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

[peterxy]

"...then what am I gonna do?"

[synchrosyntheses]

She doesn't say anything until they're past the piles of cores. Then:

“What else could you do?”

[peterxy]

"I- I could-" It stops talking.

[synchrosyntheses]

It can have a minute to think. They are passing by the occasionally-broken rails and catwalks.

[peterxy]

"I don't know," it says, finally.

[synchrosyntheses]

“Well, you can think about it, and I will think about it, and if I can I'll come back and find something for you to do. Maybe even producing deadly neurotoxin.”

(In simulation. And along with figuring out something for all the broken-by-design minds that probably exist here.)

She reattaches the sphere to a dead-end segment of track, and leaves to rejoin the rest of herself, which has been exploring the nearby branches of the track for more computer systems and networks to tap into. After all, if the announcer voice isn't lying, this is a place where things are controlled.

[synchrosyntheses]

(Deadly neurotoxin production. What an idea. She's almost as bothered by how they've probably built the controls for it as the fact that they're doing it at all.)

[peterxy]

The sphere falls silent.

Everything in this part of the facility is apparently networked, but proper interfaces are limited to the control rooms. They're also not very human-friendly interfaces.

[synchrosyntheses]

She picks a control room and starts taking it (electronically) apart. She doesn't want to use it as is, she wants to know how it does what it does and then use the network directly. What are its protocols? What does it control? What information does it have about the rest of the facility? Does it have a specific superordinate?

[peterxy]

It does have a specific superordinate! Apparently the whole facility works on a sort of two-level hierarchy: one central coordinator overseeing the work of everyone else in parallel, with supervisor roles arising within the various branches but all responding directly to this central coordinator. Its spot is also vacant, and has been vacant for a long time.

The control room she's currently in is dedicated to dealing with the production and maintenance of yellow paint, and there is a very large number of other departments, like the repulsion gel production department (inactive for even longer than the central coordinator spot has been vacant), the turret production line (which was in fact directly controlled by the central coordinator), the relaxation vaults with all the humans under suspension, the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device manufacture and maintenance department...

[synchrosyntheses]

…all the humans under suspension…

Hooray, people! That are in need of rescue themselves.

(She's wishing for some relaxation herself at the moment seeing as it's been hours of traveling through underground tunnels and defeating ridiculous doors and analyzing unfamiliar computers. But not that kind.)

Perhaps some of the people were involved in the building of this place and could also help her figure out how to get home. But, regardless, they need rescuing from this mad death-or-whatevertrap.

Let’s see what can be done with this better picture of the place.

She composes the most innocuous possible message allegedly intended for the central coordinator, makes a tiny little circuit that just transmits it repeatedly onto the local network, and starts tracing out where it gets routed to. And this time she's not going to stop just because the wire dives into a wall.

[peterxy]

It gets routed up. Waaaay up. Aaaaaaaalllll the way up. So much up.

[synchrosyntheses]

Up is nice. She goes up.

[peterxy]

...it might take a while. She was really deep down.

[synchrosyntheses]

Actually, it might be a good time to take a break, since nothing is currently on fire or producing deadly neurotoxin. Is there a nice big unoccupied not-likely-to-become-occupied space handy along this route?

[peterxy]

Depends on how picky she is with her "nice" requirement. Several of the control rooms she passed were probably comfortable at some point in the past, before they became dirty and old and filled with plants and various debris. But she's gone up far enough that most of the rooms are the weird (but spacious) test chambers and the little observation rooms attached to them.

[synchrosyntheses]

She looks for a test-chamber-sized space that is not actually a test chamber.

[peterxy]

She can surely find one of those amidst the ruins eventually.

[synchrosyntheses]

Like this merely grimy unused area mostly boxed off by non-arm-borne metal wall panels, for example.

Set anchors. Unpack her stuff from the human body-sized bundles in which it's been hauled up here through all those doors and tunnels. Erect walls that are hers and made of security composite (not that it likely matters). Set up some furniture, lighting, et cetera.


And now it feels like home, which just emphasizes the lack of people to talk to.

And now she's thinking about all the awful things about this place.

[peterxy]

The place does not respond to her thoughts.

[synchrosyntheses]

Distractions.

She buries herself in working on the information she's collected and constructed — research reports, textbooks, network traffic, her computer-assisted understanding of English, her approximate map of the facility and what she learned about the layout of the control room…

[peterxy]

She probably has enough data by now to guess that this is some sort of "research facility" whose idea on how to do science is based on the thoughts of a rich madman who wouldn't recognize a peer-reviewed paper if it mothered his children. The whole facility is levels upon levels of trying to figure out what will happen to people when you throw them at increasingly dangerous situations involving increasingly elaborate and creative puzzle designs, using some pretty advanced and revolutionary technology which, through some weird mixture of terrible marketing, bad luck, and a string of horrible management decisions, somehow did not make the rich madman even richer.

She can spend quite a while decoding the information she's gathered so far for more detail on the layout of the facility, but she won't advance much from where she is before it's time for her to actually sleep - not because of cryptography, but just because the data is that disorganized and weirdly partitioned. In spite of the existence of the central coordination position, all data was distributed, and no one place contained all of anything.

[synchrosyntheses]

Hmph, that isn't so good for her current plan. Still, it's possible that the coordinator has access to everything even if it didn't store it — and she doesn't know for sure what's there, after all, since she hasn't been there.

Well, she'll work with yawn what she's got when she has it.

But for now, might as well call it night time.

She sets up a few more precautions and alarms — monitoring the freshness of the air, watching for nearby movement or unusual network traffic — and prepares to sleep and sleeps, wrapped in a blanket in the middle of an armored box in the middle of a dusty almost room in the middle of madness.

[peterxy]

Her alarms do not notify her of anything strange going on in the facility. Well, stranger than what has already been going on, at any rate.

[synchrosyntheses]

Sleeping on her plans gives no particular inspiration.

She gets up, packs up, and goes up.