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]

"Care to do some sorting now?"

The center has been rearranged slightly to suit two people: instead of a circle of displays surrounding its sole user, it's more peanut-shaped, and the second lobe has a chair with controls on the armrests.

(Teytis is holding a not-quite-standing-or-sitting position without benefit of any furniture.)

[mstestsubject]

"Can you fly?"

[synchrosyntheses]

"—Yes. And a few other things. Part of the 'from a different universe' package, though I'm surprised to find that it still works for me since every other part of my experience seems to be either the same both places or local physics, not mine."

[mstestsubject]

"Okay. What can I do to help?"

[synchrosyntheses]

“Have a seat.” She indicates the chair.

“What I have is access to all the information in the — current era — Aperture Science computer systems. The problem is that it is entirely unorganized, as far as I can tell. I'm working on fixing that, but that requires looking at everything.

“My goal here is to get myself home, and leave this place better than I found it. That requires finding information about, and preferably people to study, the physics that let me get here and perhaps the machine that did it. If I'm going to be bringing people here, I want it not to kill them. Therefore, I also want to find everything unnecessarily deadly and make it safe or nonexistent.

“What you can do is help me review all these scraps of information, and flag anything that's possibly relevant to these issues. My computer is already doing rough categorization, but we still need to figure out the jargon and euphemisms, and relate it all to what we know actually exists.”

[mstestsubject]

"Okay.





"And you said all humans are dead and I'm the only one left?"

[synchrosyntheses]

“Everyone who was in suspension as test subjects along with you.

“That still leaves the possibilities of people outside the facility, in the non-networked undocumented parts of the facility, or in a part we haven't found out about yet in the information we do have.”

[mstestsubject]

"Who else was in suspension? Was it- all the daughters?"

[synchrosyntheses]

“I haven't found a record of whose daughters attended so I can't say whether it was all of them. But most of the people were Aperture employees.”

[mstestsubject]

"Oh. And the scientists?"

[synchrosyntheses]

“Nobody who was working on the GLaDOS project — according to the older records — got suspended; presumably they died or escaped. There were some from other projects.”

[mstestsubject]

"Okay."

She walks over to the, uh, space or whatever dedicated to her.

[synchrosyntheses]

There's a chair. (It is notably lacking in structural elements, yet sturdy and comfortable.) There are a couple of joystick sort of things on the armrests. (Moving them moves the contents of the displays.)

Teytis explains how to use this thing, which she put together from the local equipment (displays and graphics hardware) and her own (actually managing the data). These controls are for just scanning through the information, and one can label things for interestingness like so.

For anything more complicated, Chell can use her computer (Teytis is very firm that it's hers now, everyone should have one, no really) and use its keyboard to search for specific things and make notes, or adjust the system to her liking.

[mstestsubject]

...okay. She's never really been a computer person. Especially given she was frozen when she was a child. So, what's left for her to do, here?

[unbitwise]

She can read the thing on this display. If it is innocuous and boring, push here to move along to the next thing. If it's not, she can talk to Teytis about it.

[mstestsubject]

"Does this place really pump sunlight all the way from the surface to the test chambers?"

[synchrosyntheses]

“If this situation were any more ordinary, I would think that ‘pumping’ isn't something you can do to light, and especially not sunlight. But —

“Yes. At least, the equipment described in that plan does exist, and it does seem to be bringing sunlight from the surface. And it happens that some of that light is used to grow the crops for the cafeteria you visited.”

(And the energy consumed by said equipment is much more than it would take to just illuminate the plants. But that sort of thing is just routine, now, and not worth mentioning.)

[mstestsubject]

"Only some?"

[synchrosyntheses]

“The rest is being used in testing elements.”

[mstestsubject]

"Testing elements. Of course."

[synchrosyntheses]

Teytis provides a link to the available information on Hard Light Bridges, which Chell can review on the screens if she wants to.

[mstestsubject]

"Well it could be worse I suppose."

[synchrosyntheses]

“It's the worse things we're looking for.”

[mstestsubject]

"Right, I guess." She continues looking. Eventually: "...why is there a room filled with robots that scream all the time."

[unbitwise]

[This thread is on hiatus until we invent more of Aperture to have adventures in.]