A Most Sinister SCIENCE [Closed]
The downside of gathering long term supplies for the crew, was that Lex did have to make sure they were all brought on board and stowed away properly. It cut into his vacation time, but it was a small price to pay to get some business done, and make a few connections that he'll be able to call on later. Besides, with 99% of the crew off the ship,
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||Hello!|| chirps the distinctive, broken voice of GLaDOS.
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Uhoh. That? That machinery-moving-around-to-do-something sound? Probably not the best sound to be hearing right now. Something unfriendly is coiling to spring.
||You have to complete your test!||
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"I'm gonna make it," he says under his breath.
What was the worst that could happen?
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A bolt of energy shoots out of the wall to Steve's right and a little behind him, aiming just where he was standing when he first exited the elevator.
hwwwnnn-FZZK!
A second fires. Level with where his head was when he took the first step.
A red dot has appeared on his right side, at about rib level.
hwwwnnn-
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It occurs to Steve that he had never been hurt in the sensorium before, so he wasn't sure if it could actually do any damage. He's not willing to test that theory right now.
He throws himself forward as fast as he can and does a graceless half-roll on the ground, barely missing the bolt as it zaps across the room.
"-SHIT!"
Another dot appears on his left side and he scrambles to his feet, inches ahead of a whole line of lasers as he runs to the elevator, tripping just inside the door and hitting the opposite wall.
"What the hell kind of test is this?"
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||Well do-one!||
Steve gets a few seconds of peace as the elevator moves. It's hard to say whether it's rising or descending, though.
||Your stress capacity test will continue in thre-ee, two-o, o-one-||
The doors open up again. Another room, this time sloped with tiling stairs. The elevator isn't visible, due to the slope. It's probably past the top though, somewhere.
Like the first room, there is no immediate sign of danger.
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Gritting his teeth, he rushes out of the elevator door and tackles the stairs, running up as fast as he can.
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That's not the worst of it. There's also the sound of rushing water behind him.
Not just any water, though. Test chamber water is gushing into the room and the water level's already rising after him, nasty water with some unidentifiable scum drifting on the surface.
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"God dammit!" He scrambles up the makeshift ladder as best he can, reminded quite sharply of high school gym class. At least he was decent at it.
The cuffs of his jeans get soaked in the water as he gets over the top, where the other side is turning from a smooth slide down into stairs with the elevator at the bottom.
"Like I need to be exposed to any more nasty chemicals," he mutters as he speeds down the stairs. His wet shoes slip on the bottom step and he crashes into the elevator with a heavy THUD.
Okay. This was getting old already.
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||We hope you enjoyed the hill climb exercise.||
||Your test will resume in thre-ee, two-o, o-one-||
Fsshh go the doors. New room. The hall Steve can see is very short with a sudden, ninety-degree left turn into the unknown.
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"Okay, you digital bitch," Steve snaps, shoving himself off the wall and out into the hallway. "You're gonna let me out of here right now, before I find you and stuff a magnet right in your stupid goddamn motherboard--"
He rounds the corner.
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A blade sweeps up in an arc from the floor, crossing Steve's path.
There's another beyond it, and another, some coming out of the walls and even the ceiling in apparently random places. There is rhyme and reason to their timing, they whizz outward then tuck back for a second or two before doing it again, but they're not synchronized. The hall jinks off to the right again, to another blade passage before the elevator.
There's also a humming noise.
A red laser line starts back by the elevator but unlike the lasers from the first room, this one is constant. And crawling inexorably forward.
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"Oh Jesus Christ..."
Steve's former irritation was turning quickly to panic as he tried to track the movements of the blades, with the laser crawling closer behind him. "This isn't fair!" he yells, and with a short breath and the grit of his teeth he makes his way into the dangerous blades.
And he does quite well-- watching the movements of the blades in their slots and listening for the sharp slicing sounds they made when they emerged. For a minute, anyway. Just as he reaches the end of the first set of blades, he feels a stabbing pain in the back of his shoulder and screams in shock.
He stumbles into the safe spot, falling on his knees and reaching back to clutch the wound-- oh god, it was bleeding, gushing... oh god, it was real-- or at least it felt real, but for all he knew it was just an illusion of the sensoriums. His skin starts to burn as the blood ignites, dripping down the back of his arm and down his ( ... )
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Steve gets a brief reprieve, very brief. The laser pauses in its progress as GLaDOS talks, but that doesn't last.
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He picks himself up off the ground and tries to ignore the dull sensation of his blood burning away, waits for a moment to time the blades in the hall--
Then hurtles down it as fast as he can. He's dodging surprisingly fast for having a gushing wound on his shoulder, and he manages to get clear of the last blade just as it slices, barely missing taking his foot off.
He gasps for air in the elevator, forcing deep breaths and pretending he doesn't feel his skin starting to crawl around the wound. "I'm done!" he yells. "I've gotta go to medical. Let me out of here already!"
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||There will be medical staff at the party.||
The elevator doors close, and it begins to move again to leave the blade room behind. GLaDOS says nothing else. The elevator's been the safe, peaceful place after each of these increasingly demented "tests".
It shudders.
The lights flicker, and there's a metallic screeching noise.
||Elevator malfunction detected!|| GlaDOS informs.
It jerks to a halt, a complete halt.
The lights flicker again.
It groans, and shudders again. Descending. (chug, chug, chug) Down, down, down, and it's picking up speed.
This thing should not be going this fast. (chug chug chug)It definitely shouldn't be going this fast! (chugchugchug) It shouldn't be-!
POCK!
There go the lights with an electrical burst.
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