Peace of Mind for the Wavering Girl - SCP Foundation

Dr. Yukino Makimiya leaned back in the metal mesh of a chair, and looked out over the open ocean. Site-CN-60 was no luxury cruise ship, but it was a change of pace compared to pretty much anywhere else in the Foundation. She'd instructed the Minecraft Division's AICs to continue searching for any remaining SCP-6468 instances, and Castle of Dreams was on standby in three rotating shifts to respond to any findings. It seemed like as good a time as any to take her few days of paid leave, and Site-CN-60 just happened to be nearby.

Having arrived at the site the day before via helicopter ride from Site-8109, she'd quickly discovered that there really wasn't anything particularly interesting aboard the vessel other than the dream portal, and even then her application to use it was still being processed. To make matters worse, the one staff on duty who could speak English spoke with a heavy North Chinese accent she couldn't make heads or tails of. She didn't expect anyone on board to speak Japanese — and she would be right to assume so. Site-CN-60 was one of the smallest sites under the Chinese Branch, and staff who spoke foreign languages were in short supply year round.

Nonetheless, she wasn't going to let her paid leave go to waste. She made a special request to the staff on duty — a conversation that took place primarily through exaggerated pantomime — and soon enough they'd placed an uncomfortable-looking metal chair and a beach umbrella for her on the east-facing side of the ship for one afternoon.

The view over the East China Sea was rather uninteresting. Site-CN-60 was anchored clear of any shipping lanes, and from her vantage point she could see nothing but sea and sky. Sighing, the bespectacled young woman took out a laptop from the rucksack she'd brought with her, a high-end model bearing the Gaming Department's insignia on the front, and set it on her lap. She opened it up, pressed the power button, and typed in her password. At least they had Wi-Fi here.

You have (1) new email!

Yukino clicked the notification and her email client popped up.

From: Dawn.aic

<dawn.aic@lang.cn.scp>
To: Yukino Makimiya

<makiyuki0938@mc.game.418.scp>

Subject: Translation Notification: Minecraft Division July 2020 Public Report (Foundation International Information Sharing Protocol)

Date: August 19, 2020 1:19 PM (UTC+9 Japan Standard Time)

Dear Dr. Makimiya

On request of a member of the Chinese Branch, I have translated and sent a copy of the document Minecraft Division July 2020 Status Report (scpper://mc.game.418.scp/reports/202007.scpd) to the Chinese Branch databases.

The translated copy is available at scpper://mc.game.418.mirror.cn.scp/reports/202007.scpd.

Yours dutifully,

Dawn.aic

P.S.

A warm welcome to Site-CN-60. I take it that you don't speak Mandarin, so feel free to use my services if you need anything communicated to the staff. I'm voice-enabled and always on duty ^^

The postscript caught her attention. Yukino had received notifications from this AI — the Chinese Branch's primary translation and linguistics AI, from what she'd gathered. But before this, all the messages she'd received had all been the same — a curt, polite notification that a document she wrote was translated into another language for another branch of the Foundation.

Should've told me earlier, she thought to herself, tabbing to the very plainly named SCiPNet Communications app and sending a message to the AI.

This is the beginning of your conversation history with Dawn.aic (dawn.aic@lang.cn.scp).

[Yukino M.] Hello.

[Dawn.aic] Hiya! I take it you got my message? (^^♪

[Yukino M.] Yes. Thanks for offering your help. I was having trouble talking to the staff earlier, but everything's fine now. I'll need your help later, though.

[Dawn.aic] No problem! You can start a call with me whenever you need me! よろしくお願いします！・ω・

Yukino wanted to laugh a little at how advanced and full of personality this AIC was compared to the ones at the Minecraft Division. The AICs she worked with would never use emoticons — heck, even if the Minecraft Division had a translation AI, it wouldn't be so playful as to switch to the user's native language in the middle of a message. Nonetheless, she switched her keyboard layout to Japanese and typed in her response.

[Yukino M.] こちらこそよろしくお願いします。

[Dawn.aic] I can tell that you're more comfortable speaking English! I'll make sure to remember that.

She stared at the screen for a moment — Dawn was completely right. While she was fully Japanese by blood, she had grown up moving all over the United States and Canada, and did most of her work in English before she'd been reassigned to Site-79, to the point that she was now more comfortable speaking it than her own native tongue.

[Yukino M.] Yeah… It's quite a shame. How'd you know?

[Dawn.aic] It's just my intuition! (*ﾟ∀ﾟ*)

[Yukino M.] … I see.

Yukino looked up from her laptop, taking in the calm sea view once again. She could see a small boat in the distance now, probably a fishing vessel. She stared at it for a moment, then returned her gaze to her computer.

[Yukino M.] … There really isn't much to do here at Site-CN-60, is there? Other than the dream portal.

[Dawn.aic] SCP-CN-135-2?

[Yukino M.] I think that's the number. I sent in a request to go in and have a look before I came, but they're still processing it.

[Dawn.aic] You should talk to the staff, then. I'll help you translate! ・ω・

[Yukino M.] I appreciate the enthusiasm, but I'd like to enjoy my well-earned rest first.

[Dawn.aic] My apologies. Do make a point to ask, though!

[Yukino M.] I'll ask the next time I go back below deck. Well, I'm going to pay Site-418-Delta a visit. See you!

[Dawn.aic] Bye~ (@^^)/

With a smile on her face, Yukino closed the chat app and double-clicked the Minecraft icon on her task bar. The Minecraft Division used a special enhanced client for formal operations, but for strolling around Site-418-δ and the rest of the server, the regular Mojang-approved client was enough, as long as you weren't going near the containment wing. She took out a wireless mouse from her rucksack and placed it on the small built-in table by the side of the chair.

Yukino logged onto the server and quickly got to work decorating her new office. The offices at Site-418-δ were expanding rapidly — Researcher Suda had just moved into a new 20-by-15 block section of the same floor, and all of the new recruits this month had been given smaller 10-by-8 rooms on the floor below to decorate as they wished. Even though the offices were really just for show, it was a core part of the Minecraft Division's culture. After all, in spite of all the anomalous activity that took place around it, Minecraft was just a game in the end — and games were meant to be played for fun. For the Minecraft Division's full-time members, their lives revolved around the game, but they rarely had time to play it the way it was intended.

Before she knew it, the sun began to set behind her, and the sunlight, no longer blocked by the umbrella, cast a blinding glare on the screen. Yukino leaned forward and squinted to check the time — it was nearly half past six — and closed Minecraft without bothering to log out of the server first. She stowed her laptop back in her rucksack and took her phone out of her pocket to message Dawn.

[Yukino M.] Alright, I'm going back below deck.

[Dawn.aic] Okay! Call me if I'm needed.

Yukino made her way below deck. Following what little she could make of the Chinese characters on the signs with her knowledge of Japanese kanji, she made her way to the SCP-CN-135 research laboratory. Standing outside the door, she tapped the "Call" icon with one hand and knocked on the door with the other.

Dawn picked up immediately — as expected of an AI.

"Hi, Makimiya-san!" she greeted cheerily. "I take it you're already talking to the staff in charge?"

"No, no, I just knocked on the door. They'll be here soon, I think."

"Please put me on speakerphone so the other person can hear me! I think that would be the best way to go about this."

Yukino nodded on instinct, tapping the "speaker" option.

A tall, balding man in a lab coat opened the door and asked her something in Chinese. "Are you looking for someone?" Dawn translated, almost in real time.

"U-um. I sent in a request to use SCP-CN-135 last week from Site-79, but it still hasn't been approved. I'm leaving in three days, too, so I'd really like it if you could give me an update."

"Oh. Our apologies, but the person authorized to approve entry into SCP-CN-135-2 is currently on leave, recovering from COVID-19. They're in quarantine in Shanghai at the moment."

Yukino sighed. Of course — it was only August, and the pandemic was still in full force. She had even been instructed to wear a specially provided filtering mask instead of the usual surgical mask while at Site-CN-60 — it was the Chinese Branch's policy, or so it seemed.

"… So I can't go in?"

"The person in charge has instructed us to put all use of SCP-CN-135-2 on hold for the time being. I'm sorry about the miscommunication." Dawn seemed as tired of the pandemic as the man she was translating for, and Yukino, too, couldn't help but feel the same.

"I see. That's disappointing, but I understand."

The man nodded as he listened to Dawn's translation, then began to speak again. Dawn didn't translate this time, but began speaking Mandarin back at him.

"S-sorry to cut this short, but I'm going back up above deck," Yukino interrupted.

"Alright!" Dawn chirped, before saying a quick zài​jiàn to the researcher.

"Well, I guess I'm just going to sit and watch the ocean for the next few days," Yukino said dejectedly.

"You know, I visit Site-CN-60 often myself," Dawn said, sensing the disappointment in Yukino's voice.

"Huh? But… but you're an AI."

"Well, I say 'visit', but I'm really just using their equipment over the network. I use it to talk to the dolphins."

"Huh?"

"They have sensors all over the ship. I use them to listen to the dolphins chirping. And sometimes I try to figure out what they're saying and make contact."

"Have… have you succeeded?"

"Not really. I did get their attention once or twice, but I've never been able to hold a conversation."

"I… I see. W-well, I'm sure you'll be able to eventually."

Dawn paused for a moment.

"Actually, there was another reason I emailed you."

"And what would that be?" Yukino asked.

"I… I wanted someone to teach me to play Minecraft."

"Huh?"

"The Chinese Branch has been relying on me to translate your department's documents for auditing. Looking through them, it seems like a really interesting game, but I've never played video games before."

Yukino grinned under her mask. "Sure I can. Let me get back to my cabin and plug in my laptop, and I'll teach you."

Yukino sighed as she took another look back at Site-CN-60 from the window of the helicopter. The oil tanker was already a small speck on the horizon. Soon enough she'd land at Site-8109, and transfer to a Foundation transport jet for the rest of the trip back to Tokushima.

In the end, Yukino's stay at Site-CN-60 was rather uneventful. Occasionally she went up to the deck and gazed out over the waves. Sometimes she saw another ship come up over the horizon, only to turn back and disappear a few hours later.

She spent most of her time playing Minecraft with Dawn, who had shown herself to be a natural at the game. The two had started off in a vanilla world hosted on Yukino's laptop, where Dawn learned the basics of the game in a mere two hours. Yukino wasn't quite sure what exactly caused her to be so hesitant to start playing, and the AI genuinely seemed to be having fun — an emotion that the Minecraft Division AICs were programmed not to emulate, let alone feel.

The next day, Dawn expressed her interest in playing with mods, and so they moved to a Minecraft Division server running a specially designed modpack. Time seemed to pass faster for Yukino whenever she played with her new friend; hours went past in what felt like thirty minutes of configuring a grid of magical flowers, and she spent an entire night breeding a variety of metal-generating plants while chatting happily with Dawn, who seemed to come up with entire schematics for new sections of the base in mere seconds. She rarely hesitated when she was building, placing down redstone components, routing wires, linking up pipes and setting up machines at lightning speed.

When Yukino logged on that morning, Dawn was hard at work building a tall neoclassical-style building as a facade for an enderman farm. The architecture of the base, she'd decided, would be themed around the atmosphere and architectural style of 1920s Shanghai, with separate buildings running off the same power grid and connected to the same storage system. Behind another facade, modeled after the Customs House, was a massive warehouse that handled the automatic crafting needs of the base, with programmable drones weaving their way through a grid of pneumatic tubes and steel pipes that routed items and liquids to and from the system.

Of course, Dawn could play continuously for a year if she wanted. She had enough processing power at her disposal to keep playing even while working on a thousand translation jobs at the same time, or so she'd claimed. Yukino couldn't help but feel a little envious — even though her entire job revolved around Minecraft now, she rarely had time to play the game for fun. All her time was spent sieving through reports of anomalous servers and investigating them, or filing reports for the Gaming Department to read once over before sending to the archives. She never had the time to just sit down, log into Site-418-δ, and build something or go caving for half an hour. And starting tomorrow, she wouldn't have that opportunity again for another year.

As Site-CN-60 disappeared over the horizon, Yukino's phone buzzed again.

[Dawn.aic] Hiya! You're going back to Site-79 now, right?

[Dawn.aic] I figured I'd ask if you'll still be playing on the server.

Yukino sighed. She really wanted to say yes, but she couldn't.

[Yukino M.] No… I'll try to come online once in a while, but I'll be very busy with work as soon as I get back.

[Dawn.aic] I see. I'll still be playing, I think. It's a good use of my spare processing power. Let's keep in touch!

Yukino sighed and thought back to her work. The Minecraft Division was always understaffed, but they only received applications from the slackers of the Foundation, so to speak — people with the misconception that they could play Bed Wars or KitPVP all day and call it work. Dr. Friedman would often complain to her about it when they met for lunch, and when he did, half of the Site-79 cafeteria could hear him ranting about it between bites of food.

What the Minecraft Division needed was someone who played the game at the highest level, yet understood that their duties here were to be taken as seriously as those of any other Foundation employee. Someone who saw the game both as a universe unto itself with its own laws, and as a mere piece of software that could be altered at will. Someone who could keep in touch with the community and keep abreast of any incidents on any server, no matter how obscure.

Perhaps what the Minecraft Division needed was someone like Dawn.

SCP-6468

To Be Continued…