[7th Portal] Cara Mia Addio Encore

[jumpsuited_rat]

Action - 850 Goldberg

[Chell opens the door to find 3 packages of varying sizes, one small and rather flat, one medium-large one, and one quite large one of a suspicious size.

She opens the small one first to find her clothes from Aperture. She doesn't plan on wearing them again, but they could come in handy later, you never know. The next one contains her portal gun. She hasn't seen many places that portals could be placed on, but if there were any, it'd be very useful.

Finally, Chell turns to the last one. It's about as tall as a turret, so that's what's got her worried. It's a bit wider, though, so she's not sure what to make of that. She circles the box, knocking on it to see if she can get any information that way.

She assumes that if it was a turret, the gun portion would be facing towards the door, so she tips the box over so that if there was a turret inside, it'd now be facing the ground instead.

Chell pries the box open and discovers that not only is it a turret, but it's the oversized turret that she had seen a few times. It had never attacked her or anyone else that she saw, it just somehow used the elevator and oversaw some of the other turrets when they were making music.

It's an odd choice of something to be returned to her, so she shrugs, just leaves it where it is, and goes back inside the house.

She sets her clothes on the Companion Cube, and when she turns around, the turret is standing in front of her. Chell dives beside the couch and peers around at the turret. The turret doesn't make any movements, it doesn't even have a red laser sight for targeting, it just stands there, staring blankly.

Chell waves her hand at the turret, and it still doesn't move. She shrugs to herself and stands up, walking past it and over to the curtains. She turns her back to the turret and pulls off a long strip of cloth and goes to work using it as a strap for the portal gun. She doesn't want to leave it in the house alone with Cliff and carrying it with her hands would get old, so this was a nice compromise.

When she turns around to head for the door, once more the turret stands staring at her. Chell frowns at it and decides that if anyone would know what's going on, it'd be GLaDOS.

She leaves the house and heads down the street.]

Action - Around Town - The streets on the way to 1450 Mitchell Road

[If you're walking down the street or peeking out a window, you may see Chell being followed by a large turret. You never see the turret move, however, if you take your eyes off of it for even a second, it'll suddenly be further down the street and closer to Chell.]

Action - 1450 Mitchell Road

[Chell finally arrives at GLaDOS' house and starts banging on the door, she's got a frustrated expression on her face as she does so.

The turret is waiting quietly behind her and may not be seen at first glance.]

Comments

[bye_to_yer_head]

Nope. Fer a while too apparently. Almost half a year.

[jumpsuited_rat]

[Chell looks very troubled by this and frowns as she writes down, "That long? And you don't remember a thing?"]

[bye_to_yer_head]

Nothin'.

I wasn't even here. That's when I had gone home. Come back here and everyone was tellin' me that I was still here too. Don't really know what to think about that.

*Actually he tried not to. It seemed too likely that home had been a dream or hallucination, and that Mayfield was the reality.*

[jumpsuited_rat]

[Chell's frown deepens and she shakes her head, thinking on this matter before writing in the notebook, "How can you be in two places at once?"

What he was saying didn't make any sense. What was Mayfield capable of? What if one of the two Snipers had died?]


[[Sorry about the slow reply, I was at a convention for the weekend!]]

HOW DARE YOU GO AND HAVE FUN!??!?!

[bye_to_yer_head]

I don't 'ave a bloody clue. And honestly .. I'm not sure I want t' know. Like some kind of respawn malfunction gone horribly wrong.

I KNOW, RIGHT? FOR SHAME!

[jumpsuited_rat]

[Chell taps her pen against the notebook nervously as she thinks this over. Breaking the laws of physics with portals was one thing, but possibly having multiple copies of yourself is another matter entirely.

She finally focuses on part of his sentence and writes another question down, "Respawn is what happens when you die in Mayfield, right?" She had yet to die and had no plans to, respawn or no.]

[bye_to_yer_head]

Sorta. I only died here once, an' I woke up in my bed th' next day good as new. Respawn back home is jus' a little while after ya die. You end up in the Respawn Room. Don't ask me how it works but it does.

Th' way I'm thinkin' is the copy of me here? He weren't real, he was just some kind of clone or robot. Loike when those plants put people in pods and made duplicates of 'em.

[jumpsuited_rat]

[Chell is startled by this revelation and quickly scrawls down, "You respawn at home, too?"

She thinks on the second part of his statement before carefully writing, "Does this mean we might be clones?"]

[bye_to_yer_head]

Sure do. Part of th' whole fighting process. I mean, not everyone does, but everyone workin' fer RED and BLU do.

Suppose it's possible, but I think th' fact we know we're not supposed to be here means we're not.

[jumpsuited_rat]

[Chell thinks this over for a moment, then writes, "That must come in handy."

She'd love to know that if something happened, she could respawn. Especially if she ended up back in Aperture again. She'd still fight hard to not die out of principle of it, but it'd be nice to have a guaranteed safety pass.

She nods, tapping the pen lightly on the notepad several times, before writing, "How much aware of things are the clones?"]

[bye_to_yer_head]

Sure does. Or they'd be out of mercenaries real fast.

*He rubbed the back of his neck, not wanting to think about how self aware the drones were.*

Not very. They don't remember nothin' they did when they weren't clones. Don't even have the same personalities. I don't even think they're really people

[jumpsuited_rat]

[Chell thinks this over, then writes down, "Couldn't they just hire more?"

She tapped the pen against the notebook softly, "If they're not people, then what are they?"]

[bye_to_yer_head]

I suppose, but where are they gonna find hundreds of Snipers or a bunch of blokes that are willin' t' blow their feet off to get somewhere 2 seconds faster.

I dunno, robots or somethin'.

[jumpsuited_rat]

[Chell gives him an odd look at this information, hundreds of Snipers isn't a problem, but blowing feet off is. She's not sure where to take the conversation from there, so she's just going to blink and look at him oddly.

Drones were something she was slightly more familiar with, so she writes down, "Wonder if there's a way to check."]

[bye_to_yer_head]

Not sure. I've shot a few of 'em. They seem t' bleed loike real people. But they can't be. No real people would act they way they do. Wonder if anyone's ever checked. Done an autopsy or somethin'.

[jumpsuited_rat]

[Chell frowns and thinks on this before writing, "We should ask around. GLaDOS might have done an experiment."]

[bye_to_yer_head]

This GLaDOS person is that kind of scientist huh? Guess it figures. Might actually find out something.

[jumpsuited_rat]

[Chell nods and writes down in response, "I don't know how many people she's killed. Didn't think it'd ever come in handy, though."]

[bye_to_yer_head]

In this place, nothin' should surprise me.

[jumpsuited_rat]

[Chell thinks for a moment, nods, and then writes, "Right. So many weird things happen here. Wonder what's next."]

[bye_to_yer_head]

I ain't even guessing now. Last time I guessed zombies I was roight.

[jumpsuited_rat]

[Chell mulls this over and writes down a few moments later, "How long has it been since the zombies?"]

[bye_to_yer_head]

Strewth .... Over a year I'd think. There were cannibals maybe around this time last year though. That's kind of th' same thing.

[jumpsuited_rat]

[Chell looks shocked and concerned at this revelation. Two years in a row, there had been things trying to eat people. After a moment, she recovers and slowly taps her pen against the notepad in thought.

She stops tapping to write down her conclusion, "So there's a good chance that something's going to attack soon."]

[bye_to_yer_head]

I'd say so. But I don't wanna in case th' town hears us.

But this is about when it usually happens.