SCP-662 - Butler's Hand Bell

Being a D-Class for the SCP Foundation is a lot like playing Russian roulette: One day, you could be assigned to a tickle fight with a friendly blob of slime, and the next you're getting your femurs broken to lure a sadistic old man back into his containment chamber. So, when D-9781 was told to simply sit in an interrogation room and wait, he really didn't know what to think.

But the last thing he probably expected to see when the door behind him creaked open was for a well-dressed stranger to step in. This man wasn't like any member of Foundation staff the D-Class had ever seen: He was a short, Caucasian man with a receding hairline and a neat black mustache.

Instead of the standard lab coat and shirt normally seen around the facility, this man wore a black waistcoat, a pair of white gloves, and a wry smile that betrayed a sinister intent. He looked like a butler – and not just any butler, but the quintessential butler. If you were asked to doodle a cartoon butler, this would be the man you drew.

The D-Class almost laughed in sheer confusion. He had no idea that, in a mere moment, he would be dead. "What's the deal with Jeeves?" He asked with a mocking half-smile, but he didn't get to hear a response. The Butler approached at frightening speeds.

The D-Class, in his last moments on this earth, saw the glint of something metallic under the overhead lights, moving too fast for him to see what it was, and then felt a sharp pain across his throat. The Butler was standing beside him now, still with that wry little smile.

The D-Class could see now that the Butler was carrying a small buck knife, dripping with red. Just as he was piecing together what had happened to him, the D-Class collapsed onto the table he was sitting at, his throat expertly slit. His grisly task completed, the Butler gave a polite nod, and exited the room – smiling at the Foundation guards standing outside.

Who is this man? Why is he dressed like this? And most importantly, why is he allowed to murder D-Class personnel on Foundation grounds without consequence? We can answer that first question right now - because this isn't a man at all, he's the anomalous product of SCP – 662, also known as The Butler's Hand Bell.

First we need to go back to the beginning, and see how this anomalous object first fell into the hands of the SCP Foundation. Like a lot of anomalous objects now under the care of the Foundation, its true origins remain mysterious, and it spent quite some time underground.

We mean that literally, by the way - it was buried with its last owner, a man whose name has since been redacted from Foundation files. Clutched in this unknown man's skeletal hand, it was extremely likely that the bell might never have been seen again. But then a petty thief and grave robber by the name of George Dixon came along and dug up the grave.

A simple, greedy act that has changed a number of people's lives forever. Not knowing the true value of what he held, Mr. Dixon made his way to a pawnshop for his payday. There, the store owner made the mistake of lifting up and ringing the bell.

As if on cue, he heard footsteps approaching behind him. The store owner turned and gasped. He saw a complete stranger emerging from the stock-room behind him. He was a short, well-dressed man, smiling as he advanced towards him.

The proprietor of the pawnshop didn't know who this guy with the strange outfit was, but he assumed he was an accomplice of the man in his store and that the two were trying to rob him.

He grabbed a shotgun from underneath his counter, turned to The Butler and blasted him in the chest with both barrels. The Butler fell back, dead, and George Dixon fled the scene in a blind panic.

Contrary to what the owner may have believed, nothing that'd happened here had been planned. Dixon was just as surprised as he was to see this mysterious Butler emerge from the stockroom.

So what had just happened? The pawn shop owner reported the incident to the authorities and the Butler's body was taken to the local morgue, while the silver bell ended up in a police evidence locker.

Later that same night, things went from a strange bungled robbery to a full-on anomaly, attracting the attention of the SCP Foundation.

First, the Butler's body disappeared from the morgue the second the mortician took her eyes off of it, and then reappeared, now alive, in the police storage locker. Why? Because an unwitting sergeant just so happened to ring the little silver bell.

Agent Bradford of the SCP Foundation was promptly on the scene. He pretended to be an FBI Agent, and escorted The Butler off of the premises - claiming that this was a notorious escape artist who was wanted for federal crimes in several states.

Things didn't go as Bradford planned though, when he discovered that The Butler had disappeared from his handcuffs when no one was looking. Agent Bradford theorized that this had to have something to do with the bell, and he confiscated it for testing.

Later, when he rang the bell inside an SCP Containment Facility, The Butler turned up once more. He introduced himself as Mr. Deeds and said that he would happily perform any service that Agent Bradford required. Despite being offered the phenomenal power of a seemingly magical butler, Bradford politely refused the offer and instead handed the bell over to his superiors.

But don't worry, Agent Bradford wasn't left completely empty handed and was given the esteemed SCP Foundation "Pat On The Back" award for performing such a professional and selfless act in service of the Foundation.

The superior who ended up with the bell, however, wouldn't have quite the same level of professionalism. But more on that later. The bell, catalogued as SCP - 662, was small and made of pure silver, with no obvious anomalous elements at face value.

It was a mere four centimeters tall and two centimeters wide, with a small inscription reading "Forever Mine – S.J.W." Researchers studying the bell also noted that it lacked its ringer, but whenever the bell was rung, a chime would still sound from somewhere in the room to signal the arrival of Mr. Deeds, the anomalous Butler.

The object was classified as Safe, and was kept in High Value Storage locker 23C between uses for experiments. It's an extremely low-maintenance anomaly, with the only real requirement being a regular polish to keep the silver from tarnishing over time.

But what of Mr. Deeds, the mysterious Butler summoned every time someone rings SCP - 662? The Foundation needed to find out more, so he was placed under the watchful eye of Foundation researcher Dr. Mirth, who performed the first interview with Mr. Deeds.

As you can probably expect from such a classy servant, Mr. Deeds was unfailingly polite during the interview. He always addressed Dr. Mirth as Sir, and was extremely accommodating - within reason. Mr. Deeds' true name, birthplace, and date of birth were still a mystery to him.

He could only vaguely remember that he was of English ancestry, and that during the time of his childhood, the horse and buggy was the most popular form of transport. When asked about personal details or his past, Mr. Deeds would often appear to become distressed, before apologizing for his inability to remember the details.

The most important piece of information that Dr. Mirth obtained early on in the interview was the primary function of Mr. Deeds: He was an entity that quite literally lived to serve. Like a genie being summoned from his lamp, Mr. Deeds would try to perform any task that the summoner gave him - whether it was cooking dinner or robbing banks.

There were certain limits to these powers though, and these limits were what Dr. Mirth needed to discover. Dr. Mirth first asked for a glass of iced tea from Mr. Deeds. The Butler happily obliged, and left the room, walking down the hallway. While attending agents kept their eyes on him, Mr. Deeds continued to merely walk.

However, the second they looked away, the cameras observing him malfunctioned, Deeds briefly disappeared, and then returned with a tray of iced tea. Dr. Mirth remarked that it was perhaps the best iced tea he'd ever tasted.

Mr. Deeds couldn't recall how the tea was made though, or how he obtained it. Dr. Mirth next asked for a bar of gold at 99.98% purity, and Mr. Deeds delivered almost the exact level of purity Dr. Mirth asked for.

From this, he deduced that Mr. Deeds can only perform his teleportation and manifestation abilities when he's out of people's direct lines of sight. He soon discovered that certain requests were off the table though.

Dr. Mirth asked for Mr. Deeds to fetch him a blue 1963 Corvette convertible. Mr. Deeds did not immediately procure the car, instead telling the doctor that such a thing was impossible because there were too many impractical steps involved in getting the vehicle.

Dr. Mirth was disappointed by this, since he really wanted that car. It seemed as though Mr. Deeds' powers, while enhanced by teleportation and the ability to manifest simple objects, are limited by things that a mostly normal, and very persistent person could conceivably do.

For example, on Dr. Mirth's orders, Mr. Deeds politely declined to assassinate an insurgent leader in the Middle East - seeing as he was too well-guarded and very far away.

However, when given the command, he was more than willing to head into the next room and murder a member of D-Class with a knife. Dr. Mirth was interested in getting a closer look at what was going on with Mr. Deeds' biology, and so asked him to slit his own throat with the same knife he used to murder the D-Class.

Mr. Deeds politely obliged, commenting before he did to Dr. Mirth that it'd been an absolute pleasure serving him. The body was kept within an agent's line of sight at all time until the autopsy could be performed, just to make sure it didn't disappear.

The autopsy showed that there was nothing inherently anomalous about the physiology of Mr. Deeds, and he would appear, as good as new, the next time that the bell rang.

Things took an even stranger turn after that though. Despite it appearing like the Foundation now knew everything they needed to know about Mr. Deeds and the SCP - 662 bell, Dr. Mirth insisted on performing further studies into what exactly Mr. Deeds was capable of. For example, he requested a deep tissue massage, and found that it completely cured his back pain.

Dr. Mirth also asked Mr. Deeds to clean his car, and found that it was cleaned to a truly impeccable standard. During his tenure as the lead researcher on the 662 project, he also asked to receive a haircut from Mr. Deeds - and found out that while Mr. Deeds excelled at many tasks, he made a pretty bad barber. He was great at laundry though.

Dr. Mirth was eventually removed from 662 duty by the O5 Council, once it became clear his "research" had just become an excuse for Mr. Deeds to do errands and chores for him.

Of course, Mr. Deeds had no complaints either way. Whether it's serving up delicious tea, cleaning a certain selfish researchers' home, or murdering a D-Class personnel with a buck knife, one thing cannot be denied - Mr. Deeds is one hell of a Butler.