Portal: Love as a Construct

Part 131. The Harbour

Part 131. The Harbour

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It took her almost three weeks, but Caroline finally got back to me with what she says are samples for Aperture's visual update. I wouldn't know. As it turns out, I can't see them.

There are six sets, and they all look identical to me. I've been trying for over an hour to find some difference between any of them, but I can't find a single one. I considered the possibility that there actually aren't any, and she's done this as some sort of prank, but I dismissed it almost immediately. She has always taken her art very seriously. It's more likely that she simply thought – as I did – that this wouldn't count as art. Unfortunately, it does. I can tell what objects she's depicted in the sets, but they aren't a close enough match to the listings I have for those objects in my library for me to see them the way I need to. I'm not so hamstrung by my age that I can't tell she has sent me six mockups of a chair. I am so hamstrung by my age that I can't tell the difference between these six mockups of a chair. I'm going to have to ask her to write up some binary descriptions. For all I know, she's used six shades of white I'm not capable of seeing and it's causing my vision to give up and pick the one it thinks is most likely, which happens to be the same one all six times.

"You finally hire a decorator?"

Oh, come on. She finally comes back and it has to be when I'm in the middle of something that's giving me a hard time. No. I should have expected that. She always shows up when I'm making myself look bad.

"Yes," I answer. Chell is grinning up at me from below the three monitors I have out. "It's actually Caroline's second job."

"Second? Was the first installing booby traps outside the perimeter of that fence just in case someone you don't like manages to wander by?"

"Don't be ridiculous. I'm going to train the wild animal I was gifted from another planet to do that. It's much cheaper."

She's turned around to inspect the displays above her. "Someone gave you a deadly animal?"

"Two, actually. I killed the first one."

She looks over her shoulder at me, eyebrow raised. Her hair, contained in a braid down her back, has gone almost fully grey. I don't like it. I don't want to think about the things that are creeping up on her, just as they've been creeping up on me.

"It was an accident. Really."

"Oh, I believe you." She points up towards the monitors. "What does she want you to do with these?"

"I'm supposed to choose one." Wait. I can use this. "What do you think?"

"As far as I can tell, they're all pretty much the same. But if I had to pick, I'd go with..." She squints at each of the displays in turn, attempting to discern the differences. And thank God for that. It's likely if they'd been more varied I still wouldn't have been able to tell them apart, but at least this way I don't have to admit that to anyone.

"That one," she says, indicating the third. "Don't ask me why. They don't seem to be that different from each other. No offence."

"Why would I find that offensive?"

She turns to face me. "Because your kid made them?"

"She did," I say. "She has also probably gone into such minute detail that only she knows where to look for it. She'll want it to be perfect."

"I wonder where she got that from," Chell says, not even trying to hide how amused she is with herself. Well, she won't find what I'm about to say next so humorous. She's going to think I do, but I truly don't.