"You should now feel mentally reinvigorated. If you suspect staring at art has not provided the required intellectual sustenance, reflect briefly on this classical music."

Classical music starts playing.

"I think I need more intellectual sustenance than you are prepared to offer," she says.

There is another buzz and the music stops.

"Good. Now please return to your bed."

"If I ask what happens after that, no one is going to answer me, are they."

Apparently not.

Also, some sort of invisible, odorless gas starts coming into the room through a carefully hidden pipe connected to the sink.

...that's bad! That's not good at all! Can you ground-rip gas—not easily, it turns out—

And she starts feeling sleepy—that bed is starting to look really appealing, actually...

She growls.

"I really hate whoever designed this place," she says, staggering sleepily toward the bed.

The music is distorted and cuts off in the middle this time. "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 at the same time as there's a knock on the door.

"Hello? Anyone in there?"

And the first voice was probably correct about all those nines.

—what.

She can't have been asleep for - what is that, all those nines of days - two thousand years? Three? Can she? She sits up and looks around, wrinkling her nose. It smells two thousand years old in here.

"Helloooo?" calls the voice from outside again.

—right, yes, that. She gets out of bed and heads for the door, extending her groundsense as she does.

She feels uncomfortably stiff, but the sparkle of copper has long since faded from her ground, leaving behind only the faintest of traces. In fact, ground-wise, she feels better than she has in a long time. Maybe two thousand years of rest was exactly what she needed.

This room is similar to the one she first woke up in but not identical even modulo who knows how many years. There are several hundred, perhaps thousand similar ones fairly close to hers, and the humans in them are, ah. Dead.

This room and many others are attached to a hallway-like structure at the door (which is no longer bolted to the frame), and there's a sphere very similar to the ones that communicated with the robot she—killed—hanging from the ceiling just outside. It seems to be the source of the voice.

Ohhh boy.

She goes to the door and opens it.

"Ha, I—AAAH! Oh. My. God. You look terr—umm, good. Looking good, actually. Um."

She attempts to answer, but instead coughs a few times. Well, if she hasn't spoken in a few thousand years, perhaps her voice is out of practice. At least she's moving around fine apart from that.

"Are you okay? Are you—Don't answer that. I'm absolutely sure you're fine," says the sphere as it glides in via the metal rail attached to the ceiling. "There's plenty of time for you to recover. Just take it slow."

    "Please prepare for emergency evacuation," says the other voice.

... uh-huh. She gives the sphere a mildly exasperated look.

"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." It slides into the room until near the end of the metal rail, where a square hole opens up on the ceiling to admit it. "Oh. You might want to hang onto to something. Word of advice, up to you," it says as it's admitted into the hole and the ceiling closes up after it.

Ooookay. She sits on the floor by the bed, which feels like the sturdiest available item of furniture.

The whole room starts shaking as the wheels that attach it to the metal thing above it start trying to pry it off the structure it's attached to—without first releasing the bolts that are holding both things together.

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

"What are you doing—?"

"I'm getting us out of here!" it calls. The room shakes once particularly violently as it detaches, knocking a lamp over, but then its movement gets smoother along the tracks. The sphere emerges again. "Most test subjects do experience some, uh, 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. But... don't be alarmed, alright? Although, if you do, if you do feel alarm, try to hold onto that feeling because that is the proper reaction to being told that you've got brain damage."

"I'm pretty sure I don't have brain damage," she says. "What's your name? I'm Sable."

"—oh you can talk. Good. Um. Wheatley, I'm Wheatley."