[VOICEMAIL/IC CONTACT]

[epimethean]

[ Wheatley @ Save the Earth ]

Hello, yes, well done, you've reached--you've reached Wheatley, you know, the computer guy. Not here to take your call, unfortunately, but just go ahead and leave me your name and number and I'll--I'll endeavor to get back to you as soon as I can.

[ video ◎ voice ◎ text ◎ action ]

Comments

[tenaciousc]

It's the echo I got from that snake.

I think I know what we were running from.

[epimethean]

Do you? Because I've sort of been wondering about that, not going to lie.

[tenaciousc]

I saw this machine. It might be easier with a picture, just a minute

[She switches to paper. The next message is a drawing: a simplified representation of what she saw.

The image is still as vivid in her head now as if she saw it yesterday.

It's a robotic figure--not greatly humanoid but somehow feminine--hanging head down from the ceiling, its body held in a serpentine curve. A circle of screens surrounds it at the top (blank here, since she's going more for speed than precision, though in her memory they were showing a constantly changing succession of images.) Four round, eyeball-like devices are attached to seemingly random points on its casing.

With a single "eye," it looks straight at the viewer.]

We were going to shut Her down.

[epimethean]

[Michelle can't see it, of course, but on the other end of the line, Wheatley is studying the image carefully, trying to jog something--and, of course, jog something it does.]

Hang on, I--

[The message cuts off and he doesn't respond again until a few minutes later.]

Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System

[tenaciousc]

That's what she's called?

[Michelle reads it again, likewise expecting to spark another echo. Waits a moment. Alas, nothing happens.]

[epimethean]

I don't--

I don't even remember whoever she is, that's just what popped into my head when I saw the picture!

[tenaciousc]

If it's an echo, it's at least related.

[epimethean]

So it's a robot? A she-robot?

[tenaciousc]

I think so. I wonder--a couple of the voices in my echoes sounded synthesized. Could one of them be Her?

[The capital letter just seems proper here.]

[epimethean]

Actually now that you mention it I think I've heard the voice too.

[tenaciousc]

Good. Did she say anything that might be important?

[epimethean]

She called me a moron.

[tenaciousc]

I think that narrows down which voice. She made fun of my clothes.

["A medical degree in fashion"? Really, robot lady?]

[epimethean]

No wonder we were running away

[tenaciousc]

Yeah.

One other thing: did you get anything at the meeting?

[Is that why you didn't want to talk?]

[epimethean]

[ding ding ding]

Yeah, actually, I did. Nothing very important, unfortunately.

[tenaciousc]

I'd like to hear about it anyway. Maybe I'll remember something else.

[epimethean]

Okay, remember how we were running from something? Or...the Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System, as it were?

We were apparently looking for something, too.

[tenaciousc]

That name's going to get awkward if we talk about Her much.

Do you remember what it was?

[epimethean]

Okay, uh. We could abbreviate it. GLDOS?

Unfortunately did not know what we were looking for, but the place was run down and overgrown like in one of my earlier echoes. If that helps.

[tenaciousc]

Sure.

More echoes where it's ruined than not. I wonder where the one I saw that wasn't like that fits in to all this.

[epimethean]

Yeah, it looks run down in all of mine. Not sure what that means.

[tenaciousc]

Maybe the jail cell(?) was in a different section?

[epimethean]

Are we going with prison? Is that what we think it was?

[tenaciousc]

Do you have any better ideas?

[She's only going to be more certain of it when she gets her jumpsuit in a few days.]

[epimethean]

Not at the moment, no.