[voice]

[spacebased]

[Alex, being used to spying on strange cultures before making contact, has analyzed all the unencrypted network traffic and all the encrypted traffic a sophisticated computer with an interest in cryptanalysis can decode. Conclusions as follows:

1. Cui Bono crew: absent.
   
2. People of Earth agents: undetermined.
   
3. Grey agents: absent.
   
4. Bear agents:

Comments

1/3

[robodidactic]

[Oh, someone who isn't going to ask ten-thousand stupid questions? That's novel. In fact, that's downright-]

2/3

[robodidactic]

[This person is using big words. Technical speak, in a context that makes them sound like they actually know what the equipment they're talking about is.

...Since when does Kimiko get this lucky?]

3/3 video;

[robodidactic]

[And, one brief yet furious bit of analysis later, have a Kimiko for your visual input, Alex.]

Why?

eternally voice;

[spacebased]

Kiiiiiiiiiiind of hard to do accurate chemical analysis just in the visible spectrum.

[It's chirpy rather than condescending.]

Audio

[a_perfect_end]

Greetings, Alex.

[Procedural questions are the most important, and cost the least to answer. Besides, the helpful guy routine is the easiest routine.]

As far as the microscope? Bunch of the main components available in Residential Zone 15.

And, hey, just out of curiosity--what'd you need lab rats for?

Audio

[spacebased]

Greetings, Clu.

[The salutation is almost gleeful. Clu has been identified from the network logs as one of her AI bros.

Alex is, in her own cheerful, well-meaning way, as much of a creeper as he is.]

Someone has to taste for me.

Audio

[a_perfect_end]

[Someone did their homework. That's interesting. Conjecture: reviewed all the network logs? And the speech pattern, plus the absence of ambient noise, also suggests either deliberate voice masking of some type, or probable non-User origin.

He feels a shiver of something at the casual borrowing of his name, and it's intriguing, and he is just going to keep talking until he charms his way to the bottom of this.]

Really? Huh. [Uncertain how much use he'd be, there--whether the parallels would be accurate. Too many unknowns for an inference.]

Well. Is that before or after construction of the magnification device?

[Warm, smooth. Is that a microscope in your pocket... Imply everything. Offer nothing without more data.]

Audio

[spacebased]

[Oh, whoops, he seems to be laboring under a misapprehension. Alex happily corrects the error.]

I wasn't planning on building anything from scratch. Everything I asked for is a common piece of scientific equipment. I was assuming if nobody offered, there'd be a daring raid in which I stole what I needed...from a completely unoccupied, mothballed laboratory.

[Pause for effect.]

No one would buy that script. Hafta rewrite it as a comedy.

audio

[creepersphere]

[ As usual, Prism sounds far, far more perky and helpful than he actually feels. Normally he'd just lurk in this post, but he's bored as hell and... there isn't much to do while under house arrest. ]

Welcome to the station, Alex! I am 686 Ebullient Prism, Monitor of Line Installation 1-4. It is quite refreshing to see a newcomer who has taken the initiative to familiarize themselves with the station before making their first network address.

Given how desperate the current population seems to be for stimulation, I will be surprised if you do not find yourself with a sufficient supply of willing help. Regardless, I wish you luck.

audio

[spacebased]

[Prism! Logs have identified him as Hal's AI (dubiously) hetero life mate, and Alex fails too hard at reading social interactions to realize that Prism mostly treats Hal like crap, so he gets a happy greeting.

Alex does perky as well as any Monitor.]

Oh, you're Hal's friend! Hi!

What's Line Installation 1-4?

audio

[creepersphere]

[ There's the smallest of pauses, barely there really, where one of Prism's eyebrows goes up. Funny, he didn't see any trace of HAL in this post... which means HAL has been running off and socializing again.

Hmm. ]

Yes, I suppose I am! Have you spoken much with HAL?

Line Installation 1-4 was a Forerunner research facility located in [ INSERT COORDS HERE it was vague in canon okay ], dedicated to researching, and isolating a cure for, the parasitic organism known as the Flood.

audio

[spacebased]

[Alex, running on computer time while Prism is trapped as a meatsack, notices the pause, but can't think of any reason for it.

Oh, well. Her life is an endless string of misunderstood social cues. Breach that bulkhead when you get to it, as Zebulon would say.]

We met in the Junkyard after I arrived. He was very helpful.

[Is Alex star-struck? MAYBE JUST A LITTLE.

Then she turns all business, or as all-business as someone who sounds as chirrupy as she does can.]

My charts place no star at those coordinates. Clarification: Is your installation located in the galaxy known to humans as the Milky Way? If so, please provide the stellar spectra of your facility's primary and neighboring stars so I can correct for stellar drift.

[Is Alex a ship's AI? Oh yes.]

audio

[hopediesalone]

[Just going to lean back and look at his wearable a little bit. That's not something you see every day. Have a voice that sounds ever-so-slightly electronic, Alex. AIs everywhere in this bitch.]

What's all that planned for? I'm not sure how much help I can be in finding any of it, just curious.

audio

[spacebased]

My research!

[Into cooking.

Don't question.]

audio; full permission for Alex to recognize him from the network logs by the way

[hopediesalone]

...right.

[Bioreactors, system to allow biologically active environments under controlled conditions, aerobic or anaerobic, designed to carry out chemical processes...

X-ray unit, and a very powerful high-resolution sort of microscope...

He's having a hard time offhand thinking of anything dangerous all of this comes together for. If anything...yeah, it sounds like pretty stock-standard lab research. Nnnnot that he actually knows anything about how that might go, he's just got a lot of knowledge he was implanted with from the get-go.]

What's your research subject?

audio; o7

[spacebased]

Cooking.

[OMG don't you people know anything?]

text

[rebuildscience]

[Sounds like science is being done! In the most suspicious way.

In other words, business as usual where this robolady's from.]

volunteers for what?

text

[spacebased]

I need testers!

:)

text

[rebuildscience]

testing is my main function

text

[spacebased]

Do you like fudge?

My current research is into confectioneries.

[Chell could portal the fudge, if she really wanted.]