SCP-4694
rating: +217+x
Likeness2.gif

Figure 1: SCP-4694-L343 (Morphy Richards Turbo Steam iron model 40694 (AKA a “Likeness"))

Item: SCP-4694

Object Class: Keter

Special Containment Procedures: Containment focuses on minimising civilian exposure to SCP-4694, discrediting the organisation through disinformation campaigns, and sanitising all references to SCP-4694 wherever they arise.

Where exposure has already occurred, anti-memetic deprogramming protocols within existing civilian cult/indoctrination survivor support networks should be utilised. All reindoctrination research results should be notified to the Lead Project Parapsychologist.

SCP-4694-L instances (see Figure 1) should be recovered where possible and secured in sight/sound-proof containers at the site most local to recovery.

There are no plans to contain the Cherished Leaders.

Description: SCP-4694 is an emergent para-dimensional phenomena manifesting in this reality as a multi-level marketing company (MLM).

SCP-4694 is characterized by an extreme personality cult built around the “Cherished Leaders,” an as-yet unidentified collective who direct and control members (known as “Associates”) through both mundane peer pressure, cult programming and anomalous positive/negative reinforcement.

The primary purpose of mundane MLMs is the generation of revenue through the recruitment of new members. SCP-4694’s primary purpose is unknown, although recovered media and promotional material suggests the importance of belonging and family values.

SCP-4694 Sub-classes:

New Associates (SCP-4694-A)

  • Exposed to mild-medium memetic effects comparable to indoctrination.

Recognised Associates (SCP-4694-RA)

  • Fully indoctrinated into the PryMaid organization.
  • Exposed to highly anomalous phenomena.

Likenesses (SCP-4694-L)

  • Morphy Richards Turbo Steam electric irons, model 40694.
  • Thought to act as a conduit between Associates and the Cherished Leaders.
  • Play a focal role in daily life.

The Cherished Leaders (SCP-4694-CL)

  • Locations, identities, numbers and motives are unknown.
  • It is not proven that the Likenesses and the Cherished Leaders are not one and the same.

To date, the Foundation has assisted the defection of fifteen Associates. None describe their experiences within SCP-4694 as out of the ordinary or unusual. In December 2016 field agent Aaron Zachary successfully infiltrated the organisation by befriending a known female Associate (codename "Autoship"); following is an extract of his outbound communications.

Date/Time: Comms
2016-10-18 10:17 Now FB friends with Autoship. These guys usually recruit out of their social/ family/work networks so now I'm just waiting for the inevitable “money message."
2016-11-01 13:26 It’s here in my inbox - Autoship has an "exciting new lifestyle opportunity" for me – as expected, I’ve been invited to a “PryMaid Party.”
2016-11-06 21:57 PryMaid Party was… Odd. They just buy and sell electric irons to each other. At a cost of $3400 in set up costs I am now an Associate.
2016-11-24 Autoship set me my first challenge. Like homework. Write down nine things I want PryMaid to help me achieve.
2016-12-01 Challenge #4, write down 27 things I don't like about myself. Share on PrySpace.1
2016-12-25 19:11 Christmas. Autoship has irons in her kitchen, her bedroom, her bathroom. No TVs, just irons where the TVs should be. Her Nativity Scene? Three Wise Men overlooking an electric iron in a manger. An electric iron Baby Jesus. Go figure.
2017-04-27 06:30 We have a Recognition Day in June. I'll become a fully fledged Associate. God bless America. This week's challenge: Post a video about the top eight hundred things you hate most about the non-PryMaid authority figures in your life. Done and done.
2017-06-29 02:35 Final challenge this week: find all skin care products in the house and bury them. Random, but done. Recognition Day tomorrow. The Cherished Leaders are going to be there. The Cherished Leaders. I feel sick.
2017-06-29 03:37 We’re on the Greyhound. On our way. Butterflies, nausea, excitement. I’ll try to remember to record it for y’all. Can't wait to see the Cherished Leaders.
2017-06-30 06:27 Vegas. There are thousands of us here. Wow. Recognition Day. We’re actually going to meet the Cherished Leaders. My wife would love this. I know she doesn't get it yet, but she will.
2017-06-30 07:45 It's starting. Here we go.

:

.
Agent Zachary has made no further attempt to contact Autoship, and Foundation operatives have been unable to reinitiate surveillance.

Within three weeks Zachary had recruited his wife, three children and extended family into the PryMaid organisation. On 2017-10-30 Zachary was amnesticized to remove sensitive Foundation knowledge and taken into Foundation custody.

The following is an excerpt from a series of interviews relating to his experiences within PryMaid.


:

On 2018-11-27 Zachary disappeared from his containment unit. He reappeared six hours later in a state of extreme distress; in his possession was a Televono Telefex Vivisect 4 smartphone, which he states he had been given to take video footage of a PryMaid "Learning Camp" at an unknown location. His disappearance was allegedly an unscheduled reward from PryMaid for "services rendered." He was unable to confirm the nature of his breach.

The following audio clip was recorded at the Learning Camp.

  • Transcript: Factory noise. Female Voiceover: "All life is the same. All life is the same. Work towards Freedom. Advanced Warning! Limb pruning in Sector 8-8-3-7-3-6-3. Please leave all surplus skin in the green receptacles. You are here because your unborn children betrayed you."

Addendum 1: I have a theory that no one else believes but I'll write it down here. Maybe it'll get reviewed and wiped, maybe it won't.

I think - I believe maybe whatever PryMaid is, it's huge. Vast. It spreads its thoughts, its feelers into the aquarium of our reality and taps the glass and watches as we skitter and dart back into the fake plastic seaweed like frightened little fish. And maybe we can leap up and out of one and into the next, but PryMaid are there too.

Maybe all the different realities are simply different fishtanks, side by side, some below, some above, some filled with water, some with blood. Some with fire, some with cement. I don't know. But PryMaid - or whatever they manifest as - is in all of them, or above or around them, and the weight of their unreality pushes, pushes down on ours.

I think the phone and the cancer anomalies - SCP-2982 and 2962 - hell maybe all the anomalies we've ever known - are just signs of SCP-4694 seeping in as all the fishtanks start to crack. And you know what? Sometimes those signs are horrific, blasphemous, soul-destroying; but sometimes they're not.

I guess that's the best I can hope for now, because Lisa rang me earlier today and told me I'm going to be a father. And one day my children will have children, and they will become PryMaid Associates and we will all end up in a Learning Camp forever, one big happy family.

So I guess I must take my comfort where I can. Take solace as all the Things That Cannot Be come squirming uninvited into our world and invite us to insanity. Sometimes the signs are horrible, inhuman, grotesque; but sometimes the signs fail in their purpose; sometimes instead of offering horror and grief, they offer compassion. Instead of hate, hope.

Sometimes they wipe our faces in their shit; but sometimes, just sometimes, they raise us out of it just long enough to know that our frightful, damaged little human lives are beautiful and noble and undefeatable.

That's my hope: that even though the vast majority of the things we see are nightmarish, sometimes they're not. Sometimes they're not..

To my grandchildren.

Dr Jacob Bufirst.

23rd December 2018

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