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trans_92010-10-05 06:35 pm
enter-aeneas.livejournal.com) wrote in trans_92010-10-05 06:35 pm
Bachelor #1: Thoughts on GLaDOS? [open!]
Today, amidst the turmoil that was the meatship and its wayward crew, three of its members found themselves released from GLaDOS's clutches in three separate corners of their domain. Following is an objective analysis of their respective predicaments, cool and unbiased as per usual:
On the Observation Deck, the usual crowded place that it is—or as the case may be, isn't—Aeneas opened his eyes and realized that he was no longer in the mazes. As a matter of fact he was rather in the thick of things, not just because he was curled up in the center of the room and had appeared thus out of seemingly nowhere (one suspects the floor), but also because his thoughts, scattered as they were, continued to tumble along that tangent whence they had left, taking with them the senses and desires of the alien to overpowering levels.
Where, indeed, was the cake?
Surely it had to be around here someplace. Aeneas had mentioned often that he could make his own frosted pastry should the rogue AI simply let him return to his hovel, however that wasn't the point, so said the aforementioned machine, you don't eat the cakes that you make with friends anyways, you friendless creature you. Now get across this pit of toxins, that's a good boy.
Aeneas shook his head, auricles slapping over his visor as he cleared his thoughts. No, that was over with, he was free, the evaluation—whatever it was supposed to be, and Stacy permitting—was complete, and the alien was released to go about his day. Perhaps he would've resigned to this more readily if he hadn't appeared where he had, or made such a show of leaping to his four feet and agitatedly scouring the room for autoturrents, before this epiphany revealed itself and calmed him to suitable, tolerable levels.
The smell of cooked apples drifted across the space. Aeneas resigned himself to nervously grabbing an ear and pondering how long he'd been away. Perhaps someone would tell him. It hadn't felt too terribly long...alas, that embarrassment would have to wear off first before he could ask any random passerby that had witnessed his bizarre entrance and following disorientation. Mortification far exceeded Aeneas's natural curiosity.
Meanwhile, in a fairly innocuous hallway, Dustin Silver was very much aware of his departure from GLaDOS's charge. It came in the form of a slimy ventilation shaft and a six-foot drop from a spontaneous protrusion in the wall to the floor.
He was not disoriented, nor was he curious about how long he'd been gone, what could have happened in his absence. No—Dustin was content with being furious.
The genius peeled himself off the floor, groaning with fatigue as bones too brittle for the age of the body in which they inhabited (which, consequently, had survived yet another year on and off his planet of origin; by the standard Earth calendar Dustin turned twenty-nine today, not that he cared or cared to remember) shifted in their reinforced metal casings and joints stiff from recent transportation popped into positions more comfortable for standing. For the moment he cursed loudly and in a steady stream, initially in Russian and then English once he recalled the translation core's ability to render either tongue, shook out his dripping overcoat, continued to curse to no one in particular, and then the walls became a tempting target so he cursed at those instead.
If the hallway had been quiet before, it was quiet no longer.
Dustin finished his tantrum with a silent, satisfied exhale, thin shoulders quivering as though still acting out the frantic gestures of moments before. And then he began to properly think.
Where had he been for the past several weeks? Had it even been that long? Perhaps—but one thing at a time—in the labs of GLaDOS, yes, it must have been there. Dustin had never encountered the AI first-hand, certainly never so intimately, and he'd heard various stories about her motives, her tactics, and, more recently, her actual purpose in relation to these sporadic abductions. None of these were to blame for his anger; actually Dustin found the AI's scientific principles and intuitive psychological methods, though primitive and child-like, disturbingly effective, calculated and precise, and coupled with the challenges presented it became quite thrilling. Indeed he felt less of an anger for being taken and more of a frustration.
Thus, the second set: when exactly had he been taken? That was easy to discern, especially since Dustin had, conveniently, just finished organizing his complex subconscious not forty minutes before he was captured, and so linearity of events played out in crystal clear sequence, coupled with their individual thought processes and feelings, as they should be. And there lay the source—Yoshimi had stumbled across later into his session and seemed quite pleased to find him alone. There was a weakly hidden suggestion through this meeting that Dustin should hurry back to their room once he was finished cataloging, so he had, or at least started to, before...well, all of this.
Dustin jammed a hand into his hair, still oblivious to his surroundings. Damnit! Yoshimi was going to be so pissed...he had a lot of explaining to do.
Now here, by the Medbay that was most likely receiving quite a bit of attention as of late, the last of this unrelated trio tumbled from the transportation tubes in a heap of striped trousers and raggedy cream frock coat. He came to a stop on his head and shoulders by the opposing wall and lay comparatively limp while he slid to a level more balanced.
The Doctor was not hurt. Dazed, certainly, confused, definitely, but Stacy saw to it that he wasn't harmed in his descent, at least while out of GLaDOS's charge. Or so the Doctor assumed—and at this stage he assumed very little. His memories both just before his temporary recruitment and during the span of time following were scattered and jumbled, a mess caused either by shock or the same inhibitors that kept the crew from missing their wayward brethren; regardless of this, Five remembered clearly what Billy had told him about his encounter with GLaDOS, her techniques and the assignments in general, and although there was a vague notion floating about as to her real purposes he couldn't quite recall what it was, or even if it'd been fully established as crew doctrine.
He continued to not recall this for several minutes while his thoughts cleared and his hearts balanced the blood running through his skull with his feet sticking in the air. He would probably continue to not recall right up until someone checked to see if he was alright.
[ooc: Hello, meatship! :D;; Uhm. So I kinda thought I would be back last week, but that didn't happen, and I also considered tagging into some threads instead of doing this monster post, but that didn't happen for reasons relating directly to my not being able to tag last week. So have a monster post instead! Just, ah, mention who you're prodding in the subject line, if you would. Sorry for the delay!]
On the Observation Deck, the usual crowded place that it is—or as the case may be, isn't—Aeneas opened his eyes and realized that he was no longer in the mazes. As a matter of fact he was rather in the thick of things, not just because he was curled up in the center of the room and had appeared thus out of seemingly nowhere (one suspects the floor), but also because his thoughts, scattered as they were, continued to tumble along that tangent whence they had left, taking with them the senses and desires of the alien to overpowering levels.
Where, indeed, was the cake?
Surely it had to be around here someplace. Aeneas had mentioned often that he could make his own frosted pastry should the rogue AI simply let him return to his hovel, however that wasn't the point, so said the aforementioned machine, you don't eat the cakes that you make with friends anyways, you friendless creature you. Now get across this pit of toxins, that's a good boy.
Aeneas shook his head, auricles slapping over his visor as he cleared his thoughts. No, that was over with, he was free, the evaluation—whatever it was supposed to be, and Stacy permitting—was complete, and the alien was released to go about his day. Perhaps he would've resigned to this more readily if he hadn't appeared where he had, or made such a show of leaping to his four feet and agitatedly scouring the room for autoturrents, before this epiphany revealed itself and calmed him to suitable, tolerable levels.
The smell of cooked apples drifted across the space. Aeneas resigned himself to nervously grabbing an ear and pondering how long he'd been away. Perhaps someone would tell him. It hadn't felt too terribly long...alas, that embarrassment would have to wear off first before he could ask any random passerby that had witnessed his bizarre entrance and following disorientation. Mortification far exceeded Aeneas's natural curiosity.
Meanwhile, in a fairly innocuous hallway, Dustin Silver was very much aware of his departure from GLaDOS's charge. It came in the form of a slimy ventilation shaft and a six-foot drop from a spontaneous protrusion in the wall to the floor.
He was not disoriented, nor was he curious about how long he'd been gone, what could have happened in his absence. No—Dustin was content with being furious.
The genius peeled himself off the floor, groaning with fatigue as bones too brittle for the age of the body in which they inhabited (which, consequently, had survived yet another year on and off his planet of origin; by the standard Earth calendar Dustin turned twenty-nine today, not that he cared or cared to remember) shifted in their reinforced metal casings and joints stiff from recent transportation popped into positions more comfortable for standing. For the moment he cursed loudly and in a steady stream, initially in Russian and then English once he recalled the translation core's ability to render either tongue, shook out his dripping overcoat, continued to curse to no one in particular, and then the walls became a tempting target so he cursed at those instead.
If the hallway had been quiet before, it was quiet no longer.
Dustin finished his tantrum with a silent, satisfied exhale, thin shoulders quivering as though still acting out the frantic gestures of moments before. And then he began to properly think.
Where had he been for the past several weeks? Had it even been that long? Perhaps—but one thing at a time—in the labs of GLaDOS, yes, it must have been there. Dustin had never encountered the AI first-hand, certainly never so intimately, and he'd heard various stories about her motives, her tactics, and, more recently, her actual purpose in relation to these sporadic abductions. None of these were to blame for his anger; actually Dustin found the AI's scientific principles and intuitive psychological methods, though primitive and child-like, disturbingly effective, calculated and precise, and coupled with the challenges presented it became quite thrilling. Indeed he felt less of an anger for being taken and more of a frustration.
Thus, the second set: when exactly had he been taken? That was easy to discern, especially since Dustin had, conveniently, just finished organizing his complex subconscious not forty minutes before he was captured, and so linearity of events played out in crystal clear sequence, coupled with their individual thought processes and feelings, as they should be. And there lay the source—Yoshimi had stumbled across later into his session and seemed quite pleased to find him alone. There was a weakly hidden suggestion through this meeting that Dustin should hurry back to their room once he was finished cataloging, so he had, or at least started to, before...well, all of this.
Dustin jammed a hand into his hair, still oblivious to his surroundings. Damnit! Yoshimi was going to be so pissed...he had a lot of explaining to do.
Now here, by the Medbay that was most likely receiving quite a bit of attention as of late, the last of this unrelated trio tumbled from the transportation tubes in a heap of striped trousers and raggedy cream frock coat. He came to a stop on his head and shoulders by the opposing wall and lay comparatively limp while he slid to a level more balanced.
The Doctor was not hurt. Dazed, certainly, confused, definitely, but Stacy saw to it that he wasn't harmed in his descent, at least while out of GLaDOS's charge. Or so the Doctor assumed—and at this stage he assumed very little. His memories both just before his temporary recruitment and during the span of time following were scattered and jumbled, a mess caused either by shock or the same inhibitors that kept the crew from missing their wayward brethren; regardless of this, Five remembered clearly what Billy had told him about his encounter with GLaDOS, her techniques and the assignments in general, and although there was a vague notion floating about as to her real purposes he couldn't quite recall what it was, or even if it'd been fully established as crew doctrine.
He continued to not recall this for several minutes while his thoughts cleared and his hearts balanced the blood running through his skull with his feet sticking in the air. He would probably continue to not recall right up until someone checked to see if he was alright.
[ooc: Hello, meatship! :D;; Uhm. So I kinda thought I would be back last week, but that didn't happen, and I also considered tagging into some threads instead of doing this monster post, but that didn't happen for reasons relating directly to my not being able to tag last week. So have a monster post instead! Just, ah, mention who you're prodding in the subject line, if you would. Sorry for the delay!]
The Doctor
Someone, apparently, is not happy about being stuck where they are currently.
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The Doctor rolled to his feet, suddenly deciding that he should keep quiet. This whole situation felt off to him; not that Jamie wasn't usually loud, but one takes on a different tone when one wishes to be noticed, or found and rescued as the case may be, and the Doctor pondered deeply whether or not this was such a situation. Surely this was all a misunderstanding? Jamie hadn't done anything wrong—and the meatship couldn't have gone to shambles so quickly during his absence, could it?
Still uncertain, the now weary Time Lord decided to keep a low profile. Carefully and with infinite practice he crept the nearby trail to Contagion, doing well to stay out of the way of the crewmembers that passed with an expertise uncanny for his relative bulk and swishy clothing. Then again, the Doctor had been sneaking through hallways and spaceships and the like longer than most of these people had been living, with casual exception made for that other incarnation puttering about. Five could only imagine how well his counterpart could sneak into places; although, it seemed as if Ten preferred the 'direct' approach more than the 'backdoor' one. Perhaps it got tiring after a while? Ah well.
Some minutes later, just outside of Jamie's holding cell, a familiar blond head slowly poked into view from around the corner to survey its contents. Briefly thereafter his eyes narrowed incredulously and the Doctor leaned further outwards.
"Jamie?"
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He looked over at the Doctor with too-bright eyes, and practically lunged at the wall of the bubble, bringing both hands up to pound at the wall separating them for a moment. The one he'd cut open hurt when he did, even through the bandage, but Jamie didn't care. He just wanted OUT.
"Doctor! Get me out of here!"
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This lasted for all of three seconds. Then Jamie lunged at the bubble and the Doctor, duly startled, staggered back.
"—Jamie! Ca—steady on!" Frantically he gave the cell a second sweep, wondering if there was some sort of weapon in the back, a source of radiation or any other immediate threat. Oddly he found none. Five craned his neck to see if anyone was approaching. "Settle down, settle down. And for goodness' sake be quiet. You'll wake all of Security at this rate."
There were questions buzzing about the Doctor's head, ones uncertain that this was as straightforward as Jamie being wrongfully imprisoned—however his task was not to ask, simply do, and thus he began looking for possible solutions, so to speak, along the cell's outer edge and nearby areas.
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Besides, what would security do? Throw him in a different cell? He started pounding on the bubble harder as the Doctor turned away, still ignoring the pain in his hand. "Doctor! DOCTOR!"
Meanwhile, the Doctor should be able to find that Jamie is not alone in these cells - there are others of the crew here as well, for the most part looking like they are suffering from fever and in various states of aggression. Of course, how they're dealing with it depends on who they are. Jamie appears to be dealing with it...poorly.
"I've not done anything. LET ME OUT!"
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The answer to his numerous questions was disconcerting, to say the least.
Indeed there were many others here, unnoticed by the Time Lord in his haste to locate his companion, further ignored as he searched for a weakness in the walls. But as he caught glimpses of them, observed their feverish states, agitation nearly dripping through the cell's bottom in waves amplified by the more lively individuals (such as Jamie), the Doctor found himself wondering just how closely this group was related. Surely the sample itself was random, yet they showed similar symptoms, various stages to be sure.
A sickness, then? The Doctor nervously slowed and tucked his hands into his pockets, biting his lip while Jamie called for him. There was a reason for this...there was always a reason. It simply depended on the rationality of it all—and now Five had caught onto the crew's logic.
Not to mention they were in Contagion. Of all places, honestly.
"...Of course you haven't. Jamie..." he sighed deeply and rocked on his heels, prying his eyes from the ground to sadly stare his companion even, made difficult by the bloodshot rims staring back, "...I am so sorry. I will fix this, I promise you, but you're going to have to wait. Please."
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"Aye, wait. I don't want to wait. I. WANT. OUT."
But even in his not-so-stable state of mind, he knows that he's still trapped, and the Doctor doesn't appear to be inclined to free him. He shivers again and manages to get out, "I bet ye don't even care that I'm trapped in here."
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A particular moment immediately came to mind here, as Five recalled vividly through downcast eyes; the remaining light from a massive freighter explosion stained the console through the observation screen, even as they began to dematerialize, but there was a noticeable lack of figures there to capture its glow. One less companion to glare at him, plead with him to go back and change the unchangeable. And they hated him for it, because they simply couldn't understand—couldn't understand the flow of Time, its fixed points of delicate importance to millions of civilizations—couldn't understand that their wayward companion was aware of the fate he would receive—couldn't, refused to understand that even the Doctor had his limits, as much as they pained him, because he understood, and because he understood he was powerless to even try.
Humans were different when in such situations. Even the most rational, clear-minded ones completely broke down under strong emotion, caused by anger or fear or sickness or otherwise. This made comforting them with facts and optimistic knowledge infinitely frustrating, so the Doctor found, and to them it might've seemed likewise that he was completely emotionless.
If only they knew how much he despised this logic. Of course they wouldn't know—Jamie wouldn't know—not in this state. It was the least Five could do to keep from pulling his own hair out not to rant about it. Instead he became decidedly bitter.
"Believe me, you really have no idea."
And he turned to leave.
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There was a time before when Jamie had accused the Doctor of being too callous, thinking that the Time Lord didn't care about anyone other than himself. Two had convinced Jamie otherwise - and Jamie knows this, deep down. So why had he felt like the opposite was true? He laid a hand flat on the bubble for a second, desperately wanting the Doctor to come back.
Don't go. I need your help.
The anger swelled back up then, and the last little bits of Jamie's rational thinking crumbled underneath it. Bringing his hand back, he hits it against the surface hard enough that if it had been glass, it would have shattered. It sends a wave of pain down his hand and arm, even though he had used the uninjured hand.
"Aye, fine. Go, then, and leave me here to rot!"
Aeneas (fluffy critter meeting take 2?)
She was momentarily distracted when a... thing... appeared on the floor. She shook her head, trying to recall if it had been there before, or if it had walked into the room. She nearly brushed it off as her mind playing tricks on her, when the creature bolted up and made as though it was looking for something.
"Erm," she cleared her throat to get the attention of the creature, "do you... require assistance?"
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The answering creature's origin was mildly confusing, once Aeneas tried to place her. The fact that she wasn't remotely humanoid was almost comforting, having not seen her before was odd but could easily be explained by his absence in the pits of mazes, and, like he'd done upon first waking up all those months ago, she appeared to be studying a map. If she were more proficient at this task Aeneas had yet to decipher. He focused instead on answering her question.
"Uhm—no. Sorry. W-Well, actually—" the nervous trill faltered for several unnerving seconds, like a chittering rodent with a stutter, "—How long have you been here? O-On this ship, I mean. Awake."
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Her long tail flicked in annoyance as she answered. "I awoke from the pods earlier. I'm not sure if it's been a full day or yet, the movement of time here is odd." She estimated it had been a little over a day since she'd woken, judging by the meals of that disgusting glop she'd eaten and that she'd only slept - on one of the couches in the obs deck - once. "And you? How long have you been in this place?"
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There was annoyance there, Aeneas could tell immediately, along with a certain patience that he should have been thankful for but wasn't, thanks to the heat of the moment and his already tumbling resolve. The alien fumbled further. "Uhm, yes. It is. I..."
He pondered.
"...Months. Maybe a year. As you said, it is difficult to tell sometimes." Another pause as Aeneas remembered to pursue his previous tangent, starting it with a hopeful trill. "—When you woke up—did you, ah, wake up with many others? Was there a big meeting here?"
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...But, no, of course. The green one had said that her world had been destroyed. Where else could she go? She relaxed slightly. She had no other options now, and would have to make due. Though, she was still a bit worried. She was well aware she was getting up there in years, and did not particularly like the idea of spending the end of her life on a place that wasn't her home world.
It took her a moment to respond to the question while she was lost in thought. Eventually she came back around, though. "Yes," she said, "there was a large group that exited from those pods. Most were 'human', or whatever they are called, though there were a few that didn't call themselves that."
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Thus, Aeneas chose not to think about it.
The idea of living out one's life here hardly seemed out of place to the alien, even though he understood how others could find it unnerving. He'd never had a single place of origin, the only place coming close being Walrum, surrounded by the resident Awesonians rather than his own kind regardless; to end his time in such a state of transit was...almost proper. A wanderer among wanderers, forging an identity wherever he went. Perhaps that's the way it should stay.
But I digress.
"There are...quite a few 'humans' here, yes," Aeneas admitted with a passive shift of his back legs, "A prolific species, considering their composition. They can take a while to get used to."
And then the creature seemed to drop his topic of initial interest—which, technically, he had, externally speaking. In reality he'd mentally resolved it. He knew that, generally, Stacy released large numbers of pods in monthly intervals, or every other month, at least. If one happened less than a day ago, and the last he remembered happened some weeks previous, then (assuming that another one didn't occur in transit), Aeneas estimated that GLaDOS had him captive for little under a month. It was quite a chunk of time to be sure, but the alien was known for his adaptability. He'd be re-established within the week.
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She blinked, and shook her head. "Ah, I'm sorry. That is neither here nor there."
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He glanced awkwardly at the ceiling.
Dustin, because he's the least compatible one, I gather
"Man, you got one foul mouth there." She finally commented. "Do you always travel through slimy shafts, or what?"
You would be correct, unfortunately.
"I try to avoid it whenever possible," the genius snapped with surprisingly good humor, "Do you always hang around and pester the ones that do?"
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Even if it was talking to some glare-happy guy who seemed to have pretty strange hobbies.
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Regardless. "I didn't have much of a choice, and I doubt Stacy would've let me if I tried. Having someone poke around your mucos membranes isn't all that pleasant, I would think." He paused, shifting his shoulders, unnerved; Vita had pointed out and thus reminded Dustin that he'd left his backpack in his room, along with most of his tools, supplies, and weapons, before GLaDOS so abruptly snatched her newest subject of study. Although his cellphone had stayed reliably attached to his belt, Dustin couldn't help but feel uncomfortably bare—the fact that Vita noticed his defenselessness was even more alarming. Instantly he bristled.
"—I'm not some petty grease monkey that goes around cleaning ventilation shafts. My talents are so much more useful, especially when I'm not being run through f***ing lab-rat mazes!"
So that last part was directed at the ceiling—Dustin still got his point across.
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She didn't quite know what a mucos membrane was (to be honest, she never really had paid much attention to biology, not being quite human herself. She was the forward unit, not the healer, that was Shamal's job!)
Thus, what he was on precisely eluded her - some freaky doctor captured him and did experiments, or what? She did make a mental note to check with Nanoha about that, the last crazy, experiment-happy doctor she had seen had almost ruined their world, after all. Better be careful.
"Since lab-escaping isn't among your talents, and you think you're too good for mechanic stuff, what can you do, anyway?"
Hm, she probably should have asked about the one who did the experiments. Well, she could do this afterwards.
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He wiped his prosthetic hand down the opposite arm, flicking off a slimy strand of spaceship snot from his shirt sleeve before replacing his heavy overcoat.
"I can do whatever's needed of me at the time." Snark was waiting close behind, but for the moment Dustin held it back in favor of starting to clean out his somewhat deflated mass of dark brown hair.
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"No idea what you're talking about." She pointed out. "I sure wasn't captured by something like that yet."
But then, she was new
and hadn't Hiatused yet."Except leaving the labyrinth, of course." Vita mumbled after he said he could do a lot, more to herself, then thought of what she had wanted to ask. "What captured you, anyway? Some kind of mad scientist or something? Tell me he's not called Jail Sca...Scagli...something, please."
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Regardless. "Given enough time I could have," Dustin snapped back reflexively, working his hand through an endless system of stubborn, poofy cowlicks, "I wouldn't let some sanctimonious—you don't know about GLaDOS?"
The genius cocked his head, suddenly curious. She must've been fairly new—which explained why Dustin didn't recognize her, even in passing. Had he really been gone long enough to miss a stasis release?
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"What's a Glad-Os?" She asked, clearly looking a bit baffled. She didn't even pronounce the name properly. "Can't say I've heard of someone called that."
Yes, she obviously was a new arrival. Everyone else probably knew about something like GLaDOS by now.
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In the meanwhile, Dustin was content with being cynical. "The GLaDOS, morelike. The resident AI nutcase in colloquial terms."
He threw a bit of slime on the ground in a flash of bad temper.
"Apparently she's here to monitor dimensional separation on the mental level, but frankly her methods aren't exactly worth the trouble. I'm getting too old to dodge laser turrets for the sake of science."
Need we be reminded that Dustin is twenty-nine years old.
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"So, it's like a device that puts you through some sort of overdone training course."
That's what she got from his explaination. "Can't say it sounds that bad, although I'll make sure not to be captured. Just one thing, you're still pretty young, from the looks of it. After all, you made it out, right?"
Of course, Vita didn't even spot the irony of her calling someone young, when she's the one who gets annoyed at being called a kid.
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"Sure," he shrugged, exasperated by questions but thriving in this opportunity to explain things, as it gave him a second chance to think over and organize these past events—like developing the thesis to an argumentative essay, "Far more annoying than that, though—and inherently more dangerous. She runs you through these rooms with boiling chemical pits, drops, turrets, each more difficult to think through than the last."
Dustin's mouth twitched into a small, triumphant smile. He hadn't found them all that difficult.
"But at least on that end you have Stacy's—" he made quotation marks with his fingers, "—'guarantee' that you won't be harmed. I tried throwing myself off once or twice, but I just ended up at the beginning of the course. Some sort of safety measure or whatever. On the outside, though, GLaDOS puts up a perception field that keeps people from noticing that you're gone, that is, until you come back three weeks later from a f***ing hole in the wall. And then sometimes people don't come back—but we wouldn't know they were ever here in the first place, now would we?"
That was the long answer to Vita's second question, and it was about to get a bit longer. Curious as to the duration of his visit with the rogue AI—and pondering about how the weeks had been progressing beforehand—Dustin paused and reached for the heavily modified cellphone latched to his waist. They might've been quite far from Earth's predictable cycles and her cloak of satellites, but Dustin's phone ran its clock and calendar independent of pesky microwave signals, relying on a complex system of estimates followed by pings and further assurances from other sources, neither of the latter required for proper functioning.
In short he was still running Earth time—Earth time being, at that exact moment, the fifth of October. Implications of said date ranged from Dustin having been gone for nearly a month to him realizing that it was, in fact, his twenty-ninth birthday, and thus we have come full circle.
Dustin gave a quick chuckle and shook his head.
Sorry that my tags are much shorter, Vita's not the biggest introvert alas ^^;;;
And that was saying something, Vita had a bit of a reputation in her world for being quite a tough instructor herself (despite her tiny size). People who didn't put up a shield the moment she yelled to do so were prone to get into massive hammer-induced pain, after all. But that was a far cry from boiling chemical pits. Turrets sure, set on stun, but stuff that could kill?
"This GLadOS" she tried to imitate his way of pronouncing it "sounds ...like a bit of a jerk. And she really messes with memory just like that?"
That Vita did not like at all. Her own memory was messed up enough as is, she didn't need some stupid Glados screwing with it.
As for the mobile phone, she gave it a glance when he brought it out, but didn't think much of it - she knew of those things from her short stay on Earth, but had never actually done much with them. That they, technically, shouldn't work here wasn't something she knew.
Bah, don't be. It's my fault for ranting. x3
They would be, though, the poor creatures.
"Huh—understatement," Dustin replied with a sniff, replacing the phone on his belt, "People think I'm cold, but at least I practice morals. GLaDOS operates on pure efficiency. If she had a crew of stressy test subjects that might interrupt or damage her experiments by looking for missing people, then that would be inefficient, thus, the mind blocks. I imagine it also makes Stacy happy and less prone to jettison her core memory into the Void, but that's just speculation."
He sighed, mostly to himself.
"Such dedication though. Sometimes I envy her."
^^;
"...Let me guess, you mostly envy her for her ressources." She guessed, knowing a few scientists rather well, after all. "I'm sure you're dedicated enough for your own stuff."
Most of them were. Especially for crazy pet projects.
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Although this one was fast proving smarter than Dustin gave her credit, if in an innocent, bumbling sort of way, typical of children he figured, since it was difficult to observe with his own experiences and seemed to be a measurable trend in others. Here this realization was accompanied with a sudden and unexpected shedding of cloaking paranoia. Dustin noticeably relaxed.
"There's that, sure—any scientist would kill to have that kind of research facility available to them, not to mention the almost endless, species-specific subjects at the ready, completely sterile towards the puzzles presented while still capable of being returned for further study." He shifted in his overcoat uneasily. "But anyone who isn't concerned with moral obligations and who has the right funding could create a similar environment. No, it's...hmm."
The words escaped him, although the thoughts didn't. Dustin found that expressing what went on behind his eyes in terms of the limited languages he spoke became exponentially more frustrating with age and mental complexity. If only people could hop inside his brain and just see for themselves—if only such an experience didn't kill them in the process.
Dustin
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Not that this made Dustin's casual interaction with the ghost child any less scathing. "You're not getting any prettier to look at yourself, princess."
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