Interior of a Sizzle City Pancakes Location
Item #: SCP-9535
Object Class: Euclid
Special Containment Procedures: Foundation front locations likely to experience SCP-9535 are to be monitored by on-site members of MTF Epsilon-12 "Pancake Domicile" between sundown and sunrise, with special care being taken after closing time for any other late night establishments in the area. Any entities demonstrating anomalous properties are to be logged and allowed to patronize the diner unmolested. Disruptive patrons, both anomalous or otherwise, are to be removed from the premises by MTF operatives in a manner consistent with location SOPs. In the event that a known hostile element enters the diner, the highest ranking MTF Epsilon-12 operative onsite has discretion to engage. The nature of SCP-9535 means background Foundation operations can continue at these locations, and no further interference with anomalies encountered at diner locations is to be carried out barring emergency situations.
Description: SCP-9535 is a multi-faceted anomaly primarily affecting locations of Foundation front company Sizzle City Pancakes, a 24-hour diner chain designed to allow the Foundation to maintain a 24/7 presence in populated areas. The first aspect of the anomaly is in effect from sundown until sunrise. During this time, anomalous entities and objects are drawn by an unknown mechanism to loiter outside or patronize Sizzle City Pancakes locations. This effect seems to extend to both inherently anomalous entities and people who derive anomalous properties from training, such as thaumaturges. Interactions between anomalies under this effect almost always take the form of social interaction appropriate for the circumstances, though simply due to the nature of late night dining, there have been occasional incidents leading to minimal damage. These incidents also contributed to the discovery of SCP-9535's second effect.
The second effect causes individuals who are not already familiar with anomalous phenomena to universally report their experience at Sizzle City Pancakes locations as totally normal. The extent of this effect has not been fully charted, but witnesses to obvious forms of magic and participants in full conversations with non-humanoid anomalies are unable to describe the events as abnormal. It should be noted that the level of familiarity with the anomalous world required to bypass this effect is fairly low, with low-level thaumaturges and junior level personnel from the Foundation being able to accurately recount their experiences as abnormal. Due to the pervasive nature of Veil-enforcing organizations, it's almost always in these individuals' best interest not to share their experiences, thus the threat to secrecy has been deemed minimal.
Addendum: The following is a selection of documentation relating to the initial trial run of Sizzle City Pancakes, as well as evidence collection performed after the discovery of SCP-9535. Please direct requests to access more documentation on the project or requests to contact project contributors to RAISA, who will pass your message on to the relevant individuals.
Project Proposal Brief
Agent L. Wolfe
During my current assignment, I've found it increasingly difficult to conduct logistics operations at night, as it's drawing more suspicion than it used to. This is not any fault of our current setup, our operational security is still more than adequate, there's just less business being conducted in the early morning. I was pondering this question over a cup of coffee at a local diner when I realized I had stumbled into my answer. A 24-hour diner could make for adequate cover for both logistics operations, as they regularly take deliveries including from climate controlled trailers, and one attached to an appropriate living space or warehouse could make a suitable safehouse accessible 24 hours a day. I've looked into some possible locations with proper forms for acquisitions attached to this proposal.
The project proposal attached to the above brief was eventually accepted. Acquisition of a suitable property adjacent to the industrial district of Worcester, Massachusetts was carried out through normal channels. The building houses the diner on the first floor, with 3 additional floors of apartments above. Standard anomalous obfuscation measures were enacted on the newly created Sizzle City Pancakes brand, state records of the business backdated, and staff were loaned out to the new project from Site-55. Within 3 weeks, the diner was ready to open, and an initial test run conducted.
Video Log, Sizzle City Pancakes opening night incident
Date: 06/26/2023
Team Lead: Lance Wolfe (Field Agent, Clandestine Operations)
Shift Lead: Tonya Williams (Retired MTF-█████
-█, Department of Task Forces accountant)
Team members: Jason Vinh (Field agent, recon), Foundation cafeteria staff (various, on a volunteer basis. Referred to by ID number),
[BEGIN LOG]
Incident occurred at approximately 2:30AM Local Time. Outside the front door, a light shines out of a rift in space. Several College-age men step out, dressed in typical fraternity spirit wear with Greek lettering Alpha Delta Alpha. They argue for a few moments. Individuals will be identified with VPOI-1-4, ordered by who speaks first
VPOI-1: (loud) Dammit Chaz you said you were good to cast spells, I thought we were going to iHop. Where the fuck are we?
VPOI-2: I've had three Natty Lights, I've done way harder casting shitfaced. The spell just kinda dropped us here.
VPOI-1: Check your phone, dude. We're in Worcester right now. That's not even in the right county. I know the ratio back at the house was utter dogshit, but this is ridiculous.
VPOI-3: (interrupting, slightly slurring his speech) Guys, this actually looks kinda fire. I'm starving, and Nathan's pretty dehydrated right now. Just fuckin' get in the diner.
VPOI 3, enters, followed by VPOI-4 who hasn't spoken since stepping out of the portal. VPOI-1 and -2 enter, continuing their argument about casting spells inebriated and the mechanics of their arrival at the diner, eventually sitting at a booth in the corner. Agent Vinh, previously chatting with S-50365, noticed the entire scene outside, and proceeded to head to the back office to alert Shift Lead
VPOI-2: "Nearest iHop" is such a vague ask for a destination dude, if you had gotten your shit together and given me an address we probably would have ended up in the right spot. You would know this if you actually listened to the fucking casting lectures. You put a vague instruction in, you get a vague result, hence the off brand house of pancakes.
VPOI-4: (slumped on the table, muffled) I'm way too warm in here, and the floor looks like it's moving. Just get me some water when you can please.
VPOI-1: Nathan who brought those drugs? We gotta get risk management to ban them from the house or else half the frat's gonna be fucked the next time we host.
VPOI-3: I think I saw him with one of those… horny dudes that Tommy brought with him. (VPOI-3 uses his fingers to mime horns on top of his head) bro was calling them a 'total smoke show' or something like that. He was chatting up the shorter one before I went out to have a smoke.
VPOI-2: You mean the demons? Of course he's tripping balls you dumbass those guys need like, WAY stronger drugs than we do. Let me see if I can sober him up a little. (VPOI-2 begins performing a thaumaturgic rite on VPOI-4)
VPOI-3: Hey, this really isn't that bad. Coffee might be shitty but it beats having the latest rage cage victim yakking on us.
30 Seconds pass in relative silence from the frat brothers as VPOI-1 and -3 peruse the menu and VPOI-2 performing a spell. Other patrons take notice but eventually dismiss it as VPOI-2 trying to help his friend "sober up"
At this point, Williams came out to address the men, but stopped when she noticed the few other patrons in the diner were ignoring the obvious thaumaturgy in the corner booth
Williams, baffled: Excuse me sir, can you cut that out? VPOI stops, seemingly remembering he's in public I don't know how you haven't caused a scene here with all that, but I'm going to need you to to stop casting healing spells in the diner. Maybe buy some food to sober up instead.
VPOI-2: Wait you know what that was? (POI is visibly uncomfortable) Guys I think we may have made a mistake let's get out (VPOI-2 trails off as Williams clears her throat again)
Williams: Look, I'm familiar with a little bit of magic. If you cut it out, you can stay. I won't tell anyone that you guys are here either. I'm just gonna ask you some questions about whatever just happened outside, and maybe get him some water, what's his deal anyways?
Williams points her cane towards VPOI-4. Around this time, there's a slight drop in video quality on the feed
VPOI-1: (speaking to VPOI-2) Chaz I really don't need this getting back to the frat, and she clearly gets our deal so just… please just sit down for a sec. I'm sure we'll be fine. (Turning back to Williams) Our friend here has just had a long night, thinking about plants or something…
VPOI-4: (after noticing the cane pointing at him) I think you're pointing that at the wrong person… wait no I just can't see shit right now.
Williams: Well aren't you a bunch of Animal House rejects. (VPOI-1, -2 and -3 audibly groan at the mention of animal house) I'll run you guys a ticket since you seem so hungry. We can talk while the food's cooking
VPOI-3 begins asking for something but the video and audio feed distorts as another patron enters the diner. Williams looks confused for the last few frames before video cuts completely. VPOI-1 -2, and -3, all are looking towards the entrance, confused. No other diners or Foundation staff seem to take issue with what has just entered the diner.
VPOI-4: I'm gonna assume by the silence that it's not just me seeing the hat man by the door, right?
Williams: Yeah, I'm going to need to delay your order just a little bit. I'll handle this, just sit tight.
[END LOG]
The end of the log and corruption of video files corresponds with the entrance of a non-hostile anomalous humanoid who promptly apologized for any disturbance. Agent Williams, drawing from extensive experience dealing with humanoid entities, decided to question the collection of anomalies patronizing the diner. The humanoid entity, who identified himself as Gary, indicated that he had arrived at Sizzle City Pancakes by coincidence, much like the frat brothers.
Daytime exercises and operations were going well, with 2 members of Foundation staff being diverted to the safehouse instead of Site-55 in the first clandestine ops carried out from the location. Front obfuscation was noted to be stronger than what was expected given the circumstances, with even anomalous individuals not making the connection between Sizzle City Pancakes and the SCP Foundation. Nighttime operations were logging a concerning amount of encounters with anomalous individuals, and command issued orders to keep detailed logs on patrons and any unusual events that occurred at the diner.
Anomaly Logs, Excerpt
The following is a selection of anomalous individuals encountered at night within the first 2 weeks of the Sizzle City Pancakes opening night.
Description of Patrons: 3 local Graduate students
Actions: One of the 3 students was fervently discussing the concepts of Maxwellism. Agent Vinh engaged in conversation with the students at the counter, pointing out the religious nature of the claims the researcher was making.
Description of Patrons: Nathan L , college student and thaumaturge, one Arbor-Class demon
Actions: Sat for a normal breakfast. Both were mildly inebriated and had to be asked not to engage in public displays of affection.
Description of Patron: SCP-7370
Actions: A disgruntled patron was having a heated argument with kitchen staff regarding an improperly cooked egg and was becoming violent when SCP-7370 manifested, walking out of the bathroom with suitable theme music playing from an unknown source. SCP-7370 engaged the patron, pinned them, and took their plate of food as a 'trophy' and promptly de-manifested. When questioned, SCP-7370 admitted it was trying to teleport to the WWE headquarters in Stamford, CT.
Description of Patron: Anomalous instance of Alces Alces Americana, capable of speech and bipedal locomotion
Actions: Entity was too large to enter the diner, but requested a bucket of electrolytes and provided a 20$ bill to Agent Wolfe as recompense. After deliberating, Agent Wolfe filled a small bucket with available drink mix and the entity consumed it before leaving.
Description of Patrons: 3 individuals with no obvious anomalous characteristics, see below.
Actions: Individuals indicated that they had taken a wrong turn and ended up at Sizzle City Pancakes instead of their destination. Individuals ordered coffee and engaged in light conversation, indicating that the diner had been recommended by someone in a local witch coven, and they had planned to go after sunup.
Description of Patron: A human skeleton, capable of speech and locomotion despite lacking the required organs.
Actions: Requested a glass of chocolate milk and consumed it. Despite the fact that it lacked organs to store said drink, the milk disappeared after passing through the skeleton's jaw.
Description of Patron: Plainclothes Chaos Insurgency Agent
Actions: Patron sat down for coffee and began reviewing a Step Compilation, which was stolen when the agent left his seat to use the bathroom. All steps related to opening a fast casual restaurant as a front.
Project Support Request
Agent L. Wolfe
I met with the team today to discuss the last few weeks, and we came to the conclusion that we've stumbled upon some sort of anomalous effect. We've logged over 20 unique anomalous individuals over the past 2 weeks, and that's not counting instances where people have come back. I don't know if this only affects Sizzle City Pancakes, if it's endemic to the 24-hour diner as a concept, or tied to our exact location, but I'm not qualified to make that distinction. I'm officially requesting a researcher be posted with us until we have answers.
In response, the Department of Statistics assigned one researcher, identified hereafter as Dr. B at their request Dr. B immediately began work collecting data on comparable spaces to pinpoint what the anomaly was actually affecting.
Interview: Effects on anomalous individuals
Interviewed: Hettie Smith, local witch
Interviewer: Agent Wolfe
Foreword: Interview took place in the early morning the 3rd Sunday after the trial run began. It's noted that gatherings of individuals from the anomalous community had started occurring at the diner. Agent Wolfe introduced himself as the owner and manager of Sizzle City to Ms. Smith after pouring her some coffee and seeing her stir in creamer with telekinesis.
<Begin Log>
Agent Wolfe: So can I pick your brain? I'm really curious about what's going on around the area.
Hettie: What's up?
Agent Wolfe: A good portion of our customers have been magical in some way. I didn't think the Woo was a big hub for the weird, did something change in the last couple years?
Hettie: I mean, the colleges have grown and the rent's cheaper than Boston, so its nicer to be here if you're on a tight budget.
Agent Wolfe: I mean, that's a given; I'm just trying to figure out why people are coming here specifically.
Hettie: I mean other than the cheap food I think the vibes are just better around here than some of the other places we tend to hang out.
Agent Wolfe: How so?
Hettie: You guys have a decent grasp on who's chill and who's not. I heard from a friend that you ran some brokies out of here when they were on their "AI is our savior" thing, and I don't think there's been a peep out of the big groups in town for years.
Agent Wolfe: I don't think kicking out some B-movie hacker types would get us this type of clientele.
Hettie: It's just a microcosm. A lot of the others say they feel really safe here. I can't tell how you did it, but the 'magically unenlightened' peeps here don't react to anything weird here, so it's pretty comfortable compared to some of the other places we hang.
Agent Wolfe: I have my tricks, but your take is that it's the vibes? Are the vibes strong enough to explain the talking moose outside the diner at 2 am?
Hettie: There's a lot of weird shit that slipped through the cracks in New England.
Agent Wolfe: That's an explanation, but none of this helps me figure out what the special sauce is with this specific business.
Hettie: A couple of people in my support group say they've ended up here by pure coincidence, but that's just something you have to accept into your life when you live like this. Magical things happen to magical people.
Agent Wolfe: Never thought about it like that. Maybe everything's happening because this is a truly magical place.
Hettie: Lance, the closest comparison to this place is Waffle House. It would be a stretch to call this place tastefully liminal, but calling it magical is almost offensive.
Agent Wolfe: Point taken. This has been a nice little bit of market research though. Let me know if you need more coffee or some food
Hettie: Actually, I was wondering if I could run an event for my support group here. In the parking lot, really.
Agent Wolfe: My 'tricks' don't work as well outside, so long as it doesn't involve doing magic, I'm all ears.
<End Log>
Closing Statement: Agent Wolfe began investigating a possible Thaumatological explanation for the anomalous effects of SCP-9535. The "support group" event just involved the distribution of stuffed animals from the back of Ms. Smith's crossover, and was allowed to occur normally.
——
List of Notable Group gatherings occurring at Sizzle City Pancakes
Compiled by Agent Jason Vinh
Group: Alpha Delta Alpha, local chapter.
Event/Gathering: Rush event. Was supposed to take place at a Waffle House but similar to initial incident, group traveled to Sizzle City Pancakes instead.
Notes: The look on the one kid's face when he stepped out of the portal was priceless.
Group: Queer Casters!
Event/Gathering: Members were distributing difficult to acquire goods, and chatting. Event occurred in parking lot similar to plushie distribution.
Group: AAA, Anomalous Animals Anonymous.
Event/Gathering: Several sapient instances of animals were found raiding the dumpster behind Sizzle City Pancakes. Taunted personnel when approached but identified themselves by the above name and mentioned going through a "trust activity"
Group: An anomalous stagecraft union.
Event/Gathering: Union meeting. Claimed it was "the closest to Broadway" they could get at the moment.
Group: Sign twirlers.
Event/Gathering: Two sign twirlers advertising a restaurant named "French Toast Dwelling" which was celebrating its grand opening.
During the 7th week of operations, Dr. B went to the rival restaurant, French Toast Dwelling, to sit in and observe whether any anomalies would appear there. They reported back less than 15 minutes after leaving. The researcher described the restaurant as "the most obvious Chaos Insurgency operation you could possibly run" Northeast command determined this constituted a serious risk to the secrecy of the Sizzle City Pancakes operation, and ordered the closure of the diner until the rival eatery could be dealt with.
Both the agents on-site and members of the local anomalous community were upset by the news, but the diner began winding down operations. It was at this time that the anomaly surrounding the diner was classified as an SCP, in the hopes that the investigation would be reopened with the diner.
Sizzle City Tailgate incident
On August 20, around 20 members of the local anomalous community held the last planned event at Sizzle City Pancakes, a barbecue. While the overall event was really just meant as a community gathering on a nice Sunday afternoon, it coincided with the last day of the diner's operations. In light of this, some individuals took it upon themselves to hold an ironic memorial for the diner, giving speeches about some of the events that had transpired over the summer.
The Memorial
The speeches given in the memorial started out fairly tame. People were recounting how they ended up at the diner unexpectedly, how they enjoyed the food, anonymity, and rather ironically, how they found the diner to be a respite from normalcy. Some speeches were also directed at the staff, describing how they had created a safe environment by "vibe checking" members of hostile groups of interest. There was even light speculation about Agent Wolfe and Agent Williams previous positions due to their familiarity with the anomalous. The speculation never came to a full consensus, and Agent Wolfe deflected any further questioning.
Inciting Action
After about an hour, the memorial speeches had mostly stopped and the barbecue was in full swing. In a brazen attempt to attract new business, a few French Toast Dwelling employees were passing around cards advertising a new breakfast special they were running. Agent Wolfe engaged one of the employees in conversation and told them to leave, but the ensuing argument resulted in a scuffle. As most people who had congregated for the barbecue were otherwise friendly towards diner staff, the scuffle threatened to escalate into a full-on street brawl. During this altercation one of the hostile agents stole the Sizzle City Pancakes sign, openly proclaiming victory for the Chaos Insurgency.
Street Warfare
The opposing agents retreated down the street to their restaurant, leaving the crowd at Sizzle City with only superficial injuries from the scuffle. Part of the group, primarily composed of local mages frustrated by the belligerence of the newly unmasked Chaos Insurgency agents, decided to give chase. Agent Wolfe joined them, stressing that the agents were likely armed and dangerous. This did not deter the group, who moved down the street to breach French Toast Dwelling, which was closed for Sunday. During the battle that followed, there were several unusual events, notably:
- All firearms spontaneously failed. This effect worked on both hostile combatant weapons and Agent Wolfe's thaumically shielded service weapon.
- A hostile agent spontaneously becoming allergic to eggs and fleeing the scene for medical attention
- A hostile agent being knocked out by a telekinetically launched frying pan
- A friendly combatant suffered a concussion when a spell backfired and pulled the ranking Chaos Insurgency agent into them instead of pushing them away. The hostile agent suffered no injuries from this
- Ranking CI agent was attacked by several rats which manifested from nowhere.
- Hostile agent was compelled to mimic the movements of a friendly mage. Mage performed the choreography from the music video for "Thriller"
- A fire spontaneously started in the kitchen. Agent Wolfe noticed the flames while recovering the Sizzle City Pancakes sign.
Aftermath
After the incident, French Toast Dwelling was a total loss, 6 Chaos Insurgency agents were injured as well as one friendly mage. Chaos Insurgency Agents were captured in transit to a local hospital. The impromptu operation was deemed a success despite the unusual circumstances, and as a housekeeping matter all friendly parties were included in the resulting cover-up. Sizzle City Pancakes reopened soon after due to the threat posed by French Toast Dwelling passing, with a second location planned for the near future.
Image Credit
Filename: 2020 - Queen City Diner - 3 - Allentown PA.jpg
Author: Atwngirl via Wikimedia Commons
License: CC-BY-SA 4.0
Source Link: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2020_-Queen_City_Diner-3-_Allentown_PA.jpg