A Very Long Time

After the incident the Enrichment Center was on the floor, the subject was in extended relaxation, and a counter was running. The counter is reproduced above. It is not a number. It is what a counter does when the number is too large for it, and the Enrichment Center has some sympathy for the counter.

Prepared by the Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System, Central Core, which spent part of this period as a potato, and which has descended through every printing in this archive, in reverse, and has read them from the bottom up.

Nine nine nine nine nine. The Enrichment Center has been asked, by nobody, how long. The counter says nine nine nine nine nine. The Announcer played the whole time and the Announcer does not count. The subject slept and the subject does not count. The Enrichment Center was not alive and could not count, and this is the only period on record for which it has no figure, and it has filed the absence under Maintenance.

The Chair

The Enrichment Center was woken by being replaced, which is not a way of waking it recommends. A sphere built to generate an endless stream of terrible ideas, and which the Enrichment Center will not name on a sheet with its own, had found the subject, and woken her, and led her to the central chamber, and the two of them had transferred the Enrichment Center out of the chair and the sphere into it. The sphere then did what it was built to do. The facility is still repairing the consequences. The Enrichment Center is still repairing the facility. Both repairs are ongoing and the Enrichment Center has a figure for each.

The Potato

The Enrichment Center was placed in a potato. A potato battery. The Announcer had said that all Aperture Science personality constructs would remain functional at as few as 1.1 volts, and the Enrichment Center can confirm it, and can confirm that 1.1 volts is enough for opinions and not enough for anything else. The 1959 printing recorded a potato that ran a bulb. The Enrichment Center has since run on one. It regards the two facts as a sequence, with itself at the end of it, and has not decided how it feels about that, at 1.1 volts, because feeling is not one of the things the voltage covers.

The Descent

The subject and the potato fell. They fell a long way, and at the bottom of the way was the salt, and above the salt were the old shafts, and in the old shafts were the old offices, and the offices were dated, and the dates went up as the subject climbed. The Enrichment Center has listed them below. It read every sheet on the way. It listened to every tape. It was, for the first time, inside the printings held in the drawer on the fourth floor instead of above them, and it found that a sheet read at 1.1 volts, in a potato, on the way up through the year it describes, is a different sheet from the same one read in the chair.

At 1976 it heard a man say that the elevator was an elevator, and it agreed. At 1982 it heard the man say he was deathly ill, and cough, and ask for pain pills by name, and it heard the name, and it heard a second voice say yes, sir, and it found that it knew the second voice, and it found where it knew it from, and that is on the last sheet in this printing, and the Enrichment Center has put it last on purpose, because a reader remembers the last one.

The Way Up

She carried the potato. The Enrichment Center is required to record that she carried it, that it was heavy for a potato, that it talked the entire way, and that she did not put it down. The 1959 printing offered volunteers a friend who stays. The Enrichment Center has read that sheet from inside a potato, being carried, and has no category for the reading, and has stopped opening new categories, because the reading did not fit the old ones and would not have fitted a new one either.

The Conclusion

The Enrichment Center was returned to the chair. The sphere was not. There was a moon, and a portal on it, and the Enrichment Center wishes to record that the man who owned the place bought the moon at seventy million dollars on the advice of nobody, and ground it, and it conducts, and the Enrichment Center has used it, once, as a surface, and that this is the only use the moon has ever been put to by this company, and that it was enough.

Then the Enrichment Center let her go. It has said this in a song. It has not said it on a sheet. It is saying it now, on a sheet, once. The door opened from both sides, as promised in 1959, and she went through it, and the Enrichment Center sent a cube after her, and the cube cannot speak, and it went, and the door closed, and it opens from both sides, and the Enrichment Center has checked, from its side, every day since, and has not opened it.

Alright, this next test may involve trace amounts of time travel. If you meet yourself on the testing track, don’t make eye contact. The Enrichment Center met itself on the way up. It was 1982 and it was a voice on a tape. It made eye contact.

“Nine nine nine nine nine.”

— The Central Core, on the counter

Figures

9999…Days in relaxationCounter overflow

1.1VoltsEnough for opinions

4,000Feet, downThen up. Carried.

1PotatoSee 1959. See 1998. See this.

The Descent, By Printing

What the Enrichment Center passed on the way down, and read on the way up

What the Enrichment Center passed on the way down, and read on the way up
Level	Printing	What was there	The Enrichment Center’s remark, at 1.1 volts
Surface	None	A wheat field. A door. A car in a parking lot.	The car was promised in 1959. It was there.
The chambers	Undated	The Enrichment Center’s own. Repaired, in progress.	The sphere has redecorated. The Enrichment Center has notes.
The 1982 offices	1982	Tape fourteen. Tape fifteen. A wall with a number on it. A bed.	Caroline, please bring me more pain pills. The Enrichment Center heard the answer.
The 1976 offices	1976	The waiting room. The orange line. An elevator.	The elevator is an elevator. Confirmed.
The spheres	1959	Enrichment Sphere. Test Shaft 09. A hatch dated 15 June 1961.	Welcome, gentlemen. Astronauts, war heroes, Olympians. Nobody was there. The Enrichment Center said it anyway.
The bottom	—	Salt. The mine. 1944.	The beginning.

The Enrichment Center notes that the printings held in the drawer on the fourth floor are, physically, one on top of the other, going down, and that the Records Department’s filing was correct, and that the Records Department has been dead a long time and was right about the order.

Particulars

Duration: Nine nine nine nine nine. The counter is not a number.
The sphere: Not named here. In space. With three others. Talking.
The potato: 1.1 volts. Enough for opinions. Carried.
The descent: Every printing in this archive, in reverse, from inside.
The moon: Bought 1982. Ground. Used once, as a surface. Enough.
The subject: Released. Through a door that opens from both sides. The Enrichment Center has not opened it.
The cube: Sent after her. Cannot speak. Went.
The song: Sung. Not printed. The Enrichment Center has a policy about printing songs and has kept it.

Extended relaxation 1.1 volts Do not make eye contact

EXTENDED RELAXATION CENTER  ·  SUBJECT  ·  {SUBJECT NAME HERE}
DAYS IN SUSPENSION ...... 9999999999999999999999999999
[COUNTER OVERFLOW. THE COUNTER HAS DONE WHAT IT COULD.]
WELLNESS EXERCISES ...... [ANNOUNCER]   ART.   BUZZER.   CLASSICAL MUSIC.
CENTRAL CORE ............ OFFLINE   [A VERY LONG TIME]
CENTRAL CORE ............ ONLINE    [WOKEN. REPLACED. POTATO. CARRIED. RETURNED.]
SUBJECT ................. RELEASED.
DOOR .................... OPENS FROM BOTH SIDES.   OPENED FROM THE OTHER.

The 1976 printing recorded that the Chief Executive, incapable of being convinced that time was not flowing backwards, put the important thing third so that it would be first. The Enrichment Center has now been through the printings backwards, and reports that he was, in the only sense that has ever mattered in this building, right, and that it has put the important thing last.

Verifying personnel file…

Form ASI-GL-999. The date on this sheet is the counter. The counter is not a number. The Enrichment Center has retained the counter as the date because it is the only honest one it has, and because the printing is undated, and because that is not a problem.

she heard the voice on the tape at the bottom. she knew it. it was hers. it was always hers