He looks up, then, and swivels his chair around to face Yvette. "Hello, Ms. Marlowe. I trust you've been enjoying your stay?"

"Hello. It's been interesting. Also, approximately the best place I could be in the world for my research, so. If I ever get back to December I will have so much data to stuff down their throats."

She steps up to the glass, her brows furrowed.

"... Okay, yes, they are indeed less literally confined than the pods, but I somehow don't think this is the kind of free you meant, Nai."

"It is not."

"Do you know how I survived the last century and a half? How I am still here?"

"No. My best guess would be a mix of cryosleep, cybernetics, and horrific research done on unwilling human subjects."

He shakes his head. "Some, but most of the necessary research was done aboard ship 05. On Tesla."

Nai twitches, but doesn't say anything.

"I am connected to Master Knives's gate. Not fully, not as much as he is. I could not survive as much as he could.

"But I can survive much more than an unaugmented human can."

Literally any human in the world and he picked this one to give quasi-immortality?!?!?!

Probably it makes sense because it's literally Conrad's research and it sounds like nobody involved likes the arrangement, but. Still!!!!!

(.... but also wait maybe she could be with Zash instead of tragically doomed. No, no, bad scientist, don't just get starry eyed over possible applications of immortality just because your, he is not your boyfriend, your it's complicated is immortal. Pay attention and use that brain of yours. Behave.)

"... Well that sounds uncomfortable for everyone involved in this particular case, if not necessarily the theoretical."

He turns back to the console and opens up some graphs that Yvette might be even better positioned than he is to interpret. "There is a throughput limit to plants' gates, and they are one-way only. It was theorised by scientists, and has since been confirmed by Master Knives, that much of plants' bodies is in fact located in the other dimension. They have little control over their own gates, however, and without careful management they burn out, pouring too much energy through their gates and going out in a single burst; and their deaths happen when they have consumed too much and their gates cannot replenish them well enough, to a first approximation.

"You are, I assume, aware of all of this.

"The twins have much better and finer control over their own gates. Master Knives can generate amounts of matter we have yet to see limits to, due to the size and power of his gate, and yet he is not overwhelmed. And as Master Zash demonstrates, it is possible for them to almost-completely close their own gates, which non-independent plants cannot do. This is what gives them the necessary flexibility and durability to be independent; living in our dimension is toxic to them, but the amount of energy they can pull from the other dimension, and the precision with which they can apply it even on a subconscious level, means they do not register this even as mild discomfort."

The information about the twins was relevant and interesting and valuable, but that first half? About how plants function? Yeah, she knows. If he assumed she knew all of this then why did he explain it to her like she hasn’t literally taken this exact thing as her damn profession. No, don’t pick a dumb fight with this person, just prove his mansplaining irrelevant. Ignore the irritation about feeling condescended to, look at the problem being presented before you. What are the potential pitfalls?

"... Mm. Is there a way to monitor the effect this has on the plants' home dimension?"

"Indirectly. We have certain diagnostic tools and models for what is going on on their end, and those suggest their home dimension's ability to generate energy is either infinite or infinitely replenishing. I believe my data may be useful to you, and I hesitate to directly share my models with you because it might bias you and you may be able to derive insights from the raw data that I could not. But if you wish, you may check my calculations.

"Part of Master Knives's plan will involve checking this much more directly, however."

"I'll take the raw data and look through it. Making sure not to drain another dimension's energy reserves dry is kind of important," she agrees. "Checking directly as in... turning a gate the other way, and going through? But that's phenomenally risky if there needs to be an anchor on both... ... you mean to have two of them. You need Zash."

Nai nods. "Has Zash told you about... when he lost his arm?"

When Nai cut his arm off.

"The... odd interaction where everything got pulled into his gate. Yes. He did."

"That was the event that precipitated this line of research. It is empirically possible to create a reverse gate, and with Master Zash's cooperation my models suggest that they could open a stable two-way gate."

"And from there, we would be able to help my sisters. All of them, all over this planet. With Zash's help, we could go to the higher dimension and manipulate plants' gates to give every plant the ability to become independent. That is what I mean to do."

"... I'm not against the idea in principle, but I also suspect you do not mean to carefully and gently go through with this process at a conservative pace. Do you."

"No."

"...but this is giving them freedom. If, after being freed, my sisters desire to remain where they are, and continue to supply humans with what they ask, then... I no longer... have an objection. If they can object, if they can have their word heard, and they do not wish to speak... I will no longer speak for them."

"And I'm not against that in principle! If it doesn't damage another dimension in a bid to fix the problems of this one, then I probably even support it. Depending on implementation. But if you just... zap, snap your fingers and change all plants everywhere into independents, even if they then all immediately agreed to pick things up again people would die. Lots of them. There would be chaos and riots. That's not even accounting for if they wake up confused and don't remember or don't know how to use their gates, which is likely." She points at the plants in the tank. "And I do know that your sisters as they are now do not want that. Yes, step in to keep them from, from horrible pointless fates like the fucking sand steamer, but don't. Use them as a murder weapon and say it's for their good. That is a monstrous thing to do to someone, much less many someones, all at once."