Neive Keenmark

Their student dossier read like an advertisement. That was fine, Keenan Lane treated it as such anyway. He made his own notes along the margins, not that anyone who read it after he did would be able to either see or read those notes: they were scribed in a language long dead, and written using his own distinct Vortal frequency. Only someone from his own bloodline might be able to detect them. Many of Cybil Qeats' files had such notations on them. If she ever gained the ability to detect his energy signature she would probably be rather angry.

The words on the dossier had images to go with them. 'As an Aperture experimental clone / robotic hybrid they have a history of testing and improving themselves at quite a cost. Apparently unable to feel pain, Neive 'can get that replaced' in a lab if anything falls off or breaks badly. Their 'ears' are wireless transceivers, and the portals they produce are 'right hand = gels, left hand = portals',' it read.

He wondered which Aperturearth it was, that they came from, as it clearly wasn't Twoarth's - that would have been noted right on the dossier. They definitely weren't from his Aperture, and not from the one where the Rookery was established either. Probably Wesson's, he considered. He watched the classroom on his office 'window' and while some offices had feed from the closed circuit security cameras dotted around campus, this was a view from one of 'his' ravens. It was clear that the day was winding down, many students were looking at the clock or at their phones, as the cybernetic 'girl' (who didn't care for female pronouns, he noted on their paperwork) turned in their research on "the differences between filing a complaint and opening a support ticket". It was research which they could just as easily be putting into either Wesson's class or Kale-Baah's. It was the latter's that was getting this short paper. He would want to grab a copy of that paper from his Twoarth fur-sider self, check how their writing style differed from their speech patterns.

It was time for the final bell, and Lane could see how many of his furry doppelganger's students had yet to complete this assignment of theirs. Neive skipped, literally, out of the room and into the Cafetorium, free of any worry. They liked that class, it was obvious. Lane put the dossier back into the Admin filing cabinet it had come from with a wave of his hands, it vanished into its proper dimension, without alerting Cybil to it having been gone in the first place.

The afternoon would find Neive heading back to their dormitory in the Hyperlab, a further reminder to Lane that this student was only marginally biological. That fact still somewhat distressed some of his peers and companions. The similarities to other-world invaders were many; how Neive had replacement parts and had never needed a visit to the on-site clinic, that they were able to speak in static bursts to order local robots around and disrupt closed-circuit transmissions... Those were hallmarks of the Combine, their own biological components controlled by computer software and run by hardware inelegantly jammed into whatever creature crossed their path.

But this was no creature. This was a person, an individual as much as any of the other students at Carramba. They were not unique, at least in terms of there being a number of other kids that also attended classes and then headed back into the massive supercomputing center under the mathematics building for 'maintenance' and 'sleep mode'. Neive had an artificial voice, but made it sound reasonably feminine even if they didn't use she/her. He considered that at length: did they not consider themselves to be human enough to be female? Or did they simply make the choice or realization that they had no interest in participating in biological nonsense like gender?

After all, this campus had bathroom options for pretty much anyone's biology, gave out both condoms and birth control without question, and few cared these days who was wearing what kind of fashion. He knew that Neive considered themselves cute enough to learn to sway their hips, and bat their eyes behind those Augmented Reality glasses. But it was definitely for information gathering, for subterfuge (and likely for reading a cheat-sheet in classes), and not as a normal teenage social norm. To say they were focused on things better than who to ask out on a date was an understatement. Neive did have a date - but it was with a research assistant from Aperture, who wanted to make sure that their Portal Pellet distribution system was working up to par.

He couldn't help but notice that both Huntington and Wesson had their own name-plated dorms down there...

As the technician did his work, and Neive chatted with him about their day's lessons and activities with as chipper a tone as any kid in a locker hall, Lane contacted some people, with a plan.

***

It had been a long day, even though it was one of those 'hardly any physical tests' in any of her classes, not even in the Cyberdecks class. Neive didn't know why they felt so tired at the end of it, but it was nice and cool, dark, mostly quiet down here already, screw it, get some rest. That rest would recharge their energy units, download the day's events into their personal log, let their biological parts chill out. Neive sometimes would drift into an actual biological 'sleep', rather than just turning themselves off for the night, and it was one of those nights. They tossed and turned, which was quite unusual for a cyborg like them. They didn't normally wake enough to realize they'd been asleep in the normal manner, would often just fall into a deeper technology-induced rest.

But tonight, they needed the sleep, and they needed the dreaming that was done. Sometimes, what was present of their biological brain matter just... needed it. They always considered dreams to be just another side effect of the body, but this time? This time it was different.

They felt cold; chilled to the bone, but not like when they went on that ski trip with the Freshmen class. It was dark, unnaturally so, but not 'black' night, not the velvet of the evening overhead, not power outage darkness. Just a grey that verged on near complete 000000. What was more compellingly scary was that they couldn't feel anyone around. Or any thing: their monitor station, the room security, the hallway pressure pads, or even just the entire school's network of communications; everything that they could detect within their wireless range, that would normally lull them to static-laden sleep. Everything was quiet.

It was terrifying. It hadn't been the first time that Neive was 'alone', and they hadn't liked it the first time either. They rose from a slightly padded horizontal surface, ignoring the fact that they had been tilted at a precise 45° angle in their chambers, and in a tubular charging uint at that.

They stood, there was 'ground' at least, and it was a faintly blue-tinted black. Now that they came to notice things properly, there were actually 'walls' in that same dark color, streaked like a copy-paste job that slid downwards in deep greys and slightly lighter and more metallic colors. Above, it was no longer complete blackness, but more a hazy cool white, fuzzy around the edges in ways that made Neive think of a soften pass used over a noise brush. Their feet on the ground started walking, okay so there were directions now - fore and back, up and down. Good. To the left and right were those tall poorly lit walls. To the rear was an almost menacing dimness (and not, as might be expected, a room with a platform from which they'd risen). But to their front, at least the direction they were facing now, it was more in focus. That led them to move one foot in front of the other, until they were walking at a careful but not plodding pace. Their feet made very gentle sounds, unusually muted given that they were rubber-soled treading on metal, and that usually meant some amount of squeeking or a sort of scrunch sound.

Neive wanted to run. Actually, they wanted to bolt away from here, but as they looked around there didn't seem to be any particular reasons for their earlier trepidation. It was not a comfortable place, but neither was it all that different from the halls at their 'birth'place of Aperture. Darker, certainly, as Aperture's walls were almost uniformly brightly white and lit properly. It was much quieter both audibly and via other 'listening' devices. The lack of any electronic interference was still unnerving, but they realized this was a dream, right? Only a dream, of being isolated and cut off from everything they knew. They didn't want this to become a nightmare, and it really felt like it might. After all, some of her own block-mates created in that lab had been brought back for disassembly thanks to errors and problematic behaviors...

"I assure you, N31 V3, it is... not... a mere dream," a voice said and startled them out of their wits for just a moment. Had Neive been carrying anything, it would have tumbled from their shaking hands. They did have a heart - synthetic blood coursing through their veins - and it was now pounding.

The voice had come from absolutely everywhere, it did not echo nor did it abruptly vanish. It lingered in their mind, Neive's first instinct was to halt and listen for anything further, and they then realized that their recording circuits were not working. They would have been able to quickly compare and contrast with a list of 'known sounds', but - but...

"Oh you ... aren't going to be able to record this place, young one, but no worries, few who come here at my bidding remember any of it... directly."

Neive's feet scuffed the ground, finally making the expected sharp rubber screech, in the long, tall hallway. They put their metal fingers to their right temple, "why... why do you sound familiar?" They asked, and their own speech, created from a highly advanced speaker in their throat, echoed in a way that this other deep and resonant man's voice did not.

But they did hear a distinct chuckle, and it wasn't right in their ears - it was more like an echo or an overheard laugh in a library, it seemed to be coming from somewhere down the hall. "Come and see," he said, voice once more coming and going without a trace, but lingering long enough to be felt. So Neive started walking again, this time with more purpose, toward the 'in focus' part of the hall. And soon enough the end of that hallway came into sight.

If this wasn't a dream, then why did the glance behind their back show nothing more than an office wall and no sign of the scary hundred-mile long hallway they'd just been in a moment before? As if they'd skipped ahead by a few seconds in a video and missed an entrance somehow. And why now was there a big dark desk, in an office modestly lit by four artistic lamps, carpeted in more conventional black pile, and with tall glass windows on the last part of the side walls?

And further, a man who Neive knew they'd seen on campus - but who sounded...

"Just like professor Kale-Baah?" Neive whispered more to themselves than to this human man sitting behind the desk. But those two did have the same eerie turquoise eyes, faintly glowing, a similar suit and tie - though this one's was black with a turquoise tie - and they felt like his posture was something they'd seen on their Codexes professor. This one wasn't some breed of bovine, though truth be told Neive couldn't recognize what kind of cattle Kale-Baah actually was even on doing some research. And they were quite good at researching online!

"Indeed you are... quite the research assistant," Lane said stretching out all the s-sounds, tilting his head just a little and offering a faint grin.

"You're reading my mind? You wouldn't pass that Telepathy class my friend is in..." Neive's eyes narrowed behind their blue-tinted aug glasses.

"Oh I assure you I would not," he waved his hand to dismiss the thought. "Please, sit, if you wish." He indicated the two chairs opposite his, leather and overstuffed, they looked both intimidating and comfortable in equal measure.

"I don't usually wind up called to the principal's office," Neive muttered, choosing the one on their left.

"Oh this isn't his office," Lane chuckled, "his is far more homey and... conventional, than mine. Even if it is in his own... constructed location."

Darn it, Neive wanted to be able to reference that, and couldn't. "Where are we? I can't connect to anything here." They glanced around, there was a laptop on one side of the desk, along with a black and brass briefcase bearing a logo Neive knew immediately as Black Mesa's. The logo... changed to Aperture's while they watched, and changed again to a triangular symbol she believed belonged to a place called Armacham.

"I should hope not," he replied with a lopsided grin. "As it is my... personal construct, and exists outside of space or time." He blinked slowly and his eyes took a look around until they rested once more on Neive's, "though if you listen... carefully enough? You might discover that we are not... entirely outside of time."

With that little bit of bait, Neive took it. They weren't really sure how a construct could exist that was this good - but then their idea of 'what a construct meant' was more limited to a computer simulation and not, as this one was, a Vortal location made out of Lane's own energy. Neive's senses and connection to those computers meant that they always knew that they were in a simulated environment, it was never quite as convincing as this. Neive however closed their eyes and took a deep breath, it was still cold but not stiflingly so. And it was quiet, but not silent: they heard his breathing, which was as resonant as his voice, but for some reason they expected it to be... rougher. Perhaps it was that Kale-Baah's certainly was, always gritty like he'd smoked half his life and only recently quit, occasional coughing and all.

But the background noise... That endless static and chatter of radio and wireless communications that Neive was used to hearing on their many wavelengths... It wasn't really there. Yet... yet... it was. They did a quick internal calculation, a calibration that sped up what they'd been 'hearing' since arriving here, and -

"It's the lab's security system, my monitor, only it's... so slow." Neive snapped their eyes open, "so we're like, slowed to a crawl? And I can still hear it, so I'm actually still there?" They almost added 'and I could record that' but knew better: their own recent memory was still being stored in their biological brain, and that had ways of retaining very-recent memories whether they wanted it to or not. Or perhaps, Neive realized, they could analyze that part because they were still hearing it aside from whatever they were perceiving in this spot.

"In a way, yes," Lane said, with a very faint flicker of a grin - he was reading their mind, after all, "but in the important ways, no, you are here with me, within my... space. I would not remove you from your sleep pod, N31 V3, that would be crass."

Though they clearly had many questions about the location and the logistics of it all, Neive instead leaned back into that padded chair, and said, "okay, why?"

"Straight to the point," Lane's smile softened and remained on his lips. "Neive, I would like to... offer you a job."

Neive's eyes went back to that briefcase but it was blank now. He seemed to noticed both Neive looking, and that it was a smooth, unadorned surface.

"The local ... authorities would have a symbol or glyph on file, we... wouldn't want that." He said. "But suffice to say that you are quite... appropriate, for a specific project. It is all," he assured them, "within Carramba's population, with an eye on keeping it that way. We... don't need outside... complications." He drew that word out uncomfortably.

"What sort of work would it be? Nothing illegal, I don't do that."

"Oh I am well aware. No, nothing that is overtly illegal, though it might not be... as pleasant to realize what is and is not legal here."

It was easy for Neive to tell that he was 'reading' them, but didn't think it was their mind he was looking at. Neive's face was passive, but information was scrolling on their glasses, too quick for most people to catch any significant information off of but this guy was something else, wasn't he?

Because the information that was splayed on those glasses was a contract, and he had sent it there.

Neive wondered absently, as parts of them read this contract, whether Kale-Baah could do the same things?

"My mortal-born... versions here on Twoarth have a more... limited amount of Vortal energy," he replied as though they'd asked out loud. "But we do share quite some features in common, regardless of our... physical differences." Again that last word, drawn out like it was taffy; sticky and delicious, but difficult to get free from. His eyes slightly narrowed but not in anger, more peering closely at Neive. "Are you hungry?"

Neive burst out laughing at that, "um, no, not really. Plus," they looked around after having decided to sign the contract as it didn't appear to have anything entirely untoward in it, "last year I took a Mythology class and learned that you should never accept food in the underworld."

"If Wilson was cooking, you would," he smirked, winked, and Neive woke up.