Clockwork

[erinflight]

It doesn't arrive in the basement. Instead the basement becomes it.
One minute, there is only dark spaces, old boxes, cobwebs.
The next there is the machine.

The human eye, the human brain could describe it, but it could never contain it.

There are gears, thousands, millions? of them. There wires shaped from copper, tin, gold, and other metals which can not so easily be named. Each component, individually, can be understood. But together? No.

At the front of the machine are two booths, input and output.
There is a copper panel, a knob, a key. Written around the knob are the words Rough, Coarse, 1:1, Fine, and Very Fine.

From the knob hangs a sign. It is hand written, the words are barely legible. It reads:
SCP-914. Disappearing, going. Where? Don't know!
Careful, careful, irreversible. Safe? No!
Euclid? Possibly. Keter?
IRREVERSIBLE

Comments

[erinflight]

The tendrils immediately withdraw, curling back up under the balloon.
At the same time the balloon lets out a small puff of air and begins to drift in the opposite direction.

[unadalturedstrength]

Gabe looks around and finds a bucket, he traps the ballon-thingie with it, putting the bucket upside-down in the floor.

The leaf didn't get the same result as before...

Gabe inputs three sheets of paper, side by side on the booth's floor, in the... Rough setting.

[erinflight]

The machine opens, emitting a bright flash of light. Inside sits a mound of soil, a puddle of water, and several seeds.

[unadalturedstrength]

Gabe blinks at the flash of light, that is what he gets for doing science without... Henry.

Henry really should see this.

Gabe dashes out of the basement, with more speed than someone with fever should try running with.

Several minutes later...

[there_is_no_such_thing_as]

...Henry walks in the basement, followed by Gabe.

"I am telling you. It is impossible and you are sick!" Henry says irritated.

He happens to not look in the way of the strangest objects and instead heads directly to one of the booths.

[unadalturedstrength]

"LOOK!" Gabe says unusually exasperated.

He lifts the bucket and the weird-balloon thing is released from it's prison.

Gabe also points at the other weird objects that the machine produced.

[erinflight]

The balloon rises up, tendrils still tightly curled, and begins letting out rapid puffs of air. It heads away from the bucket and Gabe as fast as it can.

[there_is_no_such_thing_as]

Henry observes the thing, absolutely speechless.

What.

The.

Fuck.

[unadalturedstrength]

"I am told you! Look."

Gabe inputs a crumpled sheet of paper in the 1:1 setting.

[erinflight]

The machine returns a cheap, plastic pen that is almost out of ink.

[unadalturedstrength]

Gabe took this time to present Henry with some of the other weird objects. He presents the plastic pen too.

"Henry? ...Are you going to pass out?"

[there_is_no_such_thing_as]

...

"No... I..." Henry makes a weird sound like his mouth muscles simply short-circuited with the rest of his brain "How that even works?"

[unadalturedstrength]

"I just showed you."

[there_is_no_such_thing_as]

"This isn't something that just happens!"

Henry rubs his temples.

"Show me again how it works?"

Henry asks Gabe to input the bucket at 1:1

[erinflight]

The machine returns a tightly woven, cane basket.

[unadalturedstrength]

Gabe hands the basket to Henry.

"I think the one on one is the boring setting. The others make interesting things or a bunch of stuff. Really cool, right?"

[there_is_no_such_thing_as]

Henry accepts the basket and reflects on Gabe's words.

The two have currently observed several laws of physics being broken. A large portion of human knowledge is simple false or part of a much bigger messed up whole. The rules that allowed humankind to walk on the moon and split the universes' smallest parts. The understanding that saves countless lives everyday by applying the knowledge of how chemistry works. All of the long journey to bring light to the darkness, replacing mystery and fear with science and wonder. All of that is currently being contradict by some weird machine built on some random hotel's basement, where it isn't being used to the betterment of the rest of humanity.

Outwardly, Henry's eye twitches. The only thing that prevented the explosion was remembering that Gabe is sick and should be in bed.

Oh, right.

Henry tries to drag Gabe out of the room.

There is an argument... which Henry loses. So they leave and return minutes later with a few more things. A chair and blanket for Gabe. A cardboard box for the weird balloon thing. The rest for Henry to perform experiments.

The machine's by-products are organized in a neat little rows and columns. Henry writes down each experiment and each result on a notebook. It is all very scientific because is being written down.

Meanwhile, they input five ice cubes, each individually in a different setting.

[erinflight]

At the rough setting, the door opens and reveals, nothing.
Nothing visible anyway.

[there_is_no_such_thing_as]

Henry writes "Nothing" then erases that and writes "No visible results"

[erinflight]

At the coarse setting, the door opens and reveals a puddle of room temperature water.

[there_is_no_such_thing_as]

Henry collects the water in a cup with a improvised label. He writes the experimental result while ignoring Gabe snickering.

[erinflight]

The setting 1:1 returns a puddle of vodka at 0 degrees Celsius.

[there_is_no_such_thing_as]

Henry collects that too, he places the collected the vodka cup near the water cup.

Henry looks at Gabe.

Henry looks at the vodka cup.

The vodka cup is moved to where it can't be reached easily.

[erinflight]

The fine setting returns an instant cold pack.

[there_is_no_such_thing_as]

Of course it does.

It gets a label like the others. Henry is still sorting the results from Gabe's experiments, since somethings are hard to describe.