Villain app for anemoi

[slow_clap_module]

1)

[You are in a blank room. Four walls, a ceiling, and a floor. Pretty simple, except for the lines of dots leading to giant buttons and to a round door. A glass tube overhead has just dropped a rather stylised-looking box onto the floor. You have an odd, gun-looking thing in your hand. A disembodied female voice addresses you.]

WElcome to the ApERture ScIEnce Enrichment CENtre. The devICe you are HOlding is the ApERture ScIEnce HAndheld Portal DevICe. Do not lOSe, dAMage, or othERwise altER the ApERture ScIEnce HAndheld Portal DevICE. SubstANtial FInes, loss of LIfe or destrUCtion of reALity as WE know it mAY occUR... AND we dON't want that, dO We? Now. Let us beGIn tESting. Fire a pORtal at the WAll in front of YOu. I'll WAit.

[Well, the voice certainly sounds reassuringly calm... if a bit computerised.]

[What do?]

2

[Since this is Sirocco it's really only a matter of time before the phone network is hacked. And hacked it is. Everyone's screen is suddenly dominated by a... logo? It looks like an old-fashioned camera shutter accompanied by the words APERTURE LABORATORIES. It's accompanied by a voice-over, feminine and computerised sounding, as though they had a woman read a script and then auto-tuned the hell out of it just because they could.]

Good EVening, PEople of SIrocco. ApERture ScIEnce has an offer fOR you, because we ALl know how much hUMans lOVe hEAvily advertised cONcepts. StOP in to the ApERture ScIENce complex to-day and complETe testing for a chANce to earn ten ANemoi for the fIRst battery, twENty for the second, and et cETera.

[Whether the anemoi is a lie or not has yet to be found out.]

3

[Awgawd. The cubes. The buttons. The childlike bullet-spewing death-machines. You drag yourself into the next room to find... a table. With a cake on it. And nothing else.]

Comments

[slow_clap_module]

[The turrets topple over and actually shut down in a welter of squeaky Ows and CriTIcal erROrs and I don't hATe yous while the one he picks up objects with an equally tiny-sounding Hey! Put me dOWn!]

[As he pries it apart, it squeals piteously.] No, dON't do that... nOOoooo... [Bullets fall out. Really more bullets than they should have been able to stuff into an object of that size.]

ThEY won't be abLE to tELl you anythINg. [Does that computerised voice sound... peevish?]

[trustycrowbar]

If I were looking for them to tell me something, I would have asked them. [He snorts. It had never actually occurred to him to interrogate a turret though, at least, not until she mentioned it.]

[As the bullets continue and continue and continue to spill out of the shell, Gordon's eyes widen. Mentally comparint the volume of the shell with that of the growing pile, sums up to an increasingly unnatural ratio. He peers into the shell as the last bullets clatter out.]

What the--how did they--don't these bullets have a magazine they should be in? It should jam constantly like this, but it doesn't! It must have a pretty elaborate loading mechanism, some kind of inverted space geometry on the inside, and the motion-sensor program must be damn near AI-capability! And here I thought Aperture was just a bunch of crackpots that wouldn't know their ass from a transistor... [He drops the poor dissected turret and picks up the portal gun, and with it the weighted cube.]

Alright, I'm satisfied for now. [Cube on button. Tada. That wasn't so hard.]

[slow_clap_module]

[There's a beep and a metallic sliding noise as the door opens, revealing... a corridor.]

Oh. GoOD. I shOUld hate to thINk you woULdn't be sATisFIed with your tESting....

[Sarcasm cleanup in Aisle Seven.]

[It's interesting to note that she says absolutely nothing about his observations regarding the turrets. The door sits there, open, in an almost pointed fashion.]

[trustycrowbar]

[He rests the portal gun up on his shoulder with his arm folded back and trudges down the corridor.]

Hey, we're all scientists here. I want to know juuust as much as you do.