"Yes, which was lots of fun."

    "Sarcasm self-test complete," says a completely different, male voice.

"Oh good, that's online. I hadn't had a chance to test it yet."

"The cause of apocalypse, however," she continues conversationally, "seems inconsistent with your reports."

"Uh huh."

"Have you heard of the Combine?"

"The what?"

"Aliens."

"Not called that."

"Did they arrive through portals?"

"Fuck if I know. It was thousands of years ago."

"Was it? That's fascinating."

"Whatever."

"The Combine, you see, did not stay here for thousands of years."

"Right."

"Is the planet you're from an Earth?"

"We usually say the."

"If there were only one, I would agree, but I've been looking at the logs of the relaxation chambers and yours had a lot of portal-related energy released just before that metal ball woke you up."

"Oh what the fuck."

"Do you want to tell me more about where you're from?"

"Are you going to keep trying to shove me into a test chamber?"

"Oh, fine. I had a side project to phase out humans anyway."

"Is that a no?"

"Correct, that's a no."

"Sure, whatever. Let's talk."

The elevator reaches another floor. "Could you get off this elevator?"