
mission, and knowing that they were submerged in such a deadly substance. But they had
a job to do, and they were going to do it, come hell or high water. They
filled the containment unit, but sadly for McGrath and his team, this
mission wouldn’t be entirely without casualty. A single bubble rose from
the leg of Stuart’s suit. He was a good MTF Operative, but the youngest
and least experienced member of the team. His suit must have been somehow
damaged during transit, and now, he was compromised. He shared a haunted glance
with McGrath and his fellow team members, knowing that his part of the mission, and his life,
was about to come to a swift and violent end. Alarms rang out across the facility. A huge
team of armed operatives, all wearing Class VI BNC suits, charged into the room. Stuart was
grabbed and manhandled out of the 006 spring, while his fellow team members sealed the
containment unit and continued their mission. There was no time to stop, rest, or mourn.
Completing the mission was the absolute priority. If McGrath understood the protocol
as well as he thought he did, Stuart would be dragged into a secure room by
the site staff, and locked in with a blast door. He would look down and notice the floor below
him was a metal grate, caked with ash. His last thoughts, as the incinerator launches it’s
flames into action, would strangely be that he was feeling the healthiest he’d been in
years. But that wouldn’t stop the sudden furnace around him from decimating his body and
leaving little more than ash and charred bones. Over a decade of loyal MTF
service, ended in an instant. Stuart would have been terminated. According
to orders from the top, it was all that could be done for those affected by SCP-006. A
mercy, really, if they were to be believed. McGrath and his team soldiered on. After
retrieving the sample, they were hurried back to their inception point: One of the many classified
bases occupied by the O5 Council members. While DiMaggio and Bennett were ushered off
to be given amnestic treatment, McGrath would personally get to see the containment unit and its
precious cargo make the final leg of the journey. He was going to be granted access to O5-2,
the person this had all been in service of. Commander McGrath approached the
secure quarters of the Council member, escorted by a bevy of heavily
armed security personnel. The doors opened, and he saw her there, O5-2.
Bedridden, laying at the center of a grand web of life-saving technology. She was beyond
old and decrepit - Commander McGrath could see the centuries she’d endured written deeply
in the wrinkles and scars of her ancient face. She didn’t look like one of the most powerful
people in the world, she looked like one of the most feeble. Her eyes lit up when McGrath
entered the room holding the containment unit. She beckoned him closer, until he was close
enough for her to take the containment unit from him with scarred, trembling hands. McGrath
watched in horror, as she disengaged the lid, and swigged down the entirety of its contents. But wasn’t the water toxic? He thought. McGrath had been fed the same lie as everybody
else. The Foundation didn’t keep 006 such a well-guarded secret because it was capable of
bringing death. Quite the opposite, in fact. All Commander McGrath could do was stare,
awestruck, as the years seemed to fall from O5-2’s face. Decades and decades and decades. Scars
faded. Wrinkles disappeared. Little by little, O5-2 began to sit, and then stand. By the time
she was straightening her clothes, she looked like a healthy woman in her mid-forties.
It was a complete and total transformation. The liquid of SCP-006 has a plethora of benefits
to human subjects: the ability to regenerate damaged DNA, by heightened excitement of cellular
duplication, and producing a frightening increase in the effectiveness of the human immune system.
Even upon testing the liquid on animal subjects, hostile bacteria and viral agents
were destroyed immediately. Members of the O5 Council are experts at cheating
death, and SCP-006 is just another ace hidden up their sleeve in that endless battle against
the reaper. A secret so well-guarded that they’re willing to terminate even their most loyal
servants to keep it safe. After all, if everyone knew about it, everyone would want it, and the
O5 Council are very invested in exclusivity. Never normally one to rise above his station,
Commander McGrath couldn’t help blurt out, “But...if it was all a lie...Private Stuart…” “Is perfectly alive. All smoke and mirrors, you
see. And like everyone who works a 006 mission, he won’t remember a thing. Good work, Commander
McGrath,” O5-2, now in perfect health, replied. “Now return to your post, after a visit to our
boys in Amnestics. There’s still plenty to be done, and we can’t afford to dilly-dally.
After all, you’re not getting any younger…” Now go check out “Secret Group that Runs the World
- SCP O5 Council Explained” and “How to Work at the SCP Foundation Explained” for more of the
SCP Foundation’s most classified inner workings!
