GlaDOS wants to run some tests (huge_success) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2012-06-06 15:16:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, glados, pete wisdom |
"The idea was to produce smarter children."
Who: Caroline and Pete
What: Interrogations
Where: Aperture Science Lab
When: Yesterday
Status: Complete
Rating: PG-13 for SCIENCE. And language
Caroline was setting up her new lab. She was in a good mood. Practicing science always left her in a good mood, especially when that science involved unusual positions and a portal gun.
From somewhere outside the lab, there was the crash of a automobile. That was followed by a lot of coughing. This usually heralded the arrival of Pete Wisdom, and this time was no different. His pockets were stuffed with Interpol notices like a rainbow of nonstop grief and inconvenience, and he was applying his foot to the rear bumper, which looked like it was clinging onto the car for dear life. Pete took out one of his guns, shot the bumper, kicked it until it fell off, and then kept kicking it while coughing until it was out of his way, in the middle of the parking area.
His mission to get a convertible car for when he was feeling more himself again, was almost complete. Let's see if they gave him a boring standard black sedan ever again. By now, they should know better.
He went to the door of the lab and buzzed to get ahold of someone and be let in. Or they can come out, he couldn't give a rat's arse. Either way, he was going to wait it out until he could snag someone going in or out, and get some bloody answers.
The secretary at the door let Wisdom in. The intern wasn't in today, which was probably fortunate, as Caroline was almost done with the obstacle course she meant to run Laura through. She was in the process of welding something together when Wisdom came in. She stood, lifted up the visor and turned off the welder.
A very unamused Pete walked toward Caroline, holding up the proper paperwork with i's dotted and t's crossed in one hand, and his identification in the other hand. With an unlit cigarette between his lips, he let out a cough to get her further attention, looking bored and uninterested.
She took the papers, looked at them, and tossed them aside, "This is about Armachan isn't it."
"Of course," he said with a hint of a snide smile. He expected to find this one applying electrodes to exposed monkey brains for fun and profit. "I'd like to know about your former employer. And your former projects."
"NDA, you'll need more than that to get me to break it," She replied, breezily. "But I'll tell you what I can. They liked to push the boundaries of what's legal and morally right. I disagreed."
“I'm sure that there's more interested parties that would be happy to step up, if pressure needs to be applied. But I'd rather not be unpleasant. We’ve already gathered there's some sort of wacky science bollocks going on where Harper's concerned. What you're saying is you were involved in his projects and bending the boundaries of what was legally and morally right, isn’t it?"
He grinned at her, but it was more ghastly than happy. When Pete grinned lately, it looked like he was in physical pain and his face was going to crack in half.
"Bending perhaps a little. The rats were perfectly valid test subjects, of course. It was a brilliant project. We implanted little cameras because rats can go where search and rescue can't, right? So they could search for people in rubble! HUGE SUCCESS! Better than the roach bots." Caroline clapped her hand together and sighed happily, "Okay, I can tell you one thing. Armachan was messing around with genetic engineering. Eugenics." Which wasn't strictly illegal, "The idea was to produce smarter children."
"Smashing. What everyone needs. Anklebiters that grow up into smart arse kids, worse than they already are."
Pete hated kids. Perpetually. Eternally. Sure, in his younger and more idealistic days, when he had shagged a few girls who happened to have some of those wretched things in tow? He'd had to deal with those...things. He'd gotten down on their level and tried to make conversational nice with the lil bastards. It didn't work, because kids had a sixth sense for telling when adults hated them and were just trying to get into mummy's knickers.
"You know, if you're formally extradited by another country that might find you involved somehow, that NDA you signed here might be called into question in a foreign court. They're also thinking that what Armachan was involved in was not merely cameras on rats or making smartarses into even smarter arses, either."
"Think of the scientific advances? Cures for cancer, aids, a thousand other diseaseses! Think, man. Think!"
Caroline tilted her head, "Really? What else were they involved in then?" She seemed genuinely concerned, and then her mind switched tracks, "Want to see my latest invention?"
"I bloody well hate children. The planet's overpopulated enough. Less of them means more nosh for me." He shook his head, the cigarette precariously hanging off his lower lip before it righted itself again. "No, I don't. And I was wondering if you knew about what other things they were involved in. How thoroughly divided were the business dealings, as far as research and development were concerned, shipping...especially overseas...finances...anything..."
"I just invented and ran tests." Caroline finally got around to putting down the welder and walked around the desk. She pulled out some files and tossed them onto the desk, "Have some copies. I tried to save the research I was working on."
She eyed him. Then nodded her head towards a door and walked through it.
What was that about. Pete sneered a little at her, staring at her out of the corner of his eyes. He picked up the copies and bent them lengthwise, so he could shove them into a coat pocket. Then, and only then, did he follow. Warily. He even stopped in the doorway, to check things out.
She gestured for him to close the door.
"I think I'll stay put," he replied, sourly, because he - again - trusted no one. Especially former employees of Jack Harper. "I don't want t'end up with a camera in me brain."
She gave him a dry look, then pantomimed sweeping for bugs and pointing into the other room they'd just left. Then again gestured for him to close the fucking door.
Worried about being bugged. Huuuuuh. He dragged his feet in further, turned, and gave the door a swift kick to shut it.
Once it was closed, he shot his mouth off again, "Out with it, would you?"
"The child genius. She's my daughter, but she doesn't know it's me. Armachan, or what's left of it, wants her back."
Well now the parting of ways would make sense. He was also a little disgusted.
"So you basically created a daughter in a test tube for the sake of having lab fun and to see how smart it ended up being, and now this smart arse is...where, precisely? You don't even know where your own daughter is?"
And this, Pete reminded himself, is why humanity was going to hell in a handbasket. No one kept track of their damned kids anymore. Even the ones born in a lab.
"She found out about the project and ran away before I could talk to her." Caroline looked...if not distressed, genuinely worried, "She's smart. Book smart, not street smart."
"So you created a half-smart smart arse." Pete took that moment to clap his hands, slowly and sarcastically. "Bang up job, petal."
"We tried to acclimate her to people. She has a degree in psychology but that will only go so far." Caroline sagged her shoulders, "She's brilliant in the lab. I never really told her that."
He absolutely hated missing persons cases. Nine times out of ten, they either didn't find the missing person at all, or found bodies or pieces of them.
"Hindsight. Bitch. Isn't it." He took out his phone to make some notes, in case he came across the girl, but he was peck typing with one finger on the screen. There was still a little warp on one corner of the plastic, thanks to a hyperactive Olympian. Pete also figured this was probably being tossed out to him like a bone to a dog, to get him distracted. That wasn't happening. He couldn't get an okay to go off the case he was assigned to, unless it was essential to crucifying Harper onto a wall in a prison somewhere. Pete wasn’t picky about what prison or what country, as long as it was done. "Did you already file a missing persons, or are you worried about repercussions from Armachan and Harper?"
"Yes," Caroline replied, taking out a picture of Alma. "Mostly for her safety. Mr. Harper doesn't like losing his toys." Her voice was disdainful.
"Mmhmm. Did they give you a case number?" Pete was poking out the beginnings of a note-to-self. Even as he was giving her a note to keep in mind, "You could simply be using this as a diversion also. How did you get the funding for this nice shiny lab."
"Yes, I was worried about repercussions," Caroline corrected.
She walked over to a safe, and started to open it, "Some friendly benefactors once I showed them my new invention."
"Do you have transaction records?" Not that they needed them, he could always have some favors called in to take a peek. Speaking of peeks, he took a peek at the girl in the photo. She looked okay enough, for a smart arse. "For tax purposes, I meant, especially if you intend on overseas distributions. Also, what was the girl's name?"
"Nothing overseas. Her name is Alma, Alma Wade." Caroline's eyes narrowed, "You might want to talk to Harlan Wade. He was the lead."
"Any idea where I can find him." Pete gave up on the phone and just took out a pad and paper and started writing. Fucking technology. He would go cross-eyed while hen peck transcribing everything later, before sending it off and having a remote wipe done to cover any tracks on his computer. Yes, he really was that paranoid.
But it's functioning paranoia!
Caroline was glad to sell out her former boss, and threw a card onto the table, "That's all I have."
People really weren't fond of Mr. Harper, were they? Probably because people like that didn't end up having many friends. Even so, Pete didn't trust it. He did copy down the information on the card, so she could have it back. But before he left it there for Caroline to reclaim, he flipped the card over and wrote down a phone number.
"If you think that Alma's part of the whole fat mess, then there might be a case if she's taken outside of the country's jurisdiction. But if you’ve already filed a report, there's not much that I can do. Not unless you have reason to believe she's been transported against her will overseas. There's a number where you can safely leave a message, if that happens."
"If I find out, I'll be sure to call." She waggled her fingers at him, "Now you can stay and help me do science, which may or may not require removing your pants and fucking me senseless on this table, or you can leave."
"I wasn't really done asking you questions, and I don't want any of my genetic material left near your gene pool t'be played with." He kept writing a few more things down, while glancing up at her periodically. "Also, touch o’ treatable pneumonia. Not the sexiest, most shag 'appy illness, ever. Do you know of any other names that Armachan went by, in its various divisions, or did you ever hear of any other business names mentioned in conjunction with Armachan or Mr. Harper?"
"Just Armachan and Jack Harper," Caroline replied, looking dejected. "We never really spoke much, and certainly not about business ventures."
"I see." He'd just have the funding looked into. Harper was as careful as he was, or...well, as paranoid. About information. Physically speaking, Pete was devil may care if he was alive and kicking a year from now. "I'll see if Interpol's willing to get the preliminaries out of the way if there's reason to suspect Alma's been smuggled out of the country. That's the most that I can do with the international red tape. Cheers for your cooperation, blah blah blah, be in touch...meh...bleh."
He tucked the pad of paper and then pen into a inner pocket and warily watched her as he walked backward to the door.
"Thank you. Are you sure you don't want to fuck?"
"Positive. You're not my type. I find labs abhorrent. And fuckin' creepy." He opened the door. "Cheers for the project documents and remember to phone me, should anything change. Number, there, on your card. Otherwise, should new information arise, expect me to be nosing about again."
That was a warning and a promise. He was walking for that door, like someone was breathing down the back of his neck, threatening to take a tissue sample. There were a lot of dead ends, so far. It was going to be a matter of finding a crack forming in the walls of the corridors that he could peek into, or bust through. Whichever the case might be.
Caroline sagged heavily against the table. She wasn't evil she just wanted to science, damn it. None of this sneaking around crap. Just pure, unadulterated, science.
Pete wasn't sorry for believing that all scientists and some surgeons had a god complex and did scary things for the sake of science or medicine. Part of which he had no reason for at this juncture. It'll make sense eventually!
Vroom! Off he drove! Bat outta hell.