"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."

"...there's no point speculating. Until Zash is here, we will not know what we can and cannot do."

"Okay." She rubs the bridge of her nose. "Well, I think you should have your healthy sisters make things for humans, carefully and sustainably in ways that won't hurt them, sooner rather than later. There's about to be a refugee crisis from all the places they came from trying to get into cities that still have plants, if there isn't already. I think that will do no one any good. And I think I absolutely need to consolidate my research and stuff it down the throats of every single plant engineer in the entire goddamned world."

"I have ways of ensuring your research reaches whomever you may wish."

Nai looks at her intently and then makes a frustrated sound. "Why can't you hear me. Zash can do it, why can't I."

"...I need time. Alone."

He doesn't wait even a second, after saying that, and to the extent one can "stalk off", while floating, he stalks off.

"Bye, Nai. Thanks for trusting me," she says, to his retreating form.

Dr. Conrad will be available here if she needs him for anything but he's very aware that she despises him so he'll not initiate any interactions.

Eh, she'll let him know, for now she has data to consolidate the everliving shit out of.

(And also, yes, she does still despise him. Not that she'll tell him, since he already knows. But she's pretty sure she just completely convinced Nai to not murder all humans. She's been here perhaps a month. And that's how you show the worth of humanity, bitch.)

"What did you do?"

Oh god damn it not now she's busy there's a world to save.

"In regards to what, exactly?" says Yvette, not looking up from her console.

An iron nail the size of a finger is launched from who knows where at a high enough speed that when it hits the metal platform right next to where Yvette is it sinks nearly an inch into it. "Look at me when I'm talking to you, bitch," the girl growls, looking murderously at Yvette from where she's standing by one of the doors into the plants room.

FUCKING HELL WHAT IS IT WITH HER AND BEING THREATENED TODAY.

She does not, actually, suppress the yelp, and she does obligingly flinch and turn away from the console to look at Elendira. Does it look like Conrad's tiny mistreated psycho is going to launch more sharp things at her??

(.... Lovely precious plants if you could just go psychically get Nai please, that would be super helpful she thinks he would appreciate it. She knows she certainly would.)