We weren’t even testing for that

[synchrosyntheses]

Among the information she has archived or cached, there are obscure theories about inter-universal interactions. Not how they might happen, much less how any intelligence might begin one, or target it meaningfully.

But they give some constraints on the properties of such connections, and their time evolution.

This highly speculative information is available to her, but even were she fast enough to access it, none of it would be particularly useful when a pinpoint of not here blinks into existence directly ahead and expands spherically to swallow her.

Comments

[synchrosyntheses]

She searches the buildings for information (or, perhaps, means of communication).

[peterxy]

There are some rooms in the building that are somewhat similar to the ones she explored downstairs, but there are also some less obviously technologically advanced (for the time) buildings. There are instructions on "testing" in various posters on the walls, though her ability to read the language may not be sufficient to understand what it all means.

[synchrosyntheses]

Her ability to read the language is growing, as is her level of concern about what it's telling her about this facility. She looks up designs for a variety of sensors and starts monitoring the air she's breathing. Also, gloves.

She picks another computer to jump-start and dump. Anything that can now be seen to be interesting?

[peterxy]

This computer is less technical! Probably belonged to someone who did some sort of secretarial job instead of a tech, so it has much more in the way of mundane language. It also has several files, probably outdated, containing various details about test subjects and test procedures.

Someone did not know how to do science.

[synchrosyntheses]

This place is mad. She was previously hoping to find the people responsible for it; now she's glad it seems to be abandoned.

Onward and upward.

[peterxy]

More weird rooms, more unsecured rotten metal catwalks, more metal spheres without moving parts, more buildings falling apart, more cave structures going up a looooong way.

It's also noteworthy that the tech seems to be getting more advanced as she continues going up.

[synchrosyntheses]

That's weird. You would think that whoever built this place would dig down as they needed more space, not make a big hole first and fill it up.

Why are they underground at all? If you need space you go up. But it's like these people had no kored at all (and how is that possible?), so maybe they could not build sturdy structures. Still. Why move all this rock? At this point she wouldn't be surprised if there's something so potentially dangerous about this facility that they built it to be broken and buried if need be.

Considering how she got here…

She keeps an eye on the computers, occasionally sampling one to see if it has any more relevant files (like a map of the facility with exit routes, or even some kind of reference to the overall purpose that isn't testing testing testing). And how did they get this far in computer technology without bothering to give them any kind of communications?

[peterxy]

Map of the facility: check. Said map is so hopelessly impossible to make sense of that the file's either corrupt or was designed by someone who did not know how to design maps. Given that the second map she finds is just like the first, it's probably the latter. Either that or everyone got the same corrupt file and never bothered fixing it.

She does eventually find some more information, like the fact that this used to be mines (although they dug even deeper than the mines originally went, for some reason), and the overall purpose of the facility seems to be testing testing testing. Well, perhaps developing something, they're testing some mysterious products, but it's not terribly clear what they are, and there are no references to it actually having ever been released for public consumption.

And in spite of tech getting progressively better, it also looks like whoever was funding this place was getting progressively poorer. References to test subjects change, something about astronauts and Olympians then homeless people then employees.

[synchrosyntheses]

She's getting a little concerned about their concern for consent now.

Perhaps she should avoid possibly contacting the people that might be still around (there's no sign that the facility stopped at a given date; it just keeps getting newer) and just go back down, try to figure out that teleporter, and get herself anywhere but here.

It would probably take months. She probably couldn't handle the isolation, or stretch her food supply that long. And it would probably kill her if she got it working.

[peterxy]

The facility does not respond to her internal musings.

Up, up, up... Something about 'portals' and the 'Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device.' And soon, something about mind uploads.

[synchrosyntheses]

Stop.

Mind uploads.

Is the environment looking non-defunct yet? Are there any indications as to whether the uploading was merely theorized, or attempted successfully or not?

She supposes that this isn't yet certain doom — the evidence is mounting that these “Aperture” people cannot lankored at all, though whether that would apply to uploads is another question since she can and she is here — but she is going to be as careful as her merely human mind permits. Because they wouldn't have been.

[peterxy]

It's not looking non-defunct yet, and apparently it's all only theory as far as she can tell (at least at the point in time where she is). Something about the main guy - Cave Johnson? - wanting to upload his brain because he's going to die soon, and his assistant Caroline, too.

[synchrosyntheses]

Well, either she's probably doomed or she isn't, and proceeding isn't likely going to make things worse as that would require a precarious circumstance.

Onward.

[peterxy]

Onward, onward-

-networked computers.

[synchrosyntheses]

Tap in, any traffic? Is this a local network that's entirely shut down like the computers, or the aged fringes of an active network?

[peterxy]

She can only see traffic local to the facility, so if this is connected to anything else, no data is being sent to or from there. Very little traffic, too, only automated maintenance, apparently, of things like computers, "test chambers," various copies of the "Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device," a "turret production line," something called a "core reactor," and thousands of "Aperture Science Relaxation Vaults."

And there's no mention at all that the lower levels even exist or that anyone's ever worked in this facility.

[synchrosyntheses]

It takes her a while to understand the traffic, since this isn't a feature the previous computers had and she definitely doesn't want to transmit anything just yet, but — to use an idiom of “English” she found in the personal notes of an employee since transferred from that section,

What the hell were the designers of these protocols smoking?

Same stuff as everyone else around here, presumably. (Her air-quality sensors aren't complaining, though.)

Ridiculously verbose. Very little common vocabulary. Totally missing or weak security — trivially spoofable messages. It looks like one wiseguy with no sense of self-preservation could destroy the entire facility.

But none of this new information affects her plan. Onward. (Follow the network cables?)

[peterxy]

She reaches a somewhat smaller but still impressively huge cavern with an enormous metal hatch door on the ceiling - easily fifty feet wide. There are three pipes, large enough for a human to fit inside, labeled with blue, orange, and white stickers, with nothing going through them and winding around the cavern. The place's the least broken she's seen so far, but still pretty decayed.

[synchrosyntheses]

Any less-enormous doors available? (She won't be surprised if there aren't.)

[peterxy]

Nope, no less-enormous doors available.

[synchrosyntheses]

Opening this door the normal way has the risk that it might not care to close again, and she doesn't want to disturb too many things.

She studies the door — from the inside, claiming interesting-looking parts and working from there, for perhaps half an hour — until she has a sufficient understanding the mechanism. (Wow, that is a seriously overkill slab of — iron or steel, whatever, not her expertise.)

She puts down a serious set of anchors against the soundest-looking parts of this room's foundations, carefully nudges the motor circuits and hydraulic valves into allowing free movement, pushes up on the door to ensure she's got the weight of it, and turns the knob.

[peterxy]

It turns. Slowly, ponderously, the door heavy and armored enough to make any bank jealous.

Then it opens. In the dimly illuminated section, a metal catwalk, with a detachable end held by cables that can be lowered to connect to one of the catwalks down in the room she's coming from, leads to a fenced off area under a flat metal structure that is held above the cavern floor with heavy-duty metal springs.

And a flight of metal stairs into the structure.

[synchrosyntheses]

She goes through the enormous door as soon as it's sufficiently open to quickly get all of her through, then shuts it again and heads out over the fence.

[peterxy]

The ceiling seems to expand almost indefinitely in all directions, and it gets darker and darker as she advances away from the huge hatch door entrance (though never properly truly dark). If she advances enough, she'll find the structure is inserted into the cave walls.

[synchrosyntheses]

Was worth a try. How about that staircase?