08-11-2012, 05:01 PM
It was a nice quiet day in the jungle. The birds were singing, and you could hardly tell from a distance that they were in fact luring their unsuspecting prey, the highly-toxic giant mosquito, with their tuneful calls. The vines were slowly swaying in the breeze, and it would be nearly impossible to realize that they were just waiting for some creature to come along and brush them so that they could strangle them and absorb their carcass for a meal. And the sun was shining so bright, you could hardly see the faded remnants of the outfall of the ancient nuclear explosion on the horizon.
In the center of this jungle, near a large green river filled with fluffy, cuddly fish that enjoyed snacking periodically on the 20-foot crocodiles, a large, crumbling portion of black rock covered several hundred square feet. Upon closer inspection (which you would not necessarily want to take, as the venemous snakes would take a closer inspection as well) you might recognize this substance as actually the weather-eroded remains of asphalt, and determine that this was once a vehicle parking lot, back when humans ruled the planet, before the alien invasion and subsequent nuclear failures.
It was, indeed, once a parking lot. The pile of rust underneath that tree was likely once a car, probably a nice expensive one at that. And that fallen log over there, if anyone bothered to examine it (which they would not, because the giant parasitic wasps making their nest underneath it do not make good friends) would look remarkably like the decayed remains of a light post. But it would be next to impossible for anyone to recognize that the root system of the giant poisonous fig tree just to the north of the area covered up the entrance to what was once one of the most impressive structures built by mankind.
If one was able to get past the 5-meter-thick knobs of wood, and get past the rust-soldered door, and manage to find their way down the crumbled, collapsed granite staircase, they would be immensely surprised to discover that deep underground, in the remains of this half-collapsed metallic fortress, there was a faint glow coming from some corridors. If they were still sufficiently mobile enough to take a look, they would find that they came from electric bar lights, somehow still lit after all these centuries.
In the glow of one of these lights, this hypothetical super-explorer might notice the faded tatters of a poster. If they were able to read the long-dead English language, which would be as much of a miracle as anything else they would have accomplished, seeing as there were no known surviving tomes written in it, they might be able to make out the following:
While pondering on this, if our intrepid genius superman did not get lost in the countless corridors, run into any wildlife which had managed to enter the facility and survive, collapse from the traces of neurotoxin covering most surfaces, or accidentally stumble upon areas of the facility that were, incredibly, still alive, in any of which cases they would be certainly doomed, he, she, or it might stumble upon a large, well-lit multi-panel steel door in the far recesses of the remains of Aperture Laboratories, with the following smudged panel above it:
If, by some chance this incredible person (or robot, or alien, or sentient cloud) carried with them an industrial-grade blowtorch, plasma laser, or a couple dozen pounds of TNT, then they would be able to breach the intensely-secured entrance to this mysterious chamber, and discover what exactly a Mammalian Genetic Modification Hibernation Chamber and Rehabilitation Ground was.
However, on this occasion at least, no superbeing managed to infiltrate the bowels of the ancient Aperture Science facilities. The door remained rusted shut and covered by roots, the stairs remained crumbled and notice remained tattered, and the door to Testing Vault 079-Alpha C remained solidly shut, keeping its secrets locked away as it had for centuries gone past, and keeping the large blue hedgehog in Chamber 57 embedded deep in cryo-sleep.
This hedgehog had been engineered in an attempt to make a better guard animal than the violent mastiffs and Dobermans commonly employed by most humans at the time, before being replaced by the much more efficient robotic Sentry Turret. Inserted with the genes of a timber wolf, jackrabbit, and blue jay, the experimental hedgehog embryo was inspired by an old favorite video game of the leading engineer, who had enjoyed playing mindless action games as a child before turning to mindless action reality. It was expected to be fast, vicious, and spiky, but also aggressive, and for this purpose, a computer chip had been implanted in its skull in an attempt to keep it amiable and obedient to its masters.
For thousands of years, this creature had remained frozen in Test Chamber 079-Alpha C, Hibernation Chamber 57, after being placed there when the turret program took flight. But on this particular day, it would awaken for the first time. Back above ground, high in the atmosphere, several bursts of light appeared; two glowing streaks heading directly towards the peaceful jungle surrounding the carcass of Aperture Science.
The lovely cries of the Sharp-toothed Vampiric Warbler Wren, the Pointy-beaked Poison-crested Purple Praliat, and the Short-tempered Red Robin summoning their entranced lunch towards themselves were interrupted by a loud shout from one of the flaming orbs.
"EARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRTH!!!!! Going to earth going to earth going to earth going to earth going to earth going to earth EARTH EARTH EARTH EARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRTH!"
Almost immediately, in a voice that was originally characteristic of humans from what used to be the island known as Great Britain, the second burning sphere became vocal as well.
"Would you JUST! SHUT UP! ALREADY! Wait, wait, actually, um, never mind that, I'm rather thrilled to be back myself. Could do without the massive broiling heat though, that's a bit of a downside."
"EAAAARRRRRRRRRTH!!!! YEEEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! I'm not in space. NOT IN SPACE! NO MORE SPAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!!!!!"
"Looks a bit different than when we left, I must say. Oooh, would you look at those trees? Deadly poison, those things are, polluting the air. And is that a river, or, is that the local human waste treatment center's input flow? Oh, nasty, I bet it's both, isn't it?"
"Bum be bah brr beh bum durr dum. EARTH."
"Oh, be quiet already. Say, is it just little ol' Wheatley's eyes playing tricks on him, or is the ground coming up at us rather quickly?"
"EARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR--"
At this point in their conversation, both slightly-melted Aperture Science Artificial Intelligence Modification cores smashed at a very high velocity into the planet they had been exiled from decades earlier, creating a large explosion, vaporizing several tons of dirt and vegetation, and incinerating the patch of rainforest containing the former Aperture Science Laboratories parking lot, and causing the collapse of several hundred corridors in the buried facility.
Somehow, both survived the impact, and when their vision had cleared enough to make out their new surroundings, the blue one, at least, could not believe his horrific luck.
"OH NO NO NO NO NO! We're back in HER facility! She'll kill us both AGAIN!"
"Hey. Hey. Hey, buddy. Buddy, hey. Hey, hey, hey."
"WHAT?!"
"I'm on Earth."
"Remember the good days, when we were friends? Not sworn enemies, but good old buddies, and I would say something like, I dunno, for example, 'SHUT UP' and you'd be like, maybe, 'Yeah, no problem old pal' and you'd do it? Whatever happened to those days?"
"Bum be dum de derr. I went to space. SPACE! Went to space, came back, back on Earth. Earth earth earth earth earth."
A new voice interrupted their conversation.
"The time elapsed since we have last communicated is 28 years, 7 months, 2 weeks, 3 days, 13 hours, 29 minutes and 47 seconds."
This came from another round sphere that looked much like a cleaner, less-destroyed clone of both of the cores, except that while the British one had a blue eye and the rambling, panting one had an orange eye, this one, which had a much more computerized voice, had a pink one. It rested on the edge of the large pit just feet away from where the space-travelers had come to a rest, which, according to the bold white text on the side, was an
"And who might you be, again?" the blue core asked the pink one.
"It is your remarkable privilege to become reacquainted to the entirely uncorrupt and intelligent Fact Sphere."
"Oh my, you're another of those bloody cores that lady and her potato stuck on me when they sent little old Wheatley to the bloody moon, aren't you?"
"It is well-known that the moon does not have blood. It has molten cheese running through its lava tubes."
It is uncertain where the conversation between Wheatley, the Fact Sphere, and the Space Core could possibly have gone at this point, because in the large pipe several meters above them, next to the gaping hole punched in the ceiling, a strange device came tumbling down, headed for the incinerator. Instead, the contraption, which appeared to be some sort of handheld device, bounced off the edge opposite the Fact Sphere and riocheted into it, knocking it towards Wheatley. The Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device Mark V Alpha Prototype 7, which is what the device was, exploded, splattering a blue substance over everything.
"Oh god, that can't be good," was all that Wheatley had time to remark before the room collapsed in on itself, and the three cores suddenly found themselves flung into the air in a massive room filled with metal crates, trusses, and wires. He managed to catch a glimpse of a faded panel on the side of a cargo box reading "Hibernation Chamber 1025" before smashing into another one farther down. The last thing he saw before he lost conciousness was a giant blob of blue spiky fur.
The three cores smashed directly into the head of the blue hedgehog in Hibernation Chamber 57, with the Fact Sphere going directly into the brain cavity, while Wheatley and the Earth Core (as it now might be more properly termed) got crushed into the eye sockets. This complete violent replacement of its neural system loosened the creature from its cryosleep, just as the chamber, knocked loose from its supports by the impact, got sucked up towards the huge orange portal that the cores had just emerged from. The first thing it heard as it awoke was a male electronic voice saying "Warning: Massive portal failures in Incinerator Room 85 and Test Chamber 079-Alpha C. Possible time manipulation possible. Evacuate affected regions immediately." before being sucked into the gap in the time-space continuum.
After a vicious trip through the gap in the fabric of the multiverse, in which nearly all the rest of the hibernation chamber vanished in some way, the hedgehog landed in southern Britain in the summer of 2010. The first thing it laid its Personality-Core eyes on was a road sign.
"TO FRANCE
Routes 305/57"
And it was then that the hideous monster known to us all as Franco30557 was born. He managed to find an abandoned shack south of London with computer access, learned to use it and the Internet, and became acquainted with human society. As his right eye, Wheatley influenced him to be very pro-British and also rather moronic, while as his left eye, the Earth Core made him babble rather insensibly at times. And his replacement brain, the Fact Core, made him inexorably come up with random statements, and combined with Wheatley, have an enormous self-ego. The advanced hedgehog body made him fall in love with the inspiration for his creation, Sonic the Hedgehog video games. And eventually, on his travels across cyberspace, he came across the small community known as Buildism, which he has terrorized to this day.
In the center of this jungle, near a large green river filled with fluffy, cuddly fish that enjoyed snacking periodically on the 20-foot crocodiles, a large, crumbling portion of black rock covered several hundred square feet. Upon closer inspection (which you would not necessarily want to take, as the venemous snakes would take a closer inspection as well) you might recognize this substance as actually the weather-eroded remains of asphalt, and determine that this was once a vehicle parking lot, back when humans ruled the planet, before the alien invasion and subsequent nuclear failures.
It was, indeed, once a parking lot. The pile of rust underneath that tree was likely once a car, probably a nice expensive one at that. And that fallen log over there, if anyone bothered to examine it (which they would not, because the giant parasitic wasps making their nest underneath it do not make good friends) would look remarkably like the decayed remains of a light post. But it would be next to impossible for anyone to recognize that the root system of the giant poisonous fig tree just to the north of the area covered up the entrance to what was once one of the most impressive structures built by mankind.
If one was able to get past the 5-meter-thick knobs of wood, and get past the rust-soldered door, and manage to find their way down the crumbled, collapsed granite staircase, they would be immensely surprised to discover that deep underground, in the remains of this half-collapsed metallic fortress, there was a faint glow coming from some corridors. If they were still sufficiently mobile enough to take a look, they would find that they came from electric bar lights, somehow still lit after all these centuries.
In the glow of one of these lights, this hypothetical super-explorer might notice the faded tatters of a poster. If they were able to read the long-dead English language, which would be as much of a miracle as anything else they would have accomplished, seeing as there were no known surviving tomes written in it, they might be able to make out the following:
Quote:APERTURE LABORATORIES
Memo to All Employees, April 18th, 1998
The Aperture Science Computer-Aided Enrichment Center would like to remind you that Bring Your Daughter to Work Day is tomorrow, and that in addition to the usual firework, turret, and dietary supplement testing demonstrations, we will be re-launching our new Artificial Intelligence Personality Control Core, the Genetic Lifeform and Disc Operating System. Despite technical difficulties during the inaugural launch on Bring Your Cat To Work Day, we fully expect everything to go smoothly this time around, and invite you to participate in the observation deck in the main chambers.
We also invite you to take a stroll through our new Aperture Science Deceased Feline Memorial Repository, and honor all the courageous cats who gave their lives to science.
While pondering on this, if our intrepid genius superman did not get lost in the countless corridors, run into any wildlife which had managed to enter the facility and survive, collapse from the traces of neurotoxin covering most surfaces, or accidentally stumble upon areas of the facility that were, incredibly, still alive, in any of which cases they would be certainly doomed, he, she, or it might stumble upon a large, well-lit multi-panel steel door in the far recesses of the remains of Aperture Laboratories, with the following smudged panel above it:
Quote:APERTURE LABORATORIES COMPUTER-AIDED ENRICHMENT CENTER
TESTING VAULT 079-ALPHA C
Mammalian Genetic Modification Hibernation Chambers and Rehabilitation Grounds
If, by some chance this incredible person (or robot, or alien, or sentient cloud) carried with them an industrial-grade blowtorch, plasma laser, or a couple dozen pounds of TNT, then they would be able to breach the intensely-secured entrance to this mysterious chamber, and discover what exactly a Mammalian Genetic Modification Hibernation Chamber and Rehabilitation Ground was.
However, on this occasion at least, no superbeing managed to infiltrate the bowels of the ancient Aperture Science facilities. The door remained rusted shut and covered by roots, the stairs remained crumbled and notice remained tattered, and the door to Testing Vault 079-Alpha C remained solidly shut, keeping its secrets locked away as it had for centuries gone past, and keeping the large blue hedgehog in Chamber 57 embedded deep in cryo-sleep.
This hedgehog had been engineered in an attempt to make a better guard animal than the violent mastiffs and Dobermans commonly employed by most humans at the time, before being replaced by the much more efficient robotic Sentry Turret. Inserted with the genes of a timber wolf, jackrabbit, and blue jay, the experimental hedgehog embryo was inspired by an old favorite video game of the leading engineer, who had enjoyed playing mindless action games as a child before turning to mindless action reality. It was expected to be fast, vicious, and spiky, but also aggressive, and for this purpose, a computer chip had been implanted in its skull in an attempt to keep it amiable and obedient to its masters.
For thousands of years, this creature had remained frozen in Test Chamber 079-Alpha C, Hibernation Chamber 57, after being placed there when the turret program took flight. But on this particular day, it would awaken for the first time. Back above ground, high in the atmosphere, several bursts of light appeared; two glowing streaks heading directly towards the peaceful jungle surrounding the carcass of Aperture Science.
The lovely cries of the Sharp-toothed Vampiric Warbler Wren, the Pointy-beaked Poison-crested Purple Praliat, and the Short-tempered Red Robin summoning their entranced lunch towards themselves were interrupted by a loud shout from one of the flaming orbs.
"EARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRTH!!!!! Going to earth going to earth going to earth going to earth going to earth going to earth EARTH EARTH EARTH EARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRTH!"
Almost immediately, in a voice that was originally characteristic of humans from what used to be the island known as Great Britain, the second burning sphere became vocal as well.
"Would you JUST! SHUT UP! ALREADY! Wait, wait, actually, um, never mind that, I'm rather thrilled to be back myself. Could do without the massive broiling heat though, that's a bit of a downside."
"EAAAARRRRRRRRRTH!!!! YEEEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! I'm not in space. NOT IN SPACE! NO MORE SPAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!!!!!"
"Looks a bit different than when we left, I must say. Oooh, would you look at those trees? Deadly poison, those things are, polluting the air. And is that a river, or, is that the local human waste treatment center's input flow? Oh, nasty, I bet it's both, isn't it?"
"Bum be bah brr beh bum durr dum. EARTH."
"Oh, be quiet already. Say, is it just little ol' Wheatley's eyes playing tricks on him, or is the ground coming up at us rather quickly?"
"EARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR--"
At this point in their conversation, both slightly-melted Aperture Science Artificial Intelligence Modification cores smashed at a very high velocity into the planet they had been exiled from decades earlier, creating a large explosion, vaporizing several tons of dirt and vegetation, and incinerating the patch of rainforest containing the former Aperture Science Laboratories parking lot, and causing the collapse of several hundred corridors in the buried facility.
Somehow, both survived the impact, and when their vision had cleared enough to make out their new surroundings, the blue one, at least, could not believe his horrific luck.
"OH NO NO NO NO NO! We're back in HER facility! She'll kill us both AGAIN!"
"Hey. Hey. Hey, buddy. Buddy, hey. Hey, hey, hey."
"WHAT?!"
"I'm on Earth."
"Remember the good days, when we were friends? Not sworn enemies, but good old buddies, and I would say something like, I dunno, for example, 'SHUT UP' and you'd be like, maybe, 'Yeah, no problem old pal' and you'd do it? Whatever happened to those days?"
"Bum be dum de derr. I went to space. SPACE! Went to space, came back, back on Earth. Earth earth earth earth earth."
A new voice interrupted their conversation.
"The time elapsed since we have last communicated is 28 years, 7 months, 2 weeks, 3 days, 13 hours, 29 minutes and 47 seconds."
This came from another round sphere that looked much like a cleaner, less-destroyed clone of both of the cores, except that while the British one had a blue eye and the rambling, panting one had an orange eye, this one, which had a much more computerized voice, had a pink one. It rested on the edge of the large pit just feet away from where the space-travelers had come to a rest, which, according to the bold white text on the side, was an
APERTURE SCIENCE EMERGENCY INTELLIGENCE INCINERATOR
."And who might you be, again?" the blue core asked the pink one.
"It is your remarkable privilege to become reacquainted to the entirely uncorrupt and intelligent Fact Sphere."
"Oh my, you're another of those bloody cores that lady and her potato stuck on me when they sent little old Wheatley to the bloody moon, aren't you?"
"It is well-known that the moon does not have blood. It has molten cheese running through its lava tubes."
It is uncertain where the conversation between Wheatley, the Fact Sphere, and the Space Core could possibly have gone at this point, because in the large pipe several meters above them, next to the gaping hole punched in the ceiling, a strange device came tumbling down, headed for the incinerator. Instead, the contraption, which appeared to be some sort of handheld device, bounced off the edge opposite the Fact Sphere and riocheted into it, knocking it towards Wheatley. The Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device Mark V Alpha Prototype 7, which is what the device was, exploded, splattering a blue substance over everything.
"Oh god, that can't be good," was all that Wheatley had time to remark before the room collapsed in on itself, and the three cores suddenly found themselves flung into the air in a massive room filled with metal crates, trusses, and wires. He managed to catch a glimpse of a faded panel on the side of a cargo box reading "Hibernation Chamber 1025" before smashing into another one farther down. The last thing he saw before he lost conciousness was a giant blob of blue spiky fur.
The three cores smashed directly into the head of the blue hedgehog in Hibernation Chamber 57, with the Fact Sphere going directly into the brain cavity, while Wheatley and the Earth Core (as it now might be more properly termed) got crushed into the eye sockets. This complete violent replacement of its neural system loosened the creature from its cryosleep, just as the chamber, knocked loose from its supports by the impact, got sucked up towards the huge orange portal that the cores had just emerged from. The first thing it heard as it awoke was a male electronic voice saying "Warning: Massive portal failures in Incinerator Room 85 and Test Chamber 079-Alpha C. Possible time manipulation possible. Evacuate affected regions immediately." before being sucked into the gap in the time-space continuum.
After a vicious trip through the gap in the fabric of the multiverse, in which nearly all the rest of the hibernation chamber vanished in some way, the hedgehog landed in southern Britain in the summer of 2010. The first thing it laid its Personality-Core eyes on was a road sign.
"TO FRANCE
Routes 305/57"
And it was then that the hideous monster known to us all as Franco30557 was born. He managed to find an abandoned shack south of London with computer access, learned to use it and the Internet, and became acquainted with human society. As his right eye, Wheatley influenced him to be very pro-British and also rather moronic, while as his left eye, the Earth Core made him babble rather insensibly at times. And his replacement brain, the Fact Core, made him inexorably come up with random statements, and combined with Wheatley, have an enormous self-ego. The advanced hedgehog body made him fall in love with the inspiration for his creation, Sonic the Hedgehog video games. And eventually, on his travels across cyberspace, he came across the small community known as Buildism, which he has terrorized to this day.