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 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.

[synchrosyntheses]

There's GLaDOS.

Disconnected, lying on the floor of a glass box, off to the side.

Plugged into where she used to hang is some equipment not in Aperture's style, with cables running to the side and down to the floor where there is more equipment. The monitors that used to display images punctuating her futile nasty remarks have been turned around to face inward and are displaying densely packed changing text and tables and graphs.

And in the center of it all — yep, that's a human.

“Hello!”

[mstestsubject]

"...hello," she says, her voice hoarse, approaching the human cautiously.

[synchrosyntheses]

"First, anything more you'd like me to answer?"

[mstestsubject]

"...who are you?"

[synchrosyntheses]

“I am Teytis tel Jobont. But you've heard that already.

“As my name claims, I am a jobont; my profession is that of supporting communication, and the availability of information. When I ended up here I gathered information, and I didn't like the picture I got, and this place is so automated that I can just command it to change and it does, so I can make this much of a difference and I am.”

[mstestsubject]

"How do you speak English?"

[synchrosyntheses]

“I analyzed text I found. And — English doesn't have the right words to say this properly, um — no, I haven't ‘really’ learned the language in a day; my computer is still helping me make proper sentences.”

And her pronunciation is still noticeably non-native.

[mstestsubject]

"What are the wrong words to say it in improperly?"

[synchrosyntheses]

“Well, I just used the wrong words. In the world I know, there is less difference between ‘is mine’ and ‘is me’. You could say that I have learned the language sufficiently for the definition of ‘I’ that includes my computer.

“Sorry if that makes me sound more like that,” waving in the direction of the boxed GLaDOS.

[mstestsubject]

"...I don't think you could sound like that."

[synchrosyntheses]

“Good to know.”

[mstestsubject]

"I don't really understand what's going on. Do you know where- what happened? I just wanted to leave, I didn't know anything."

[synchrosyntheses]

“I might. What happened when?”

[mstestsubject]

"When she- it killed everyone."

[synchrosyntheses]

“I don't have a complete picture myself, because everyone here was terrible at consistent recordkeeping. But the sequence of events seems to be just, they put it in control and it waited, then killed the scientists after they decided it was OK. It didn't kill everyone — lots of staff, and you, got put in suspension.

“Unfortunately, the suspension was poorly maintained, and as far as I can tell you are the only survivor now.”

[mstestsubject]

"...oh. And that was it. It just killed everyone and put everyone under suspension and then, what, woke- how many people did it wake up before me?"