Repurposed 2.0

Interval 2.0
May 16, 2006
1100, Fairport, AL
Enrichment Center


The walls looked the same, but she glared at them none the less. White, grey, graphite, black. Nothing made of metal, at least not significant enough amounts of it to be relevant. Natascha glowered as she often would, at those walls, from her cot. The suite she had been put into was bigger than the girls dorms down on Level E, but that was because she had to have her own bathroom facilities.

When the world had spun, an hour and a half ago or so by her count, Natascha had been half-asleep. She was disoriented, because in a dream state she hardly told the difference between reality and one of the Enrichment Center's devious obstacle course rooms. So when she fell from her cot and tried to attack her way out of the room, and nothing happened except more shaking and a thunderous roar of … something beyond the walls, she knew it wasn't just a dream any more.

The observation light on the camera in the room was off. That was a little weird. It meant that for the first time in nearly two years, she was … alone? Not that she ever knew whether anyone was watching her all that time, it might have been a real technician or psychologist, or security, or even just GLADOS on the other end. Or an empty seat. She didn't do much to warrant 24/7 observation. Not after the collar went on, and even before then she promised she'd be good.

Empty promises, she smirked.

But now, the light was off, and there was a distinct tilt to her room. Things slowly but surely made their way toward the west side of her suite, it wasn't imperceptible or terribly obvious either way. But having been there for that long, she noticed it. Something was wrong, really wrong, outside.

Of course, with her suite being what it was, she had absolutely no way of finding out what was going on out there, until someone opened it up from the outside. Natascha tried to be patient. She really did. But even though she was often considered on the higher end of the Paragon spectrum for power level, and older than many of the other students, she was still a surly 11 year old girl with a foul mouth and an even more foul disposition.

So she spent a good fifteen minutes shouting at the door, listening for an answer, and shouting some more. She tried pounding her fists on it, fat lot of good that did: it was padded slightly, electrical insulation material also deadening most of her screams. She knew better than to try prying off any of the paneling: the two badly-re-grown nails on her hand after she tore them off trying it on day one kept her from doing it again. She still had trouble feeling properly on the one finger, and the other's nail had grown in lopsided. She settled for pounding on the panel again and stomping away from it.

She paced. Natascha was not a patient girl, she could feel the energy welling up inside her and she really needed to get rid of it. Her platinum hair had started dancing away from her scalp, the most delicate reminder of her level of power. She could only gather so much from the limited power supply around her in her suite, limited even more because of the restrictive collar.

Outside the suite, a sharp sound appeared and vanished as quickly as it had come. Displacement of air, suddenly fried and slightly melted wiring. Martin Quail shook himself off. The last half hour had been a bit… weird. GLADOS was crazy, crazier anyway, and tried to swat him where ever she managed to locate him. Thankfully she hadn't been able to work around his powers – she had access to many places via computer or wireless lines, but he had access anywhere on the power grid.

There was a dead zone here, where he had landed. It stood in its own physical space as well as being self-sufficient for water, air and the like. The catwalks leading around it also connected to similar units nearby, though Martin wasn't aware of anyone else actually living in any of those. Just the one. He wasn't sure which one, but he hazarded a guess it was the first.

His bare feet made little noise on the metal catwalk, except for a very slight static-zap where he touched. He'd removed his shoes a little earlier, they were not helping him remain very silent. Like his 'sister' Cricket, Martin was quite good at stealth. He kind of regretted only being in his uniform, and not in his 'suit' – the dark, sleek under-garments of the Icarus shell. Martin was small: small build, small hands, petite. The other girls liked to play dress-up with him, and he thought it was a riot. He looked pretty good in one of Isabella's old dresses. Martin pulled in a breath, not at all confident that this other girl, one of the few who didn't like playing dress-up (with anyone) even when she was still living in the dorms, would be very happy to see him of all people.

But he touched the access panel anyway. It came to life on its own, still powered separately from the rest of the facility which was currently in disarray. Two doors began opening: the outer door first exposed the 'Warning, hazardous levels of electricity inside' message displayed on the inner door; and then the inner, giving him access to Natascha's suite. He expected her to be standing there angry when those doors opened, but he maintained his position near the door.

Martin also expected her to spring on him, or over him (which might be stupid, given the catwalk wasn't a very safe place to be standing let alone jumping on), or knock him out of the way when she came out. But instead, she stood in almost the same posture as he, on the other side.

Her hands were by her sides, though one was balled into a fist. Her head was aimed slightly down but her eyes were cast up at adult-head level. Maybe that was what her keepers had trained into her, he suddenly thought. Because when her eyes went down to greet his, they'd clearly been expecting an adult and not a pint sized kid like him. She was, like him, wearing the Enrichment Center's typical student uniform of a bluish white jumpsuit, but she'd added a short-sleeved white shirt and beat-up denim shorts to hers.

Martin counted himself lucky that Natascha was more surprised at this than angry. "We need to get back to the ELLs dorm," he said. "Things have… happened. I can't explain them very well."

"Where are Doctor Ryan and Kull?" Natascha managed to say, glancing up and down the catwalk, her own mind trying to wrap around Martin's sudden appearance here. She wasn't even certain how he knew where her suite was.

"They're dead. They're all dead." Martin said. Either she didn't notice, or didn't care, that his voice choked and his throat constricted when he finally came out and said it. The enormity of what he'd seen was catching up to him. When Natascha was about to ask, he hurriedly said, "GLADOS killed everyone. Everyone but us." If he started to cry now, she'd laugh. She always did.

Natascha's mouth closed abruptly. She knew he wasn't joking, and she knew he wasn't all rabbity because he was terrified of her. After all, her powers could siphon his straight out of his little body in moments… Partially why the inhibitor collar had been put on her. That this wasn't a joke, however, wasn't as obvious to her as he'd have liked.

"Come on," Martin said, trying to collect himself and act casual. "I can guide you down to the dorm, but it's not easy. If GLADOS sees you, she'll probably try and kill you too. She's been after me ever since I started exploring." To his credit, his voice didn't waver. She could tell he was scared, more scared by something she hadn't encountered yet.

"GLADOS's job is—"

"GLADOS has turned on us," Martin said, "I don't really understand how, but it wasn't just …" He shook his head, dark red hair fluffing around his face. He really couldn't tell her – or anyone – just yet, what he had found. Not until he did further investigation, which might cost his life. "There are things I can't explain in words. Let's go."

Martin carefully guided Natascha to one of the nearest catwalk exits, and finally asked her, "can you detect where rooms with power are?"

"Of course I can," she spat. "I just can't reach them," she pulled on the inhibitor collar at her neck. "If I could, I would-"

Martin reached up – she was already at least a foot taller than he – and touched the collar. It unlocked, and fell to the floor, clattering on its way down to parts unknown. The facility seemed to be bottomless, a foggy, menacingly blue haze below them. Natascha looked at it, as it fell, faded into the darkness. The expressions played over her face in succession: confusion, anger, re-evaluation. Her static-grey eyes moved to his blue ones, and she merely nodded in thanks.

Between the two of them, it would be slightly easier to knock out any obstacles that GLADOS put in their way. However, there were plenty which hadn't been directly the AI's doing: half-collapsed halls, rooms which were filled with the bodies of employees – still seemingly grasping at the air as though clawing it would somehow allow them to breathe. Martin tried not to look at these people, but he recognized too many. Even Natascha was a bit shaken when they did come across her own keepers' bodies.

The air had settled, thankfully, and the neurotoxin which had blown through the facility was gone or at least now rendered inert. It still had left an unpleasant scent, but that might have been the result of the dead bodies, too. After a few hours, the entire place would likely smell like a cesspit, after organ failure and voiding had their way with the bodies. Natascha thought it might be a good idea to simply hose the place down… Bodies and all, into the drains or the endless blue pits below.

In silence, the pair traveled over half the Enrichment Center's width. They somehow got to a bleak hallway – one which both had seen too many times. "Let's get through here as fast as we can," Martin whispered. "I don't like it here."

"No one likes it here," Natascha said, looking at the unmarked doors. They were spaced just under thirty feet apart, on both sides of the hall. Though there had always been some attempt to clean up, long, old, visible blood stains stretched from each of the doors. Almost all of the Paragon students had seen this hall, in nightmares or even in the flesh. What exactly went on in those rooms was something only the strongest mind could remember, because of the memory-blocking drugs being administered shortly after.

Martin was surprised when Natascha abruptly kicked in one of those doors, taking out some of her earlier anger on it. Within, a single operating table stood, lights off above it, waiting for someone to be placed on it. Simple cabinets and shelves lined the walls. No tools were left out, nothing half-completed, it was just there. A reminder of processes that were regularly performed. Natascha expected there to be something more sinister going on. Or at least another dead body. There had been some in nearly every corridor and room they passed already.

"Nothing scary about that," Natascha harrumphed and turned back to Martin.

"Tell that to Lynne or Tina," he remarked.

Natascha was about to launch into a tirade about the 'weak willed' girls – empaths both of them, who were more or less sensitive to any of the emotions around them – but then she stopped. Martin had removed her inhibitor collar. Normally, taking it off, or even trying, would have gotten her punished. Perhaps even brought into one of these very operating rooms in order to be … corrected. Though it took some doing, she eventually adopted the notion that perhaps Martin wasn't such a bad little brat after all. And, that they were in a far deeper world of shit than she'd ever imagined.