The being would be born blind, it would recieve messages over the message port, which consisted of several slits running along the frontside, swiping through them would trigger electricity to flow. This essentially manipulated the thoughts and mind directly.

It would learn to utilize the sense of touch. It would learn its immediate environment, becoming a watcher or it would walk and ask watchers for the path in order to become a wanderer, constantly forgetting and asking.

Until the scientific watchers had gained insight on the sense of sight, it would have to wait.

Until the mechanic watchers had gained materials from the wanderers, they would stay blind. The roles would underly scrutiny of the collective.

Sigmunds automatons would just need one singular functioning prototype that knew how to build, think and survive.

That was what lead the teen to looting. He found the clocks lacking in all theoretical usability, too many clock hands, clock hands that were made of isolating plastic instead of metal, large plastic casings that would just unnecessarily bulk up his creation and the clocks were not driven by cable but batteries.

With growing unrest he paced through the empty stores. Was there a way to modify clocks so that they suited his purposes?

Sigmund took various supplies and started experimenting within the store - and nobody stopped him. His first experiment involved destroying a clock to see what made it tick.

If he could reverse engineer the clock, he could make custom clocks for his purposes.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Well there were some problems. Sigmund did not know what electricity was, only what it did.

Giving up would have been an option if there were any downsides to just tinkering.

Sigmund took apart the mechanism... he imagined more gears and stuff, but instead there were weird metal parts mostly, that did nothing discernible until powered.

He then reinvented the relais, predictably - just a weight lifted by magnetism to ... well make a not gate.

Sadly that wouldn't work with his system, he would have to completely reinvent all the logic based on clocks aka 1 yes, 59 no gate. The sexagesimal system being replaced by a mere binary one was one alternative to continuing tinkering with forces beyond his understanding, namely electromagnetism. He gave up after hours of tinkering with clocks - the aluminium foil hampered a lot plus there was still that issue with the batteries - still unresolved and it seemed creativity was not benefitting practical optimization at all.

After a few more hours of trying to translate the mental system into binary his head thrummed.

This was a system he had spent weeks on and it was already far from sufficient. Now build it from bottom up with a mechanism so simple as a relais? In one singular day?

Sigmund swallowed the bitterness, made sure his notes were readable and closed the case for today. Probably countless of logical mistakes waited to be discovered tomorrow.

Following his assumption there would be a tomorrow, the teen wandered home and went to sleep, mental resources fully depleted.

The day was over.