“Hm, so this is the best ‘Fine’ has to offer. I bet it would still sell for a pretty penny. Of course, using The Clockworks to turn a profit is strictly prohibited,” Iris said jokingly, as she walked toward the Intake booth and opened the door. Sure enough, there was no trace of the ballpoint pen she put in earlier.
“Now do you understand? As you just saw, The Clockworks alters the state of objects. Somehow or other, anything put inside the Intake booth is modified and transferred to the Output booth, where it reappears. No one understands exactly how it works, but this is essentially what the device does,” Iris said. It was an ambiguous explanation, but SCP objects were illogical to begin with. It would be impossible for her to offer a perfectly coherent description. I fully realized that the best way of facing these things was either to use them with a vague understanding of what they did, or isolate them.
“Your collar—the translation collar—was also made using SCP-914’s function,” Iris said, pointing at my neck.
Oh, now that she mentioned it, I remembered her mentioning something to that effect before. I was pretty sure I’d heard her bring up The Clockworks in the past as well.
“Your collar was originally a dog collar,” Iris said. “The kind that could be considered a sort of joke gift, while being marketed as the Holy Grail of dog lovers across the world, because it has the ability to translate a dog’s emotions into words its owner could understand.”
Oh, I could swear I’ve heard about those before. They measure the dog’s perspiration to determine if it’s hungry or tired and then translate that into words for humans to understand. They weren’t terribly accurate, but they weren’t a total sham either. But it wasn’t like they were actually translating what the dogs said for humans to understand either…or so I heard.
“We put one of those in SCP-914’s booth and wound the key with the arrow pointing at Very Fine. And it came out reborn as a terribly wonderful collar capable of translating any language,” Iris explained.
Ah-ha! Now it all made sense. I thought this translation collar seemed like some sort of incredible sci-fi device beyond the scope of modern science. In fact, it was only a product of coincidence, born from a collar through the phenomenal SCP object known as The Clockworks.
“Right. Even if you repeat the exact same procedures, The Clockworks won’t necessarily give you the same results. And since you have to fill out a pile of complicated forms every time you use it, mass producing that translation collar would prove difficult. As such, be very careful not to break it,” Iris warned.
Well, yeah. That went without saying. I was still a far cry from proficient in English, so I’d hardly be able to communicate with Iris without it. Basic daily life would become a struggle.
When I found myself fingering the collar, Iris said in an attempt to cheer me up, “But it’d be inconvenient if you didn’t have the translation collar. As such, we need to make a spare, along with a variety of other useful goods for future experiments. That is the purpose of today’s tests—or rather, the prep work for the upcoming experiments.”
Oh, now everything was starting to fall into place. The purpose of coming to this room dominated by The Clockworks today was to make things as helpful as this translation collar, if not more so. I could certainly use some handy gadgets. Although I could enter a photo at will, my body was still that of a normal senior high boy. I couldn’t put up much of a fight against any dangerous anomalies. I was powerless. The logical response was to try equipping me with gear that either heightened my physical capabilities or improved my investigative prowess.
I’d personally appreciate gaining a means to protect myself or expand what I could do. In all of the tests so far, I simply wandered aimlessly, feeling like a miserable nervous wreck more often than not… I would love to have something to set my mind at ease.
“I know. I consider it foolish to send you into the photos completely unarmed. I’m beside myself with fear each time you go.” Iris looked down, somewhat disgruntled.
Her eyes were on Dr. Selkie, who was still off in the corner of the room crying with her head buried in her hands. Combined with the blood she lost earlier, she was wailing so hard I was afraid all of the liquids were going to drain out of her body.
“Well, let’s put that aside for now. We should focus on the issue at hand: The researchers who were supposed to direct and supervise the process to create those handy items are currently in a nasty bind.”
Yeah, I wondered what we should do… After hearing the explanation for how The Clockworks functioned, I finally realized the severity of the situation. This Dr. Goldman guy ran after the gold ring Dr. Selkie threw in a hissy fit, following it into the Intake booth. And even after The Clockworks finished the refining process, he wasn’t anywhere to be seen in the Output booth…supposedly.
Where in the world did Dr. Goldman disappear to? I assumed he was probably modified to some shape or form… But if this contraption was so incomprehensible that even expert researchers couldn’t predict how things would come out, I couldn’t even begin to imagine his fate.
The idea of a missing body reminded me of some good old mystery novels. But seeing as a bizarre SCP object lay at the root of the mystery, I doubted any amount of clever deduction could crack this case.