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Item #: SCP-877
Object Class: Safe
Special Containment Procedures: SCP-877 requires no special procedures that would not apply to any other paper-based item. A fireproof vault containing the original printing of the puzzle should be kept at Storage Site-88. Copies of SCP-877 are not to be made, due to the risk involved with exposure to its contents.
Research into SCP-877 is allowed only to Level-4 researchers. All equipment exposed to SCP-877 must undergo a complete null-bit formatting following the experiments, provided it is still operable.
Description: SCP-877 is a sudoku puzzle, printed on common paper stock using standard inks. The puzzle does not use the standard Hindu-Arabic numeral system, instead using a system not previously encountered by the Foundation. Attempts to deduce the origin of this number system have met with failure, as it corresponds to no known system of symbols on record.
All attempts to solve the puzzle have met with failure. Computers that are fed the puzzle rapidly begin to produce error codes, and if the puzzle is not purged rapidly from the active memory, hardware failures will occur. Machines that have been damaged by SCP-877 do not seem to conform to a single type of ailment. In one case, the puzzle was fed into a Cray Red Storm; after mere microseconds the supercomputer was rendered totally inoperable, liquifying all of its heatsinks and requiring a full fire evacuation of the building. Another attempt to solve the puzzle utilized an old IBM 5100 to examine only the base matrix; this machine suffered a complete degradation of its PALM processor, as well as burning out 62 percent of the CRT display, extreme oxidation on the data controller to the streamer, and [DATA EXPUNGED].
Similarly, attempts to have humans solve the puzzle have ended equally severely. One of the first researchers into SCP-877 was the late Dr. ████, whose exceptionally brutal suicide remains something of an urban legend among new hires. Likewise, Agent █████, a military cryptanalysis expert of some reknown before her conscription into the Foundation, spent weeks working on the puzzle. Agent █████ remains under careful supervision at Bio-Research Area 10, spoon-fed twice a day between her ten-hour stretches of glossolalia.
SCP-877 was found in a common puzzle book, 800 Super Mind Benders!, in a secondhand book store in ██████████, Massachusetts. The paper that SCP-877 is printed on is not a part of the original book, but rather appears to have been inserted by an unknown party afterwards. The book was purchased by one Mr. ████ ██████, reported by neighbors to be a lover of puzzles, who found SCP-877 after arriving at his home with the book. Foundation agents were alerted to SCP-877 after investigation of the thirteen-person killing spree that Mr. ██████ incited.
Addendum 877-A: In accordance with established Foundation anti-gambling regulations, speculation into the nature of SCP-877's solution is heavily discouraged.