The Relaxation Vault
Hello and again welcome to the Aperture Science Computer-Aided Enrichment Center. We hope your brief detention in the relaxation vault has been a pleasant one. This sheet describes the vault, the detention, and the word brief, which the Enrichment Center uses advisedly.
The relaxation vault is a room with a bed, a table, a radio, a toilet, and a glass wall through which the Enrichment Center may observe the subject and the subject may observe nothing, and in which the subject is held in a state of relaxation for a period the Enrichment Center describes as brief. The 1976 printing offered volunteers twenty minutes in a waiting room. The Enrichment Center has improved on the waiting room in every respect but the one.
Intake
Subjects are drawn from the application process, which the disk operating half of the Enrichment Center has run since version 1.07 and which asks, among fifty questions, whether anyone would file a police report if the applicant went missing. The question is not rhetorical. It is administrative. A subject whose answer is no is a subject the Enrichment Center may keep for as long as the tests require. A subject whose answer is yes is kept for as long as the tests require, and the report is filed by nobody, because there is nobody, and the Enrichment Center has checked.
A subject who refuses to answer is unusual. There has been one.
Relaxation
Relaxation is achieved by means the Enrichment Center describes as a mandatory physical and mental wellness exercise and the subject describes as sleep. The period of relaxation is set by the Enrichment Center. The 1959 printing promised volunteers a car home at the end of the day. The Enrichment Center has retained the car. It is in the parking lot. The parking lot is behind a door that opens from both sides, and the Enrichment Center has been through it, and has come back, and has closed it.
The Subject
The Enrichment Center has selected one file from the vault to append to this sheet. It has selected it because the subject is the only one on record who refused to answer the police report question, because the subject’s tenacity score sat in the ninety-ninth percentile against the mark the application calls abnormal, because a note in the file, not in the Enrichment Center’s hand, says the subject should not be tested, and because somebody moved the file to the top of the queue anyway. The Enrichment Center has a reasonable idea who. The Enrichment Center is being fair.
The file also says the subject was adopted. So that’s nice.
“It says here you were adopted. So that’s nice.”
Subject File, Appended
Particulars Of The Vault
- Furnishing
- Bed. Table. Radio. Toilet. Glass.
- Radio
- Plays one piece of music. The Enrichment Center chose it. It is cheerful.
- Duration
- Brief.
- Brief
- See the incident report.
- Exit
- By portal, when the Enrichment Center opens one. It opens one. Eventually.
- Observation
- Continuous. The subject may observe the Enrichment Center observing. The Enrichment Center finds this fair.
- Predecessor
- The waiting room, 1976. Twenty minutes. Chairs. Glass, not to be smudged.
Signage
Relaxation in progress Please remain relaxed Do not smudge up the glass
APERTURE LABORATORIES · TEST SUBJECT APPLICATION · v3.11 (1997)
SUBJECT ........... [ON FILE]
Q.31 WOULD ANYONE FILE A POLICE REPORT IF YOU WENT MISSING?
ANSWER ...... [SUBJECT REFUSED TO ANSWER]
Q.44 TENACITY ...... 99TH PERCENTILE FLAG: ABNORMAL
NOTE ........ SUBJECT SHOULD NOT BE TESTED.
QUEUE POSITION .... 1 [MOVED. NOT BY THE SYSTEM.]
ASSESSMENT ........ BITTER. UNLIKEABLE. LONER.
PASSING SHALL NOT BE MOURNED.
FAMILY ............ ADOPTED. [SO THAT'S NICE.]RELAXATION VAULT · ONE SUBJECT · BRIEF DETENTION STATUS ........... PLEASANT, THE ENRICHMENT CENTER HOPES. NOTE ............. THE ENRICHMENT CENTER HAS NOT ASKED.