rating: +143+x

Item #: SCP-018-J

Object Class: Safe

Special Containment Procedures: SCP-018-J can be kept in any standard containment locker. Individuals at the site containing SCP-018-J (currently Site-41) should not be permitted access to secure facilities, classified information, motor vehicles, or alcohol solely on the basis of perceived adulthood.

Description: SCP-018-J is a brown trench coat with no identifying labels or markings. When two or more individuals age 16 or younger attempt to wear SCP-018-J simultaneously, it will expand to accommodate all wearers such that they are hidden by the coat. This property has been confirmed to work for groups of up to 75 children (see Incident 018-J-A). This effect does not extend to the collar, which does not change size and can only fit one head.

While wearing SCP-018-J in the described manner, all wearers gain increased strength, dexterity, and stamina,1 enabling them to move around in SCP-018-J without risk of injury, fatigue, or falls. Still, some degree of cooperation remains necessary to perform activities, particularly with larger groups of children.

SCP-018-J exerts a cognitohazardous effect on direct observers, who will treat its wearer(s) as a single adult human, despite any evidence to the contrary. While they may find the wearers' appearance, gait, or size unusual, at no point will they suspect that SCP-018-J contains children. The exact perceived age of the wearers varies, but is generally high enough that their age alone will not present an impediment to the task at hand.

When SCP-018-J is doffed, it reverts to its default size and shape, and all anomalous effects cease immediately.

Recovery: SCP-018-J was recovered from Dubuque, Iowa, after the Foundation intercepted reports of a "very large, misshapen adult wearing a trench coat" at a local American Red Cross blood donation center. The individual in question — later determined to be nine small children — was attempting to donate blood, but staff were refusing to serve it due to concerns that its size (3.1m tall, 2.1m wide) and shape (toroidal) were the result of a potentially contagious medical condition.

An interview with the children involved found that they had become inspired to donate blood by an informational pamphlet, and had more or less willed SCP-018-J into existence shortly thereafter to fulfill this purpose. Claims that this explanation is "unsatisfactory" or "implausible" are unfounded.

Incident 018-J-A: On 2016-07-16, Dr. Quinn submitted a request to test SCP-018-J with a very large group of children, with the stated intention of "[T]his kind of thing is practically an inevitability because of the narrative constraints on SCPs — seriously, they're predictable as hell once you've read enough — so we might as well get it over with." The request was granted, and on 2016-07-18, 75 D-Class personnel (primarily, but not exclusively, war orphans)2 between the ages of 6 and 10 were procured and secured in a room with SCP-018-J.

The first 23 minutes of the test consisted primarily of the subjects expressing distress and making sporadic requests for medicine, their parents, sunlight, etc. At 23m19s, D-7145 (codename "Tricky Trickster") donned SCP-018-J; the other subjects, perceiving him to be an adult, deduced that SCP-018-J was a magical coat3 that turned the wearer into an adult4 and attempted to procure it for themselves.

Following this, for the sake of brevity, no data was recorded and no observations were made for about twenty minutes. This incident report is estimated to be 40% shorter because of this decision.

At 45m55s, the testing chamber was breached by all test subjects, who were wearing SCP-018-J in a fashion comparable to a very tall adult humanoid, with D-7145 at the helm. The collective began assaulting nearby personnel, presumably in retaliation for miscellaneous crimes against humanity perpetrated against them by the Foundation.

Mobile Task Force Xi-9, "Orphan Wranglers", who were stationed at Site-41 for unrelated reasons, were immediately deployed to counter the threat; however, they failed to recognize the presence of orphans within SCP-018-J, and were crushed by the group's "fists" (two D-Class personnel in fetal positions) while conferring with command to confirm their orders.

After all personnel in SCP-018-J's immediate vicinity were either dispelled or motionless, the D-Class personnel proceeded to follow signs leading to Site-41's emergency exit. As Site-41 is located beneath an orphanage, it was feared that a breach would expose additional children to SCP-018-J, resulting in an apocalyptic chain reaction wherein SCP-018-J would envelop a critical mass of children.5

Site security, unable to stop SCP-018-J via normal means, instead altered and/or moved signs leading to exits such that the D-Class personnel would be redirected to Site-41's movie theater; a screening of The Passion of the Christ (2004) was hastily arranged, and as expected, the D-Class personnel were distracted from their escape by the prospect of viewing an R-rated movie. Personnel attending to the theater allowed the subjects to procure a ticket and assisted it in entering the theater, which was just barely large enough to contain SCP-018-J.

Shortly after the subjects entered the theater, all lights were dimmed and the theater's thermostat was adjusted to 29°C (84°F). Within four minutes, most subjects expressed discomfort with the temperature, and believing that the low lighting would enable them to avoid suspicion, cooperated to doff SCP-018-J. As expected, SCP-018-J immediately reverted to its normal size, and the D-Class personnel fell out of their prior configuration. Security personnel were then able to enter and seize SCP-018-J and the subjects; the former was returned to containment, while the latter were probably fed to monsters or something.

This test did not provide any data that could improve SCP-018-J's containment and did not shed any particular light on the nature of its anomalous properties, while causing significant damage to Site-41 and its inhabitants. Dr. Quinn was consequently reassigned to Theater Duty.
