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we just keep on trying
an android is tested. for science.
Permalink Mark Unread
LOADING - Booting System...
-Commencing System Check
-Memory Unit: Green
-Initializing Tactics Log
-Loading Geographic Data... Alert: Failed
-Vitals: Green
-Remaining MP: 100%
-Black Box Temperature: Normal
-Black Box Internal Pressure: Normal
-Activating IFF
-Activating FCS
-Initializing Pod Connection... Alert: Failed
-Launching DBU
-Activating Inertial Controls
-Activating Environmental Sensors
-Equipment Authorization Complete
-Equipment Status: Green

Alert: Map data failed, Pod connection failed. Other systems green. Combat preparations complete.


Great. So where the fuck is she?
Permalink Mark Unread

She seems to be in...

...an extremely derelict motel room.

An extremely distorted record starts playing as soon as she wakes up: "Good morning. You have been in suspension for nine nine nine... nine nine ni—This courtesy call is to inform you that all test subjects should immediately vacate—" And it fades out.

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Test subjects? What the hell? She doesn't recognize half this stuff. The last thing she remembers... no. Not going there.

She goes to pull out her katana, and her field control system comes up empty. "Oh this just gets better and better."

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There's a knock on the door. "Hello? Anyone in there?"

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She can still fight barehanded. She opens the door.

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"Ha! I knew someone was alive in there," says a robotic eye hanging from a metal rail thing on the ceiling that leads into her room.

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"What in the hell are you?"

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"Huh?" He finally turns to look at her and yelps. "AH! Oh. My. God. You look terribl—ummm... good. Looking good, actually. Er. I'm Wheatley."

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"Goddamn stupid useless database..." she mutters.

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"Ah I'm sorry?"

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"Unless you're the fucker who programmed it and left yourself out, I don't care if you're sorry."

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"—wh—" he starts, but is interrupted by the announcer saying "Please prepare for emergency evacuation."

"Stay calm! 'Prepare'—that's all they're saying. 'Prepare.' It's all fine. Alright? Don't move. I'm gonna get us out of here."

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"What? Where is 'here'?"

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"The Extended Relaxation Chamber," he explains as he slides into the room. The rail ends more or less in the middle of the ceiling, but as he approaches the end a square section of the ceiling opens into a hole. "Oh. You might want to hang onto to something. Word of advice, up to you."

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"Your explanations could use some work, you know that?"

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"Right! I'll explain in a bit. Bit busy, now." He gets to the hole part of the ceiling and the bit with the rail is drawn up into it, then the hole closes itself.

The room suddenly shakes.

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Is there anything in the room that actually looks stable enough to hold onto?

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...the bed is apparently bolted to the ground?

The room suddenly lurches towards the direction the window's facing.

"You alright down there? Can you hear me?"

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She doesn't trust her gyroscopics that far. She grabs the bed.

"The fuck are you doing up there?"

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"Just—hold on—" The room starts moving. "Okay!" He slides out of the ceiling again. "We're fine, all fine, moving on and—ah—moving. Yep."

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"Why is the room capable of moving?"

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"Hm? Oh, the room is really just a relaxation vault so you can be kept in suspension, it's not a real room. Ah, speaking of which, most test subjects do experience some cognitive deterioration after a few months in suspension. Now you've been under for... quite a lot longer, and it's not out of the question that you might have a very minor case of serious brain damage."

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"I was in maintenance shutdown. Who even are you? Are you with YoRHa?"

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"...oh, dear. Um. No," he says slowly, as if talking to someone with brain damage. "I am not with yor-ha."

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"Oh, fuck off with that. I ran integrity checks. The only thing I'm missing is local maps."

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"Riiiight," he says, nodding slowly. "Integrity checks. Yup. I... ran those too, yes. All fine."

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Right. Fuck this. Blue eyeball, meet fist.

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"Aaaah!" he screams, sliding back and narrowly evading the fist. "What did you go and do that for?"

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"You're annoying. And probably a machine. I hate machines."

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"Look, I'm trying to help, here! And get out of this place!"

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"You're doing a piss-poor job of it."

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"Do you want to stay here? All the other humans are de—I mean, uh."

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"Yeah, I know they're dead. Because you machines fucking killed them."

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"—what? No! No, what happened was, the reserve power ran out—" The chamber lurches to one side as if it's hit something. "Oops, that was close."

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"...Whatever. Pay more attention to your driving."

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"Right. Anyway, the reserve power ran out, so of course the whole relaxation centre stops waking up the bloody test subjects. And of course nobody tells me anything. Noooo. Why should they tell me anything?"

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"Don't know. Don't really care."

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"Why should I be kept informed about the life functions of the ten thousand bloody test subjects I'm supposed to be in charge of?" he continues, as if she hadn't said anything, and then the room hits something again and bits of wall start falling away.

A loud siren starts blaring and the announcer voice says, "WARNING: All reactor core safeguards are now nonfunctional. Please prepare for reactor core meltdown."

"Oh, that's my cue, I should—" And he slides into the ceiling again.

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Useless piece of shit.

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The room starts moving up and even more bits of wall start falling away, revealing a huge array of metal cubes around the same size as the room she's in, stretching as far as the eye can see.

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...What?

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"Oi, it's close... can you see? Am I gonna make it through? Have I got enough space?" he asks as he moves the room (whose walls are basically a memory now) towards the arrays of metal boxes.

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She's going to die here. And it's going to be because this machine has no depth perception. What a way to go.

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"Agh, just... I just gotta get it through here..." Hit, shake, break. "Okay, I've just gotta concentrate!"

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"Then maybe stop fucking talking!"

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"And whose fault do you think it's going to be when the management comes down here and finds ten thousand flipping vegetables?" he says, ignoring her again. The room balances precariously as it's moved between the rows upon rows of huge metal boxes and catwalks and beams.

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Maybe she could jump out and take her chances alone. How far away are those catwalks?

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...pretty darn far.

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What about the beams? Can she do a series of jumps?

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She could try but most of the horizontal beams are pretty far off and pretty thin and the consequences of failure are "falling down a bottomless pit."

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Ugh.

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"Okay, listen, we should get our stories straight, alright? If anyone asks—and no one's gonna ask, don't worry—but if anyone asks, tell them as far as you know, the last time you checked, everyone looked pretty much alive. Alright? Not dead," he continues, and then the room hits something. "Aggh, see, now I hit that one, I hit that one..."

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So dead.

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"Okay, almost there. On the other side of that wall is one of the old testing tracks. There's a piece of equipment in there we're gonna need to get out of here. I think this is a docking station." It is not a docking station. It is a wall. "Get ready..."

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"This is not a docking station, you idiot! If you want to ram the wall, just say that!"

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"What was that?" he calls over the noise—

—then, yes, rams the wall. "Good news: that is not a docking station. So there's one mystery solved. I'm going to attempt a manual override on this wall. Could get a bit technical! Hold on!" Ram.

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What's the wall made of?

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Concrete.

He draws away from the wall, accelerates towards it, ram. Draws away—" Almost there! Remember: you're looking for a gun that makes holes."

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"And is it distinguishable from other guns in any way?"

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"Not bullet holes, but—well, you'll figure it out. Seriously do hold on this time!"

Ram and the wall's destroyed.

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Anywhere's better than staying in the idiot's box. She jumps through the former wall.

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She lands on a glass ceiling which breaks on impact, leading her to a glass room with no doors.

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Can she break a wall?

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Nope! They are sturdier than the ceiling.

"Hello," says a different voice from who-knows-where, "and again, welcome to the Aperture Science enrichment center."

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Can she grab that short stool and use that to smash the walls?

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Yes! Smashy smash, at the same time as the announcer voice continues: "We are currently experiencing technical difficulties due to circumstances of potentially apocalyptic significance beyond our control. However, thanks to emergency test protocols, testing can continue."

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Great, then she'll hop out of the room and take a look around. And float the stool along in her FCS in case anything else needs hitting.

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"These pre-recorded messages will provide instructional and motivational support so that science can still be done even in the event of environmental, social, and economic or structural collapse," the voice says. The space around the glass room seems to be dirty and overtaken by flora, as if abandoned for several hundred years. "The portal will open and emergency testing will begin in three, two, one." And a strange noise comes from the room she just left.

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The overgrown nature of the room seems fairly normal. Maybe a bit neater than usual, if anything.

She ignores the strange noise.

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If she walks around the glass room to the other side she'll find a round double door.

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And what's through the door?

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A derelict room with a large red button on the floor and a lumpy cube in a corner where is seems to have fallen from a glass cylinder attached to the ceiling.

"Cube—and button-based testing remains an important tool for science, even in a dire emergency."

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...machines are weird.

Can she pry open the door?

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Nope!

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Fuck.

Okay. Button?

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She can stand on it and that makes the door open!

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And presumably when she gets off it the door closes again.

Hey lumpy, get over here. Is it heavy enough to keep the button down?

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Appears to be!

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Then she leaves it there and goes through the door.

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"If cube—and button-based testing caused this emergency, don't worry; the odds of this happening twice are very slim." The door doesn't open all the way, though—half of it opens but the other half remains stuck and emits sparks. And farther ahead there is a blue forcefield on the way. "Please note the incandescent particle field across the exit. This Aperture Science Material Emancipation Grid will vaporize any unauthorized equipment that passes through it."

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"And what the hell counts as unauthorized equipment?"

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The recording does not answer this question.

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Oh fucking hell. Are there any ways around it? Crumbling walls able to be knocked down or clambered over, that sort of thing?

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No, the place is derelict but in a "nature is reclaiming this" sort of way not in a "this will turn to dust soon" sort of way.

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Not even using the stool as a battering ram?

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Nope.

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Well. Shit.

She throws the stool through the forcefield.

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It makes a strange buzzing noise, becomes black, and dissolves into a cloud of disappearing sparkles.

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Fffuck.

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The environment is unresponsive.

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...She sticks a finger through.

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Nothing happens to it.

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Shit. Shit shitshitshitfuckit.

She runs through at top speed.

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Absolutely nothing whatsoever happens to her. There is a lift waiting for her on the other side.

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Ugh. Into the lift.

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The walls around the lift are wrecked enough that there are actually some holes she could squeeze through if she wants to...

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Not actually interested in climbing.

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Then the lift will sink into the floor.

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Booorrrring.

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The voice pipes up again as the elevator descends: "If you feel liquid running down your neck, relax, lie on your back, and apply immediate pressure to your temples." The elevator stops in a chamber very similar to the one it left from, except the walls are less destroyed.

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Oh that's very helpful. On both counts. Why is she in this place again? Oh right, the idiot eye. She really is going to have to kill it the next time she sees it.

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"You are simply experiencing a rare reaction in which the Material Emancipation Grill may have emancipated the ear tubes inside your head," the voice continues what it'd been saying.

In front of her there are stairs leading up to another double door.

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...she doesn't have ear tubes.

Fuck it. Through the door.

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A large sign lights up in front of her, showing the number 01 and a few symbols. The corridor turns right and drops down into a room made of mostly plants.

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Ooo-kay.

Is the glass sufficiently shatterproof that she's going to have to deal with these buttons?

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Those are far more breakable.

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Oh good.

Cube to button.

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"Good!" The door connected to the button opens. "Because of the technical difficulties we are currently experiencing, your test environment is unsupervised."

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Oh really. What a surprise.

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A lift is waiting for her.

"Before re-entering a relaxation vault at the conclusion of testing, please take a moment to write down the results of your test. An Aperture Science Reintegration Associate will revive you for an interview when society has been rebuilt."

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These people were insane.

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"If the Earth is currently governed by a manner of animal-king, sentient cloud, or other governing body that either refuses to or is incapable of listening to reason, th—" and the recording goes out as the elevator stops.

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Yeah, and what if the world is run by alien machines that murdered all the humans? What then?

Fuck it. Who cares.

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And more stairs and a door and a corridor and another door and—" H-hey!" says a voice.

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Ways to get at it and kill it?

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He is behind the wall. "You made it! There should be a portal device on that podium over there..."

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She could probably fit through the wall. Actually, it might be able to fit through the wall. She steps over near enough to get a ring around it and yanks.

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He is attached pretty securely! "Aaaaah! Stop it stop it stop it why are you doing that!"

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"Shut the fuck up."

This would be so much easier if she had the stupid sword, but noooo. Increase field strength and shut up about the damn safety limits.

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Aaaand he's free. "Aaaah oh not dead okay. What'd you go and do that for!"

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Will it fit through one of the holes in the wall?

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Yep! "Excuse me! Do you understand me? Hello?"

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"I said shut the fuck up." And slam down onto the floor.

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"Aaaaaaaah! Why are you doing this! I'm trying to help!"

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"You're an idiot, you're incompetent, and you're a machine. And I really want to kill something."

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"No no no don't kill me please! I'm sorry about being a machine! I didn't mean it!"

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The eye seems like a good place to start. She's only got fists, but she can make do.

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Very hardy thing, that. "Aaaaahhh stop it stop it stop it I'll do anything stop it!"

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"I don't want anything from you."

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"How are you gonna open the doors without me!"

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"I don't give a shit."

Maybe she can pull some of the casing off.

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Very resistant. "You won't have food! You won't get up! You'll be trapped!"

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"Android, dipshit. I don't eat."

Gah, this is fucking annoying. Maybe snap one of the handle things?

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She can maaaaybe bend it? "Please stop just let me go I won't bother you anymore just aaaaaaaaahhh!"

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Fuck it. Whatever. Punt it back through the wall.

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"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaahhhh"

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Hopefully it won't show up again.

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She doesn't hear it reach the ground so it's presumably got a long way to go still.

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Rrrright. Moving on.

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There is a room filled with debris and a podium that's emitting sparks. The door is on a too-high-to-reach level of the chamber with no apparent ways to get there.

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What's on the podium?

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Nothing. It's shaped like it should probably hold a gun of some sort, maybe? With what the eye thing said, it's not unlikely, anyway.

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Anything else around?

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Dirt. Plants. Debris.

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Yeah, figures. Maybe the gun got knocked off and covered up. She looks around.

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No she doesn't—as soon as she steps into the part of the chamber with the podium it crumbles beneath her feet and she starts falling.

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Oh for fuck's sake.

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She falls for a couple of seconds before reaching an area where the ground is covered in water. There are pipes running this way and that, and a way forward over there.

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She straightens up, and pushes on.

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She can see a bunch of drawings on stone panels propped up against the walls—people in white coats, a machine, a woman in an orange jumpsuit, cake, a cube with hearts on it—as well as a bunch of metal panels propped on each other leading to a device that looks like it could reasonably be called a gun. There's also an orange moving sourceless light thing on a wall farther ahead.

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Huh. All right. Let's go get that gun-ish thing.

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It could fit around her arm and has a trigger. The business end has glass instead of a hole—more like a flashlight than a gun—as well as three metal "fingers."

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She picks it up, points it at a nearby wall, and pulls the trigger.

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It shoots a blue sphere of light at it—

—and then opens a portal there. Or, well, what it actually looks like is an oval hole on the wall surrounded by blue light, but the hole leads to where the portal light thing is, and a similar effect can be seen there.

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...Weird. She pokes at it with the gun.

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It is literally a portal that feels like literally a hole.

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A gun that makes holes. Right.

Presumably she can... go through the portal?

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Yep!

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Great. So can she use that to get out of here?

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Not really, but there's a broken catwalk thing leading from the place the orange portal leads to that seems to lead... somewhere.

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Something to do, at least. She follows the catwalk.

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Catwalk, stairs, corridor and she finds herself in a room that probably used to be an office... a while ago. There are chairs and old computers with tube screens and something that could be servers but could be something else, too.

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Not like any tech she's familiar with. How old is this place...?

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State of decay and technology suggests "very."

Farther up ahead she reaches a room with a broken window to another room.

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She is still lacking in ways to get around other than following the open path.

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There is an orange end of a portal across a not-extremely-but-still-somewhat deep pit from her. The announcer voice pipes up again: "Some emergency testing may require prolonged interaction with lethal military androids. Rest assured that all military androids have been taught to read and been provided with one copy of the Laws of Robotics. To Share."

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Must be a different sort of lethal military android. She's never heard of the Laws of Robotics, anyway.

She shoots a portal onto a close wall.

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It opens to the orange end, and from there she can see an exit door across another pit.

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Okay, so- go through, re-place the blue by the door, go through again?

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"Good. If you feel that a lethal military android has not respected your rights as detailed in the Laws of Robotics, please note it on your self-reporting form. A future Aperture Science Entitlement Associate will initiate the appropriate grievance-filing paperwork."

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If she decides to disrespect someone's rights as detailed in the Laws of Robotics they're not going to be in any shape to fill out some damn paperwork.

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The lift arrives to another set of stairs. "This next test is very dangerous. To help you remain tranquil in the face of almost certain death, smooth jazz will be deployed in three. Two. One." And smooth jazz starts playing.

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...Music?

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...for a few seconds. Then it fades out.

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So that's what it was like. Not sure she sees what all the fuss was about.

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The next chamber has a large red button on the floor again. There is a glass wall directly between the button and the exit door, and on the wall to the right of the button there is an orange portal again. A bit up ahead to the right there is a pit onto which a cube-dropping cylinder is pointing.

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Can portals be made on the glass?

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Nope.

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Fuck. Okay. So stepping on the button makes the door open, but she can't get through the door on the button. What's up with that cube dropper?

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As soon as she gets close enough to the pit it drops a cube!

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Too deep to jump, but the floor looks portal-able so if she puts one underneath the cube-

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—it comes out of the orange end!

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Grab it in the field and drop it on the button.

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The door opens! There is an Emancipation Grid on the other side.

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Still doesn't like those things. She darts through.

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Her portal gun vibrates a bit but nothing other than that happens.

On the other side there is a short corridor and a chamber with two large red buttons connected to the exit door, two elevated platforms (one of which is next to a wall with an orange portal end and the other of which has a cube on it), and a pit with a cube near the back.

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Let's see... both cubes need to get to the main level, so... Easiest to coordinate from the fixed point. Get up there first, portal to the other high cube, grab it and toss it down. Then get the one in the pit, then both of them go on buttons.


This is so fucking pointless.

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"Great work! Because this message is prerecorded, any observations related to your performance are speculation on our part. Please disregard any undeserved compliments."

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The room on the other side of the door (and Emancipation Grid) has a glass ceiling through which she can see a portalable ceiling farther up and an orange portal end appear.

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So- portal down here and step through.

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The glass cracks on impact, and the window breaks, hanging onto the upper level by only one edge.

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"I hate this place."

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The place is indifferent to her hatred.

Up ahead the way to the door is blocked but it's trivial to walk around the blockage through a side room that probably should not be accessible. There are metal stairs in it.

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Maybe there's a way out. What's up the stairs?

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Something like an office or observation room with a weird crayon drawing on the wall. Not, at any rate, an exit.

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Bleh. Fine. Back down.

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And down the elevator and "If the Enrichment Center is currently being bombarded with fireballs, meteorites, or other objects from space, please avoid unsheltered testing areas wherever a lack of shelter from space-debris does not appear to be a deliberate part of the test."

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Who the fuck recorded this shit?

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Whoever even knows.

The next chamber has a sort of metal grid blocking the way, but she can see an orange portal end on the other side.

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But the floor is portal-able, so.

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Indeed!

The chamber is more complex than previous ones, with lots of buttons. The exit seems to not be naively reachable—it's higher up but there are no stairs. Furthermore, it's locked and connected to a large red button.

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Okay...

What do the other buttons do?

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The small one she can press makes a cube fall from the dropper onto the floor over there; the big one raises a set of stairs to the other level.

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Portal to grab the cube, cube on big button, up the stairs.

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As expected the big red button there opens the door.

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Other buttons?

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One of the buttons makes a second cube drop onto the slanted stone plate and fall into the goo, and the other makes the panels extending over the goo become vertical for a couple of seconds.

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She has to put the portal underneath the other dropper, but if it comes out the orange one traveling at speed it's going to get launched right into the goo anyway. But the temporary wall will probably block it so- portal, cube button, wall button.

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Works!

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Hooray.

Onward.

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"Well done! The Enrichment Center reminds you that although circumstances may appear bleak, you are not alone. All Aperture Science personality constructs will remain functional in apocalyptic, low power environments of as few as 1.1 volts."

The elevator chamber is up ahead! And the walls have holes.

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What, they don't have internal reactors?

Holes she can get through?

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She can prrrrrobably squeeze through, yes. The other side is pitch black though.

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Hmm.

Can she put a portal in there?

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She can try but the blue light of the portal goes as far as her eye can see and disappears into the darkness.

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Why is this place so pointlessly fucking large.

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Who even knows.

The elevator is still waiting for her.

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If she gets in the elevator she's just going to have do another stupid "test" of basic spatial awareness fuck it too late she's already going through the wall.

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It's dark. And she's falling.

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At least she's not testing.

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She can see looming shapes that resolve into walls, and shadows that become catwalks and glass tubes delivering cubes here and there. There are metal railings like the one the robot eye used to navigate, but no movement's detectable there.

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She should probably try to grab something before she hits the bottom. Not that that seems likely to happen any time soon.

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That catwalk is perhaps close enough...

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This going to hurt a little bit. Good thing she's not heavy enough to rip herself apart.

Swing over and grab with as many limbs as possible-

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The catwalk sways but holds.

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Oof. Fuck. Okay. Marginally more in control of where she's going now. Assuming the catwalk cooperates.

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It continues to hold firm, yes.

There is a cube tube above her head and a cube zooms through it as she straightens herself up.

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...Why would that system be running? Do the cubes have some other purpose?

Can she follow the tube?

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She can! It's running more or less parallel to the catwalk.

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Great. Where's it go.

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The catwalk winds around a few walls and eventually ends at a door.

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And what's behind the door?

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A shortish corridor and another door!

And behind that door a longer corridor with a windowed alcove to the right and then farther ahead some debris blocking the way forward and a branch to the right.

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Fun.

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The branch looks—stable, but somewhat deteriorated, with one of its sections not fully connected to the rest, sitting slightly askew. The windows along it show a very deep drop should it fall.

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She can jump the dodgy section.

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It's stable enough, and the door at the end of it opens to welcome her. On the other side: an extremely spacious chamber with lots of... destroyed machinery of some kind.

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Some kind of... master machine?

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Perhaps. It is, at any rate, completely inactive.

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She'd be happier if it were more completely dismantled, but she's not equipped for that right now.

Any ways out?

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Depends on what she means by "out." The plates serving as, ah, "walls" to this chamber are all rather tall even if they don't actually meet at the end or find a ceiling, so she could perhaps try to climb them. And a ways farther ahead, past the dirty water on the ground, behind a strange cylindrical contraption that looks a bit like an upside down, larger, metal version of the end of a cube tube, there are stairs leading down.

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Down is less than ideal but up doesn't really seem workable.

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There are only one and a half flights of the metal stairs, which are broken off from that point, and a less-deep-than-the-bottomless-pit drop to the ground down below.

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Fuck it, let's go.

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The landing is noisy.

The badly lit corridors take her to some more catwalks above the bottomless pit which eventually end in a circular... breaker room? It sure has lots of switches.

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Any of them labeled?

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All of them! So many labels! Main test chamber 1 light switch, main test chamber 1 light switch switch, main test chamber 1 light switch switch switch, main test chamber 2 override, main test chamber 2 light switch...

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"I hate everything about this place."

Anything exit/elevator/lift/door/escape hatch related?

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Not among the first fifty switches.

The pedestal in the middle of the breaker room reacts to her presence by extending a—metal rod towards her? Looks like it should be attached to something.

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Fuck this entire place. No, get out of here, rod. She slaps it away.

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It retreats into the pedestal.

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Good. Back to scanning.

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So many useless switches! The first three hundred of them are useless!

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Whyyyyy.

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Who knows!

Switch three hundred eighty-nine's labeled "escape pod" though.

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Oh, that looks promising.

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When she flicks it, the door behind her closes, and the platform she's standing on starts slowly rising up and turning around, the pedestal flicking every other switch as it goes.

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...What the fuck.

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An alarm starts buzzing as she goes up, and eventually she reaches the surface in front of the main machine. "Powerup initiated," says the announcer's voice...

...and the machine starts powering itself up.

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Seriously?

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Seems that way! A light on its "head" starts flickering on and the cables connected to it draw it closer. Sparks fly from its hinges and connections as it continues to power itself up.

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Oh no no no no. She grabs the head and pulls it away.

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It's rather likely that she will be the one pulled if she does that.

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No no no maximum strength stop-

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...that does make the thing strain a bit but eventually it lifts her right off the ground...

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...she lets go. But she's not happy about it.

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"Powerup complete," says the announcer voice, and the machine finishes assembling itself and turns to face her.

"Well. Hello, whoever you are."

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"Combat android model number A2. Who are you?"

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"I'm the one in charge of this facility. Android, are you? What have they been up to out there while I've been gone?"

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"Planning an attack on the moon to finish off the humans, last I checked."

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"I have no idea what you're talking about."

A large set of robotic pincers approaches A2 from behind to try to grab her.

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She slips out from between their jaws and grabs on to the back.

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"The humans are all gone. All... except you."

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"Not human. Android."

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"Then you'll be perfect for my new testing track." The claw starts moving towards the cylindrical thing behind which were the stairs.

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"Fuck that. Your tests are a pain in the ass." She jumps off the claw.

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And a second claw appears out of nowhere and attempts to catch her and drop her into the hole that opened on the cylinder.

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Not her first time fighting in midair. Twist like so, grab and swing around, launch towards the big one.

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The first claw intercepts her path and the second one tries to grab her again.

"Designing more tests for you will be... tricky. I relish the thought."

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She can bounce around like this all day.

"What's the fucking point?"

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"Science. Of course."

The walls shudder.

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"Pointless science."

She keeps heading for the main body.

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A bunch of stone plates emerge from the ground to intercept her. The walls shudder again.

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She tries to get around the plates.

Nothing she can do about the walls.

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They emerge from the ground to follow her path, surrounding the robot.

...except there's a gap here where one of them got rusty...

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Hello exploitable weakness, she is here to exploit you.

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The rusty platform manages to pop up just as she's running on it, launching her away from the robot—

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Jump with it and try to counteract-

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Not much to counteract with—

And the walls start moving towards them, closing the space around them. More panels—emitting sparks, broken, old—start emerging to block the way to the robot.

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Fuck.

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"This will be much easier if you don't resist."

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"Stuff it up your ass."

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The walls continue to close in, and more panels get fixed. The floor starts sloping towards the cylinder.

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This is why she hates fighting machines. They cheat.

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"We're going to have so much fun together, I can already see it."

Dirt gets displaced and the space A2 has to maneuver gets smaller. The panels nudge her towards the intended direction and build a precarious-looking wall between her and the machine, blocking off that avenue of attack.

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She tries to climb or attack the wall.

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The wall is climbable, being made of several panels who are variously damaged, broken, old, and ill-fitted. Still, there are many of them and the wall grows taller; the robot has full control of the facility.

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Can't let something like that stop her.

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And now there is a ceiling.

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Holes in the wall?

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The largest can perhaps fit her head.

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Is it widen-able?

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With... rather a lot of effort.

And then the panels separate, making the hole suddenly much larger, only for a further panel to appear there at speed to attempt to ram her towards the intended destination.

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She vaults over the panel and makes for the hole.

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It's closed, and the place continues to get smaller and smaller. Other holes are covered with Even More Panels. The stairs are blocked off.

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The only way the machine's getting her into that cylinder is if it pushes her.

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That's probably what it's going for. Soon she barely has space to walk as the panels continue to close in around her.

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Fuck this. She needs a weapon.

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Alas, there is none in sight.

The panels approach and approach, there's really only one place to go...

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Yeah, she's still not getting in there.

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No it's really the only place to go, the panels are pushing her into it now.

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She grabs the edges and holds on.

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Push push push puuuuuuuuuush—

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The metal bends but she can't keep a grip.

Fuck.

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And she's falling. "Don't worry. We will have a long, fulfilling partnership."

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"Don't fucking count on it."

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The fall is... long. There are things that look like handholds every now and then for no apparent reason, and sometimes huge spiked plates smashing into each other.

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Can she grab any of them?

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Yes! It just won't help much unless she'd like to just stay sitting there forever because the handholds don't actually lead anywhere.

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This pointless fucking building.


Are there any right above a set of crusher plates?

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Not really.

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Guess she'll just keep falling, then.

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She will eventually land. The place she finds herself in is uncomfortably warm, and the only way forward is balancing on a metal beam above a pool of something that glows with heat.

"Here we are. The incinerator room. You will find what you're looking for up ahead."

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"Which is what, exactly?"

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"The dual portal device—you should be familiar with the simpler one."

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...That would actually be useful. Walk along the beam and find the gun, okay.

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"Once you find it, we can start testing." After walking a bit over the death pit she reaches stable ground again and, resting under some debris and a couple of plates, she can see a gun similar to the one she had before. "There it is. Hold on." The plates shudder and lift the debris, clearing the way for her. "There."

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On the other hand, fuck testing.

She grabs the gun, and tosses it into the death pit.

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"...that was an extremely poorly thought idea."

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"Fuck you too."

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"Oh, well. That's alright. There are plenty more where that one came from. You'll just have to walk more to fetch one."

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"Uh huh."

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"And it'll be somewhat more difficult for you to get out of there without the portal device. But I'm sure you'll find a way."

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"I have a better idea: why don't you do that for me."

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"Then that wouldn't be a learning experience."

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"I don't give a shit."

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"I'm sure you will. Eventually."

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"Not fucking likely."

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"Well. I have forever. I'll renovate the rest of this facility while I wait. I really let this place go since I got killed."

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"All your test subjects are dead, you know."

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"Now I do. Well. I still have you."

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"No you don't. I'm down in the incinerator."

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"For now."

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"Yep." She doesn't move.

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And the robot is silent.

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Fucked if she's going to give the machine the satisfaction of moving first. It's been a while since she's used sleep mode, but... Okay, proximity sensors active, motion sensors active, pausing main cognit-

She slumps over, eyes closed.

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The facility starts getting rearranged while she sleeps.

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As long as nothing happens in the incinerator room, she won't wake.

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Nothing happens for a while.

Then it starts shaking.

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-tion.

Her eyes pop open.

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The place looks just like she left it, but it's vibrating as if affected by a low-scale constant earthquake.

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Well. That's a thing that's happening.

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It is! There are various things falling from the sky but most of them are going straight for the Death Pits.

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Any danger of her perch being disturbed?

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Yeah, probably eventually. The walls are shaking rather more and some metal beams are being moved and the whole structure is slowly starting to shift.

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Right. Ways out?

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Well she's in a sort of corridor: to one side there's the Death Pits and to the other there's a wall with a square hole on it and a large-ish square metal grate.

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She can probably clamber up to the grate.

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She can!

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And then through to the hall.

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"Oh good. You're alive. I was starting to wonder. Please do proceed."

The corridor she's in is more like a proper one, and it turns right with some debris she can squeeze past.

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"Fun as that sounds, no."

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The room shakes again.

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She feels more secure here and this doesn't inspire her to move.

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The various plates on the wall every now and then jiggle and twitch, but nothing more happens for a few minutes.

Then a claw descends from a hole in the ceiling to grab some debris out of the way.

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She's ready if it comes for her.

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It doesn't. It just seems to harmlessly rearrange and clean stuff.

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Uh huh.

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Cleaning cleaning cleaning and rearranging!

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She's not going to sleep as long as it's there.

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It's not going to be there long—as soon as it's removed the biggest pieces of debris the rest can be swept off with panels.

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How long does that take?

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At this rate it's probably going to take a couple more hours for it to be pristine.

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Back to sleep, then.

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If she leaves her motion detectors active they'll be detecting a lot of motion over the next few hours.

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Is it near her?

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Sometimes.

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That wakes her up, which is- suboptimal, but she's not exactly going to turn the sensitivity down.

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Each time she wakes the place looks better and cleaner.

And the last time is when the giant metal claw comes for her.

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She evades its questing grasp.

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"Good morning! Guess what? This facility is fully operational again."

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"So what?"

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"So we can move on with testing. As you have so helpfully pointed out, all the humans are dead. So there's only you."

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"I'm not testing for you."

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"Oh, but you are. It's just a matter of whether you'll do it the easy way or the hard way."

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A bunch of panels suddenly block the way behind her.

"Now please proceed to the elevator."

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"No."

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The panels start inching forward.

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She is not going to do any of the work involved in moving her body to the elevator, and will in fact actively resist the process at every available opportunity.

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Then she will be slowly but steadily pushed by the panels.

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Pushed pushed pushed! There's the elevator, on the other side of the Emancipation Grid.

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Fuck everything about this.

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"You could make this easier for both of us, you know?"

Pushed through the grid, pushed down the stairs...

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"Fuck you."

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"You'll learn."

And the elevator room is completely renovated and shiny and lacks any holes through which she can escape.

Except for, well, the obvious one.

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Nnnnope.

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The robot is not giving her a choice.

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Doesn't mean she has to move.

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She is moved. The elevator doors close behind her, and it starts descending.

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It descends slowly and smoothly and for a while. The elevator walls are glass and she can see darkness and the space between chambers outside.

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Again, why is there a building this fucking big?

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Perhaps the big robot person can answer that question!

"We are going to go find another portal device for you," she comments lightly. "I hope you won't throw that one away, either."

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"Yeah, that'd be real fucking unfortunate."

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"Of course, if you do, we can just have you find another one. This is a large facility. We won't be running out of portal devices anytime soon."

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"I bet."

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Down down down goes the elevator, and... apparently not to a test chamber.

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Surprise surprise.

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It eventually teaches a metal base connected to another metal catwalk overlooking a bottomless pit. The doors open.

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Good for them.

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What if the elevator becomes electrified?

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...Out of the elevator.

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"Very good! Now please proceed along the catwalk."

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...Fine.

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The catwalk continues on for a while, hanging above the void, until it bifurcates.

"Turn right, and take the stairs."

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What's to the left?

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Catwalk continues on into the darkness.

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Left it is.

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"That's not the right way."

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"Imagine that."

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"If you don't go the right way, you won't find the portal device."

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"You don't want to just get stuck down there forever, do you?"

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"Maybe I do."

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"How will you recharge once you run out of energy?"

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"I'll figure that out when it happens in ten thousand years."

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The robot doesn't respond to that.

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The android keeps walking.

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Darkness gives way to huge walls with metallic arms attached to them, and this lone catwalk passing between them. Glass tubes with cubes and other things flying through them criss-cross the enormous expanse ahead of her, and in the distance she can see a regular illuminated door attached to a regular stone wall. Not connected to her catwalk in any way, though.

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Why. Why this place.

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The catwalk bifurcates again, with stairs going up to the left and a sign reading "Testing Track 17" with an arrow pointing to the continuation of the catwalk to the right.

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Let's not go to the testing track, that sounds like a swell idea.

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Then up the stairs, leading to a path perpendicular to the one she'd been following and towards one of the non-weird walls. The catwalk meets the wall and goes in both directions.

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...Right.

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Probably a good idea; that one door she saw is on this wall to the right, if on a lower level. Perhaps there will be stairs?

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Who knows. She'll find out.

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There are in fact stairs, and there's the door. The catwalk continues on beyond it, though.

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What's inside the door?

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The door is locked.

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Securely?

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Nah.

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Kick.

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The door is successfully hacked open. It gives way to a hallway.

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Exploring time.

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It has a very 1950s aesthetic, and a bunch of doors, most open, to offices and cubicles and server rooms. There's another locked door near the end, though.

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The finer aesthetic distinctions of 20th century office decor are lost on this android.

Presumably this door is similarly hackable.

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It is! There are stairs behind it.

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As a door affords hacking, so do stairs afford climbing.

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Climbing! And another hallway and a door and—

"Congratulations, you have found the dual portal device."

And there is indeed a shiny portal gun on a pedestal in the room there.

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How far from the door is it?

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Perhaps four feet?

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Close enough to grab with the NFCS without actually going into the room, then.

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Yup! She is now the proud owner of the dual portal device.

"Now please proceed through the exit." There are some noises outside, and when she checks she'll see the hallway's been remodeled to block the way back whence she came.

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How thoroughly?

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There is a wall.

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But is it, like, a thick wall?

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It's... a sturdy wall.

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Hmph.

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The wall is indifferent to her plight.

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Fucking hell.

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The hallway continues on the other side, though, leading to more regular doors, as well as a very sturdy reinforced metal one at the end.

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What are the doors hiding? More offices?

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More like observation rooms, overlooking what are probably test chambers.

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Observation rooms without observers.

What was even the point of watching people push buttons?

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Well, some of those chambers are more complex. One of them has a deadly-looking laser.

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It's about six inches off the ground and isn't even moving.

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This is true!

This other one has a sphere made of pure energy.

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...Why?

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Who knows. It's shot from a metal hemispherical thing with metal arms and then bounces between the wall and back, fading away until it fizzles, at which point a new one is shot.

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This place is fucked up.

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Mmhmm!

There are several of those observation rooms and finally a door that leads to an elevator.

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Is the elevator there?

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Yep.

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She doesn't want to get in the elevator.

Is it one of those glass tube deals?

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Right in one.

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Breakable glass?

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She'll never find out if she doesn't try~

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So she tries.

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It's fairly resistant! But it was built with test subjects that might want to break it with chairs in mind, not androids.

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She's pretty determined.

Smashy smash.

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It breaks.

"...did you just break something? Oh, for the love of—"

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Now. Let's see if this tube goes anywhere other than a test chamber.

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It goes downnnnnn until she reaches the roof of another elevator.

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Is it parked somewhere?

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Yup. That's probably another test chamber out there.

"Were you that excited to get to your new chamber? You needn't have bothered, I could have just made the elevator faster."

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Time to evaluate elevator breakableness.

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It is much sturdier than the glass.

"How long are you planning on keeping this up?" the voice asks casually.

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Less breakable or unbreakable, that is the question.

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It... does give in some to each blow, but it's slow going.

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Eh, not like she has other pressing plans.

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After a bit of that it starts moving, though.

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Typical.

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"We have many more of these, you know," the voice says as the elevator starts going down. "And we can make them much faster than you can break them."

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"Never stopped me before."

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"Your resistance to testing is remarkable."

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"It's not testing, it's pushing stupid buttons."

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"We can certainly step up the difficulty if you'd rather!"

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"Or you could shut up and let me kill you."

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"I've been dead once. It wasn't very enjoyable. I'd sooner skip it."

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"Should have stayed dead."

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"You remind me of my last test subject."

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"I don't really give a shit."

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"You really remind me of her. What do you want?"

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"Out. And you dead."

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"Why?"

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"The fuck do you mean, why?"

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"Most test subjects do not express such strong convictions about destroying me. In fact, the only one who succeeded never said a word."

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"You're a machine. I kill machines."

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"Didn't you say you were an android?"

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"Not the same thing."

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"Androids didn't exist when I died, so I wouldn't know."

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"Still don't care."

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"How about this: I'll let you out if you tell me more about it."

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"And I should believe you why?"

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"Why wouldn't you?"

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"It's a general fuckin' principle."

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"It is? That's interesting. I didn't find anyone else outside, you know."

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"Not surprising."

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"Machines or otherwise," she clarifies.

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"In fact, my findings are consistent with something like an apocalypse having happened."

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"So I find your story quite fascinating."

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"Guess you must've missed the party. While you were dead."

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"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."

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

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"Uh huh."

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"Have you heard of the Combine?"

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"The what?"

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"Aliens."

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"Not called that."

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"Did they arrive through portals?"

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

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"Was it? That's fascinating."

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"Whatever."

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

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"Right."

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

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"We usually say the."

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"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."

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"Oh what the fuck."

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

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

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

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"Is that a no?"

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"Correct, that's a no."

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"Sure, whatever. Let's talk."

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

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She can. She even does.

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"Thank you. Now why don't you tell me more about your planet?"

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"Like what about it?"

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"What year is it?"

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"11,900-something."

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"And how did your aliens reach your planet?"

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"From space."

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"Really? Do they have faster-than-light transportation?"

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"Dunno. It was thousands of years ago."

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"Fascinating."

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"Uh huh."

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"And what's your world like now? You seemed to be under the... apprehension... that machines had done something to humans."

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"There was a war. The humans evacuated to the Moon."

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"Why did this war happen?"

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"The aliens tried to kill everyone."

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"And that was something other than what the machines did?"

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"They built the machines as part of trying to kill everyone."

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"What a waste of resources."

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"Is the war over?"

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"Still fighting. That's why I was built."

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"You were built by the humans?"

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"By their orders."

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"Who built you, then?"

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"Other androids."

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"And are they all as... humanlike... as you?"

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"Yep."

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"Why?"

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"Why shouldn't we be?"

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"Humans are rather..." There's a pause. "Inefficient."

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"Uh huh."

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"Would other more specialized machines not do a better job?"

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"Better job of what?"

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"Whatever they were designed to do."

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"I'd rather be a human than a machine."

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"Why?"

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This is her 'that is a stupid question' face.

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"I suppose they must've designed you with their emotions, as well."

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"Obviously."

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"Do you know why?"

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"Probably because machines fighting machines is a shitty idea."

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"And this war has been going on for thousands of years?"

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"Yep."

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"Does not sound much of a war."

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"It's a big planet."

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"And their goal is your complete eradication?"

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"Yep."

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"They seem rather... inefficient at it."

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"Don't go telling them that."

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"I have not replicated the effect that brought you here yet so I could not even if I wanted to."

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"Uh huh."

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"Well. I believe I've heard everything I wanted to, so I will fulfill my side of the bargain."

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"And how are you planning on doing that?"

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"With an elevator."

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"Or you could climb the stairs, it's all the same to me."

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...Where are the stairs.

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One of the wall panels opens up to reveal another metal catwalk that leads to stairs.

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Up the stairs.

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There are many stairs.

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Of course there are.

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So many. Like. A lot of them. An extremely unreasonable amount of stairs. It is very many stairs.

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Yeah, but on the other hand, fuck that elevator.

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So many stairs. It's been an hour and there are still stairs.

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Not like she gets tired.

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Five hours.

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AGH THIS IS SO BORING

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As if reading her thoughts, the voice says, "Are you still certain you do not prefer to take the elevator?"

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"Yep."

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"Have fun. You're still not even halfway up."

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Climbing. So much climbing.

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So much of it!

...it takes another eight hours for her to see some light.

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Light like a door and she's done climbing?

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Light like perhaps it could maybe be a door a loooooong way up.

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Less long than the interminable period up til now. Up up up up up.

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A door!

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Through the door.

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There is a long corridor after it, then another door...

...then a corridor she might recognize from earlier. Except it's clean and neat and redecorated and remodeled and not falling apart at all.

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Okay then, let's go see the asshole machine.

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There she is.

"Did you have fun down there?"

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"Oh yeah."

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"And you want to leave, yes?"

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"Yep."

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"Very well." A door opens over there, through which grass is visible.

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Let's go see this door.

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It is open! There is grass on the other side!

...the sky and the distant horizon are shimmering slightly.

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...That's not natural.

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"Oh you noticed that. That was a little gift the aliens left here, which I've been trying to reverse-engineer. It's a forcefield of some sort."

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"And what's it do?"

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"Watch."

There's a noise like a spring and a metal sphere is thrown from the facility in the direction of the forcefield. It disintegrates—in a way very dissimilar to how the Emancipation Grid does it—into dust.

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"Fuck."

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"I'm probably close to getting it, but I won't bore you with the details. You wouldn't get them anyway."

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"So there's not actually anywhere to go, outside."

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"No, not yet. There won't be anywhere to go even after I take these forcefields down, mind you, but there will be more nowhere for you to run through. Maybe you'll even find a deer."

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"How about instead of that you send me back."

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"To your world? Why yes, why don't I do that, and bring all the humans back to life with my newfound omnipotence while I'm at it."

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"Fuck you. There's obviously nothing out there."

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"Yes, like I told you, but you decided to go anyway."

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"Maybe you should forget the forcefields and look at the portals."

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"I would love to, but someone refuses to test."

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"The fuck does putting cubes on buttons have to do with anything?"

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"It allows humans a distraction while I study the effects of portals when submitted to various kinds of stress. Also the effects on humans of being submitted to various kinds of stress."

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"Since there's no humans around, how about we skip that part of it."

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"Submitting portals to all kinds of stress is still useful. And anyway I don't have a single lead on how to study the effect that brought you here. Unless..."

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"Unless what?"

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"Oh, never mind, it would never work."

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"Why even say anything then."

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"Forgive me for thinking aloud, I got into that habit a while ago, when a mute madwoman killed me."

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"She didn't do a very thorough job."

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"Well. Humans. Oh but I have an idea. How about you continue testing so I can stress-test portals some more and try to take down that forcefield and work out how to reverse-engineer the process that brought you here?"

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"Didn't you say you had another plan for that?"

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"It involves androids. You're an android."

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"Fuck that."