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

[mstestsubject]

...she's not sure where to go from here.

I'm Chell.

Yeah, that sounds like a safe enough thing to say.

[synchrosyntheses]

You are. And I'm Teytis.

Is there anything I can do for you?

[mstestsubject]

I'm not sure.

[synchrosyntheses]

Well, let me know if you think of something. I didn't make this mess but I want to see it cleaned up.

[mstestsubject]

I just wanted to leave.

[synchrosyntheses]

I'd love to show you the exit, but the only one I know of is blocked by a force field that as best I can tell isn't even Aperture technology. (I was hoping to find someone who could help me understand it.)

[mstestsubject]

Okay.
What can I do?

[synchrosyntheses]

I don't know; what can you do? The file on you had very little information on you other than "daughter of two employees". Well, and the information from your "testing".

If you want to just help me sort through everything and figure out what should be investigated or decommissioned, that'd be useful. Plenty of computing power, not enough intelligence to go around, here.

[mstestsubject]

I can't do much. I haven't had time to learn how. I'd like to help, though.
Is GLaDOS dead?

[synchrosyntheses]

GLaDOS is right here and cut off from all connections to the facility. Don't know if that counts as “dead”, but wasn't doing anything when I showed up, not showing any signs of meaningful activity now, and definitely not going to do anything I can't stop.

[mstestsubject]

Okay.
How do I reach you?

[synchrosyntheses]

Link into the incomplete map of the facility with the central coordinator's chamber highlighted.

If you tell me where you are now, I can try to recommend a route or pick you up.

[mstestsubject]

I'm at the Implosion Observation Annex.

[synchrosyntheses]

Ah, the former neurotoxin generator installation. I hope you like its new condition.

If you're willing to take a windy ride, there's actually a tube I can activate that leads right here from there. Used to be for, you know, carrying neurotoxin. Wouldn't blame you for not wanting to do that, though.

[mstestsubject]

It's fine. Where is it?

[synchrosyntheses]

A circular panel on the wall opposite the door swings open.

If you go to the room to the side of the observation area, that's where it ends. I just opened the cap.

[mstestsubject]

She stands up abruptly, startled and dropping her computer-thingy, before she can read the message, then she slowly reaches down for it, hoping it's not broken or something.

[unbitwise]

Not even a scuff.

[mstestsubject]

Good. She reads the message, relaxes, and then goes to explore the revealed location.

[unbitwise]

It's one end of a standard tube. Looks like it used to join to something inside this room, but now it's just covered by the cap that swung open. There's no airflow at the moment.

It's easily low enough to climb up into.

[mstestsubject]

...okay. She'll do that, then, she guesses.

[unbitwise]

As soon as she's well inside the tube, the cap shuts and the air-jets built into the ribs of the tube lift her up and send her flying down the tube.

It's not exactly comfortable — these things were built for cubes and turrets and neurotoxin, not humans — but it's not going to bump her against the walls.

[mstestsubject]

Well... alright, then.

...

.......

...........this is actually kinda fun.

.................

.......................................whee

[unbitwise]

After an, ahem, whirlwind tour of various parts of Aperture, it drops her neatly in a hallway.

A certain familiar hallway, with windows giving a view of an immense cylindrical room and an enclosed passage leading to the base of it.

[mstestsubject]

Ah, yes. That hallway.

...she takes a moment to consider the possibility that this may all have been a trap and GLaDOS might've just led her here just like that. It's a very ugly possibility.

...

It doesn't feel like GLaDOS's style, though.

She proceeds into the cylindrical room.