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Mechanical Matinee of the Macabre
Item #: SCP-3440
Object Class: Euclid
Special Containment Procedures: Foundation agents embedded in the security staff of the Civic Opera House are to prevent unauthorized access to SCP-3440. Any unauthorized persons found capable of perceiving and/or accessing SCP-3440's point of entry are to be detained pending the application of disquisitional rehabilitation.
By order of the Ethics Committee, instances of SCP-3440-A are exempt from experimentation. SCP-3440-B1 is the exception to this ruling, and no further attempts to disconnect SCP-3440-B1 from SCP-3440-A are to be made.
Description: SCP-3440 is a dual-purpose entertainment and embalming facility which was constructed and operated via anomalous means. It is located beneath the ground floor of the Civic Opera House in Chicago, Illinois. Construction of SCP-3340 took place concurrently with that of the main structure, opening merely one day later on November 5th, 1929.
SCP-3440 can only be accessed through a 400m vertical shaft which bridges the length between the basement of the Civic Opera House and the lobby of SCP-3440.1 The entrance to this shaft is protected by a perceptual anomaly that renders it undetectable to human subjects who do not have prior knowledge of SCP-3440's existence. As a consequence of this phenomenon and the additional influence of pretermemetic2 interference, Foundation assets had no knowledge of SCP-3440 until August of 2018.3
SCP-3440 is primarily4 comprised of three chambers: concourse, theater, and embalming laboratory.
The concourse features a 30m diameter rib-vaulted ceiling ornamented with gold reliefs and filigree in the Art Deco style. The entrance to the elevator shaft is marked by one of eight identical archways arranged in a semicircle at the far end of the chamber. Nothing has been found within the other seven passageways except solid, natural limestone. The mezzanine is accessed by two staircases on either side of the concourse, decorated with Art Deco torchères resembling circus clowns.
The theater itself is constructed in similar style and structure to that of the Civic Opera House above it, albeit roughly ⅓ scale and carved from natural limestone. It has 1,185 seats (including boxes and balcony seating) and