Down in the depths of Facility 23, a group
of scientists stand before a massive, rumbling piece of machinery. They all hold their breath as the gigantic
mechanism suddenly stops. It’s eerily quiet for a moment before a
door slides open. The scientists crane their necks to see inside…
to see what the result of their great experiment was. These were some of the greatest minds in the
SCP Foundation, but nothing could prepare them for what they had created. September 9th, 2008 was an unseasonably frosty
day when Dr. Charles Gears, one of the SCP Foundation’s most iconic scientists, parked
his Honda Civic outside of what seemed like an innocuous government cold-storage warehouse. He sipped his coffee and surveyed the building
- which he, along with about a hundred others in total, knew to be Site-19 Facility 23. Why was Dr. Gears, former Director of all
Euclid-level containment at Site-19, here today? Because official testing was about to begin
on SCP - 914. The Foundation had acquired the machine now
known as SCP - 914 some time ago, but only after its recent reclassification to 914 had
it been relocated to Facility 23. It must have been important, because the entirety
of the Facility was being repurposed for SCP - 914 Research. They were dealing with an immensely complicated
piece of anomalous technology here, and the same question was on everybody’s lips: What
exactly does this thing do? Dr. Arthur Hackett, the Facility Director,
had requested the cold, clinical assistance of Dr. Gears in providing the answer. Once he’d finished his morning coffee, Dr.
Gears headed inside. The facility’s Security Chief, Agent Alan
Sedna, had been beefing up security at the building - and at least two Mobile Task Force
units were already on call in case anything happened. The first day of official testing is always
a crapshoot - you might get a nice drink out of it like with SCP - 294, or you may get
an XK-Class End of the World scenario. You never really know. All Dr. Gears knew, as he walked up the granite
steps to the main entrance, was that he was already feeling exhausted. When you’ve dealt with anomalous objects
and entities for decades on end, the sense of wonder and mystery begins to wear off,
only to be replaced with the kind of tedium any office worker knows all too well. Everyone knew that Dr. Gears was devoted to
the job, perhaps more than anyone else, but he approached the job with an emotionless
affect. You wouldn’t know from looking at him if
he was thinking about the deadly anomalous creature in the next room or what he was going
to have for lunch that day. The doctor passed through security and was
briefed in the break room by Dr. Lucius Veritas, Director Of Research at Site-19. He explained that the machine seemed to work
in the absence of any power source. Its mechanical structure is similar to machinery
from the industrial revolution, but it’s exceedingly complex for something constructed
in that time. Foundation analyses into the structure of
the 914 machine have shown it to have as many as eight million moving parts, and that might
even be an incomplete estimate. Dr. Gears wore his trademark blank face as
he listened, solemnly nodded, and asked to be shown the anomaly. He was led into containment chamber 109-B
by a pair of guards. According to all current Foundation tests,
the machine doesn’t appear to pose any active risk of containment breach or danger to the
guards - earning it the rare “Safe” designation. As a result, aside from guards stationed on
site, containment procedures for 914 were minimal. Whether this designation would need to be
changed after testing was something Dr. Gears would soon find out. SCP-914 was a truly impressive sight to behold,
a giant clockwork mechanism, taking up around eighteen square feet, with an unfahtomably
complex combination of screw drives, belts, pulleys, springs, and gears. A less stoic researcher might see the humor
in recruiting a Dr. Gears to test such a device, but comedy definitely wasn’t one of Dr.
Gears’ specialties. He stared at the machine with a detached fascination,
analyzing its vital components at a glance. Gears noted a large mainspring beneath a rudimentary
selection panel. The panel is copper, with a large selection
knob fixed to an arrow above a series of different options: Rough, Coarse, 1:1, Fine, and Very
Fine. There was also a large key below the selection
panel, for the purposes of winding up the mainspring and initiating whatever procedure
this machine was designed to enact. Next, Dr. Gears noticed two large booths connected
to the machine by a pair of equally large copper tubes. The booth on the left labelled “Intake”,
and the right labelled “Output.” Incredibly, Dr. Gears was able to immediately
deduce the purpose of this machine: It was designed to enact some kind of transformative
process on whatever was placed into the “Intake” booth. But what kind of transformative process? That’s exactly what Dr. Gears was here to
find out. The experiment was simple: They would gather
a series of samples, both inanimate objects and living tissue, and use them to explore
the different permutations of the 914 machine’s transformative abilities. This initial series of experiments were approved
by O5 command and the Site Director, and with the 47 researchers present in Facility 23
at his disposal, Dr. Gears commenced his research into SCP - 914. To minimize risk, Dr. Gears decided the first
test would be a simple kilogram of steel. On his orders, the steel was placed into the
Intake booth. With the doctor’s approval, a junior researcher
set the control panel’s setting to “Rough” and began twisting the mainspring key at which
point the booth’s doors closed and a small bell inside chimed. The machine began to rumble, its eight million
working pieces churning into life. It continued like this for around ten minutes
before falling silent, at which point the Output booth opened. What had once been a single lump of steel
weighing one kilogram was now an uneven pile of smaller lumps, with evidence of laser-cutting. Dr. Gears made note of the fact that having
lasers within such a machine is both anachronistic and anomalous, and that the “Rough” setting
appears to messily cleave the object placed within the Intake booth into pieces. Dr. Gears also noted that it would be unwise
to test any kind of explosive material on the “Rough” setting, unless of course
they wanted to destroy the building. The research continued. Dr. Gears used another 1 kilogram lump of
steel to test the “1:1” feature. This time, the result was far more peculiar. The Output booth contained the exact same
weight in steel screws. This result was sparking even greater connections
in Dr. Gears’ impressive analytical mind: Firstly, the 1:1 feature caused the 914 machine
to transform the Output into something different from but similar to the Intake. And, while this would require further testing,
it appeared that the 914 machine, despite being anomalous, does still follow the laws
of physics. Samples passed through the machine conserved
their mass, and would not be transmuted on an atomic level from one element to another. Next, Dr. Gears pushed another lump of steel
through the machine on the “Fine” setting. The result this time was a kilogram of steel
carpet tacks. From this, Dr. Gears was able to ascertain
that the “Fine” feature improves the samples placed within the “Intake” booth somewhat. However, things got even stranger when Gears
performed that same experiment on the “Very Fine” setting. The Output booth provided several unknown
gases, and a lump of unknown metal with anomalous qualities. Namely, it was resistant to heat up to 50,000
degrees, impossible to bend or break with any force, and was a perfect conductor of
electricity. Dr. Gears suddenly realized his task here
may be more interesting than he’d initially imagined. Was that a bit of a smile on his face that
one researcher spotted? Surely not, this was the famously unflappable
Dr. Gears after all! The doctor decided to take it up a notch,
and began to test more complex items in the 914 machine. He removed his own wristwatch and placed it
into the Input booth, before setting the machine to “Coarse” and letting her rip. Literally, in this case. When the Output booth was opened, the watch
had been painstakingly disassembled into its component parts, with no damage to said parts. Dr. Gears noted the “Coarse” feature as
a more mild version of the “Rough”, in the sense that it was able to take an object
apart without any kind of fundamental damage. He also made a note of the fact he’d need
to get himself a new watch. Dr. Gears then asked one of the researchers
to surrender their cell phone for testing. While none were excited at the prospect of
their phone getting eviscerated by a clockwork behemoth, one of the researchers eventually
surrendered their Blackberry Curve to the doctor. He placed it into the Intake booth on the
1:1 setting, and ten minutes later, the Output booth released a brand new Apple iPhone. Sadly for the researcher who donated his Blackberry,
he wasn’t allowed to keep the new device. Naturally, Dr. Gears was interested in trying
out the anomalous Very Fine setting on a more complex object. Seeing as no other researchers were eager
to hand over their personal effects, he took a Colt Python Revolver from a member of security
and ran that through the machine on Very Fine. The result was an extremely powerful energy
weapon containing gamma radiation, which fired a beam capable of disintegrating anything
in its path. While the weapon’s power was immense, it
was also too dangerous and unstable to be added to the Foundation armoury for general
use. Having collected a wealth of data from more
complex objects, Dr. Gears was eager to move to the next stage: Live test subjects. While his fellow researchers had some reservations,
the experiments pushed on, beginning with mice. A single white mouse was put into the Intake
booth on the 1:1 setting, and the machine was activated. The result, five minutes later, was an almost
identical creature, save for the fact it now had brown fur. Encouraged by the fact that the mouse survived
the refinery process, Dr. Gears next applied for the use of two chimps in his SCP - 914
experiments. The first chimp was run through the machine
on the “Fine” setting. The result was a chimp of human-level intelligence,
who has since begun working for the Foundation under the alias “Dr. Bobo” and the data
from this test has been expunged from the official reports to protect Dr. Bobo’s privacy. The second primate test, this time on “Rough”,
was not quite as positive. The chimp was dismembered, with the mutilated
corpse showing evidence of cutting from high heat and crushing. Of course, everyone knew where these tests
were eventually going. Dr. Gears requested two members of D-Class
personnel for testing. The first was a 42-year-old caucasian male
weighing 108kg and standing 185cm tall. Dr. Gears ran him through SCP - 914 on the
1:1 setting, resulting in a slightly taller Hispanic man with a slightly lower body weight. He immediately became severely confused and
agitated, and attempted to attack the guards present, leading to his unfortunate termination
by Foundation staff. It was on the final live test that tragedy
truly struck. A 28-year-old caucasian male was run through
the machine on the highly anomalous Very Fine setting. The result was an utterly nightmarish creature
- so horrifying that the majority of the details on its physical appearance have been expunged
from the report. The creature made a sudden escape, breaching
the relatively minor containment procedures intended for the inert SCP - 914. This highly dangerous creature killed eight
guards, as well as two senior researchers upon emerging from the output booth. A special response team was dispatched to
take the creature down, but that proved harder than expected. SCP - 914 had massively improved upon the
human original, especially when it came to killing ability. Eventually, it was captured, but the special
response team suffered injuries and memory loss as a result of the creature’s anomalous
powers. The creature was also severely wounded, and
its blood caused corrosive damage to the plumbing in Facility 23. The creature expired from its injuries several
hours later, turning into a cloud of blue ash that blinded a nearby research team. Dr. Gears would later comment that the experiments
were ultimately still a success, in spite of some minor hiccups. Testing on the device continues to this day
in an effort to understand the full potential of the machine. Though for obvious reasons, biological testing
on the machine has since been forbidden without direct authorization from O5 Command. After all, if an already dangerous SCP was
ever subjected to the “Very Fine” transformation setting, we could be dealing with something
beyond our greatest nightmares. Check out “SCP - 5000 - The Suit” and
“SCP - 106 - The Old Man” for more stories of the strange and dangerous anomalies under
the watchful eye of the SCP Foundation.
