Knowing that the world had been reset by SCP-2000 and that "The Administrator" was the only one who retained memories of the resets, his secrets became absolutely critical.
Luo Shu eagerly awaited the answers to the next two questions.
"Why does 'The Administrator' hide in Site-17?"
"Why does—"
IR1705 suddenly clutched her head in pain. "My memories... Even though I took memory aids before using my ability on him, most of it was erased!"
"So you only remember the first answer?" Luo Shu pressed.
She nodded sheepishly.
This was terrible news.
But Luo Shu wasn't one to give up easily. He immediately cast a W-Class Memory Aid on her, hoping to counteract some of the amnestic effects.
From a scientific standpoint, memories cannot be truly erased.
Every brain cell stores one piece of information, and only one.
The brain's memory function is like a ROM chip—write once, read forever.
As long as the neuron survives, the memory remains.
The human cerebral cortex contains 14-16 billion neurons, capable of storing an equal number of memories.
Without an efficient retrieval system, this sheer volume of data would be chaos.
People with good memories aren't necessarily storing more—they're just better at retrieval.
Forgetting happens either because:
The neurons storing the memory die, or
The brain's retrieval function fails.
Memory alteration works similarly—false memories are implanted, and the brain is guided to retrieve those instead.
Most Foundation amnestics don't kill neurons—that's too unpredictable.
You can't pinpoint which neurons hold which memories, so targeted neuron destruction is impossible.
Thus, modern amnestics interfere with retrieval:
Erasing specific time periods, or
Blocking specific content.
There are amnestics that kill neurons—but the brain damage is catastrophic.
The old E-Class Amnestics worked this way, often leaving victims permanently paralyzed or vegetative.
They were banned by the Ethics Committee.
Similarly, anti-memes evade memory by hijacking retrieval functions, making it impossible to locate the stored information.
Thus, the W-Class Memory Aid works by repairing retrieval pathways, allowing hidden memories to resurface.
Under Luo Shu's ability, IR1705's eyes suddenly lit up.
"I remember! The second answer was SCP-196! 'The Administrator' must monitor SCP-196!"
Beyond that, "The Administrator" hadn't elaborated—IR1705 hadn't had time to ask.
But sometimes, a single SCP number speaks volumes.
Luo Shu recalled:
SCP-196 (Time Paradox) was a middle-aged Black man from the future, originally a D-Class personnel who arrived in the early 2000s.
The terrifying part?
On another time jump, he traveled back to the 1960s—and died there.
This created a time paradox:
Young SCP-196 still lived in the present.
Middle-aged SCP-196 was contained in Site-17.
Elderly SCP-196 had died in the past.
According to Foundation documentation:
"SCP-196 must remain alive until he chooses to escape and returns to the timeline leading to his death."
Failure to ensure this would collapse the present and future due to temporal paradox.
But was that really the truth?
Luo Shu didn't buy it.
Time is an irreversible axis.
Changing the past alters the present.
Predicting the future changes the future.
A butterfly's wings can cause a storm—let alone a time-traveling human.
Modern science suggests time travel is actually parallel-world travel—visiting a similar but separate timeline.
This is the only plausible explanation.
Thus, SCP-196's 'time paradox' is a lie.
The Foundation has falsified documents before.
Luo Shu suspected:
SCP-196's true impact is on SCP-2000's world resets.
A man existing in the past, present, and future simultaneously—what would his memories be like?
Did he survive the last reset?
Or are his memories immune to resets?
This might be the real reason "The Administrator" guards Site-17.
Of course, this was just Luo Shu's theory.
To confirm, he'd need to visit Site-17 and meet SCP-196 himself.
Coincidentally, after leaving Area-13, he planned to return to SCP-100—which was just a few hours' drive from Site-17.
The Final Secret
With some clarity on the second answer, Luo Shu turned to the most critical question:
"What is the 'Revealer of Truth'?"
This concerned Luo Shu's true origins.
If "The Administrator" was indeed SCP-2000's maintainer, the sole survivor of world resets, he must know Luo Shu's secret.
Luo Shu stared at IR1705, waiting for the revelation.
But she just blinked back, blank-faced.
...She'd forgotten again.