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The first time he’d noticed it was when he checked to see if his favorite TV show was about to start. He’d been out with friends and was running late; the show was scheduled to start at 9 pm, and right now it was…
“11:04?”
It was so far off the mark that he didn’t believe it for a second. That couldn’t be right, he’d only left work three hours ago or so. He made a mental note to fix it after the show was finished. After the episode ended on a devastating cliffhanger though, the matter slipped his mind entirely.
The next day, just after exiting the elevator to the severed floor, he remembered the watch. He briefly wondered if his innie had noticed the problem and fixed it himself. It would be strange to see firsthand evidence of something his innie did at work. He glanced at the watch to find that it read…
“3:45?”
That was weird. That meant his innie had definitely changed it, but to a completely different and still totally wrong time. Did they even use the same time system down there? He’d assumed so, considering that Lumon-brand wristwatches were both explicitly allowed in the dress code and were unable to be manually changed.
He knew that some people chose not to wear their Lumon wristwatch outside of work, having an entirely separate watch for their home life, but that always struck James as strange. Why bother removing your wristwatch every morning and evening? He’d just used the Lumon watch full-time, until he’d broken it by accident.
He knew that technically only Lumon-branded watches were allowed on the severed floor, but his backup watch was just as good. He’d double-checked it and he was certain there wasn’t writing anywhere on or in it. Just a minute hand, a clock hand, and some bumps to indicate the hours. Judd hadn’t even glanced at the new watch, and it didn’t set off any alarms as he went down for the day. He’d worn the watch without issue for about two weeks, until his innie started messing with it.
After the second time, James corrected his watch before he left the office. He wondered if it would be changed again the next day. Coming up the elevator, he checked his wrist; sure enough, it read 7:45.
He wasn’t certain what to make of it. Clearly it was intentional. He decided to keep checking. Every morning, without fail, he would set his watch to the correct time. Every evening, without fail, he’d discover it had been changed to either 3:45 or 7:45. Those two times only, in an alternating pattern. 3:45, 7:45, 3:45, 7:45. No matter what time he came up, it was always the same.
Not even sure why he was doing it, he set the watch to exactly 12:00 the next time he went down. Coming back up, it read 1:15. That was new. He wasn’t certain what to make of that.
Over the next two weeks, the wristwatch read the following, in order:
2:15
3:15
4:15
5:15
6:15
7:15
8:15
9:15
10:15
11:15
12:15
James wondered if it would loop back around again. The pattern was obvious, even if its meaning wasn’t. At least, he assumed the pattern had meaning. It’d be a lot of effort for his innie to go through otherwise.
The next day, the watch read 1:45. Then 2:45. Then 3:45, and so on. Finally, it arrived at 12:45. Horrifically, this happened to be a Friday; James wondered anxiously what it would say next for the entire weekend.
1:15.
The pattern had looped. Every hour with the minute hand at 15, then every hour with the minute hand at 45. Weird.
The next day, it read 2:15. Normal enough, he supposed. But then it was 7:45 again. Then 3:45. Then 7:45. Then 3:45.
At this point, James had had enough. He couldn’t handle not knowing anymore. He consulted the most trustworthy source he could think of: the Internet. On a forum, he posted a “thought experiment” in which an innie attempted to communicate with his outie via wristwatch.
He received 5 replies in total. They were, in order of least to most helpful:
- “lumon watches can’t change time dipshit”
- “Why not just write the innie a note?”
- “if I were in this scenario I’d think it’s a test from management to test if you’ll report your innie”
- “Do you think if you shoved a bunch of watches up your ass that you could communicate faster?”
- “Aside from the 3:45/7:45 nonsense, there were 26 times in the pattern. Maybe it’s related to the alphabet? Not sure why 1:15 and 2:15 are there twice though”
The last one is what really kicked him. He started to write down letters next to each of the times, but stopped when he reached the second instance of 1:15. 1:15 and 2:15 weren’t unique. So why were they included twice? Did his innie change his mind mid-message?
He ruminated on this for a while. Assuming that the times really did represent letters, maybe 1:15 could represent either A or Y, while 2:15 could represent B or Z. Assuming that was true, that would mean that 3:45 would be O and 7:45 would be S. Which would make the first message…
“SOSOSO…”
James jumped to his feet, heart pounding. He’d figured it out. It had to be that. "SOS." That was… that was bad.
The next day, before he went down, he set his watch to 11:45- “W”. When he came back up, the time was 12:00 exactly. Apparently his innie had noticed his letter.
The next time he went down, he set it to 8:15 - “H.” Then, the riskiest letter, the one he wasn’t certain about: 1:15 - “A” or “Y.” He hoped that he was right about the letter system.
When he came back up, the first thing he noticed was that his watch was Lumon branded and set to 7:32. The second thing he noticed was that his skin felt raw, like someone had scrubbed him all over with steel wool. The third thing he noticed was that according to the clock on the wall, it actually was 7:32; he’d been down there for much longer than usual. When he arrived at his car, he found a note on his windshield.
The note read as follows.
Dear James,
Whilst refilling a printer today, your wristwatch caught on the machine, resulting in an unfortunate ink spill that covered the majority of your body. You washed yourself and your clothes before leaving for the day.
In the future, we ask that you wear exclusively Lumon-branded apparel on the severed floor, as per the stated dress code and for your own safety. We have provided you with a new Lumon wristwatch free of charge.
We thank you for your cooperation.
And that was the end of that.