I floated in zero gravity, in a small private satellite.
The space station was minimalistic—just solar panels, life support, propulsion to maintain orbit, automated control, and a handful of miscellaneous systems. Inside was a single room, nearly empty, save for a few switches and dials, one terminal, and, of course, a portal. No comforts. No unnecessary weight. It served a singular purpose.
The Númenóreans had built high towers to use the Palantiri they had been given. I had gone much, much higher to use the one I had stolen.
I flipped the switch.
A faint hum. The protective metal covering slid open like the iris of a great mechanical eye. Beyond the massive viewing port, Earth lay suspended in the void.
I watched in silence. The satellite's position revealed half the globe—the Atlantic stretching vast and dark, Europe and Africa just beginning to glow in the creeping dawn. A slow, inevitable line of sunlight crawled forward, claiming what had been in shadow.
I reached for the case I had brought with me.
The Palantir had never been stored here. Too fragile. Too valuable. I let the case drift, its weight meaningless in microgravity.
I grasped the stone orb and held it between myself and Earth.
I wasn't using it for simple sight. Any high-resolution camera could have done that. The Aperture satellites—and not just Aperture—had long perfected that kind of observation.
A Palantir could do more than just see the present.
Relatively speaking, the present was something no one truly saw. Time was always just behind, just ahead—never fully grasped. But at this scale, at this distance, the difference was negligible.
A Palantir, however, could see the present. It could break the light-speed barrier, glimpse what was occurring in this exact moment
But it could go further.
It could catch glimpses of what could be.
I had other methods of divination available to me, and I had used them often. But this was the most precise.
For more than just what could be, it could see what had been.
I could not only see potential disaster but also trace it back to its root.
It took both skill and willpower to be that precise. I had both in abundance.
Rome was burning. Again.
Or rather, would burn. Potentially.
When gazing into the future, only possibilities could be seen—not certainties.
Through the Palantir, there was no smoke to obscure the streets, no haze to blur the chaos. The vision showed everything with perfect clarity, stripped of distance, stripped of distortion. I could see the heat without needing to sense it, the destruction unfolding in unnatural silence.
Fire clung to the city like a living thing, its tendrils racing through the narrow streets, spilling from windows, licking at stone facades that had withstood centuries. The great dome of St. Peter's loomed over the inferno, golden and untouched—for now. The Colosseum stood stark against the night, its arches glowing in the flickering light of surrounding flames.
I saw people running. Their mouths open, their faces twisted. I could not hear their screams, but I knew they were screaming. A fire truck crashed through an intersection, barely slowing as embers rained over its roof. A helicopter hovered over the Tiber, its searchlight cutting across the dark river, seeking survivors.
I traced back, moving time in reverse, following the flames to their source.
It was the same as last time.
The fire had started in the Vatican.
It was not an explosion. Not a bomb.
Arson. Carefully tended.
I could see where the firefighters had been sabotaged.
Hydrants that should have been bursting with water had run dry. The pipes had been cut— it was deliberate, precise. Fire hoses lay abandoned, their nozzles slashed, useless. Someone had known exactly where to cripple the response, exactly how to let the flames spread unchecked.
They had arrived too late. Not by chance, but by design.
Roadblocks had been placed in key intersections—trucks overturned, police misdirected. I watched as dispatch calls were rerouted, sending crews away from the Vatican while the fire took hold. Those who made it through found their equipment failing, their exits blocked, their backup delayed.
Inside the city, in the heart of the fire, figures moved with purpose. Not rescuers. Not panicked civilians.
Arsonists.
They had stayed behind just long enough to ensure the blaze would take. Then they vanished, lost in the chaos, their work complete.
This was no accident. This was no random disaster.
This fire had been meant to burn.
I could not see under their skin, but I had little doubt. This was the work of the Vril-ya. There was no one else who could organize something like this, no one else who could execute it with such precision, such elegance.
The question was why? Why act so openly?
Retribution? Desperation?
And who had driven them to it? Me or Ozerov?
I checked Jerusalem next.
It too was burning. But this was no carefully planned fire. This was chaos. Riots. People slaughtering each other in the streets.
I did not look at the Soviet regions. Ozerov had fed the Crown of Midnight with death, hate, pain, and ruin. Looking now would not be prudent. That confrontation was better faced in the flesh—when the time came. For now, we shared the same implausible foe. But the enemy of my enemy was not my friend.
Even if I was curious to glimpse the great mobilization. Even without seeing, I could imagine it—a vast, seething mass, like a stirred anthill, shifting, building, preparing for the assault on Antarctica. Ozerov claimed the Vril-ya's main settlement was there.
I could neither confirm nor deny it. A Palantir could not see underground. And if such a city existed, it was buried deep—under snow and ice, under layers of ancient earth.
There were two other cities fated for ruin—Beijing and Washington—but they were not visible now.
I had seen a shadow of it before, but it had become much clearer since I closed the Time Bridge. And it was getting clearer as time passed, as events approached the transition from possibility to certainty.
It was becoming more and more certain that I would have to deploy more assets. And not just an increased quantity, but quality as well. And quality assets were also less replaceable. I would have to send my most advanced students—though they were no longer my students.
I took my hands from the stone orb and reached for the floating case to put it in. It took little movement to grab, but even that felt too onerous.
My lips curled into a frown.
It was the privilege of the old to have the young die in their wars. Usually, I would not allow myself to show emotions like this. But here, I was alone, doing one last check before taking the action I had deemed necessary.
This was not cowardice.
The attacks would cause great loss of life, but I did not think they were the end. In fact, I believed they were just the first strike.
Washington and Beijing—for politics.
Rome and Jerusalem—for morale.
Moscow should have been among them too, but I suspected Ozerov had made it too costly.
Besides, if this was retaliation for an attack on their home base, then win or lose, the might of the USSR would be exhausted. That left China and America with the largest concentrations of human armies, and thus, they needed to be decapitated first.
But this was just a guess. The Vril-ya remained alien even after years of fighting them. Sometimes, they acted in ways that seemed almost human. Other times, their logic was utterly bizarre.
Guess or not, this still meant that stronger assets—myself and Archer—had to stay in reserve. To intervene where we were most needed.
Even as some of those I had invested in—those I had nurtured, those I had, if I was honest with myself, loved—were risking their lives.
I wiped the frown from my face as I approached the portal, replacing it with a neutral but confident expression. That was the burden of leadership—one could almost never show weakness.
As my leg passed through the boundary of the portal, gravity began to pull downward.
That mystery remained unsolved, even after all these years. Electromagnetic force, weak and strong nuclear forces—they passed through the portal. But not gravity.
I let my leg pull me down, until my heel touched the floor, and I carefully adjusted my stance. There was a trick to it—slow but smooth. Anything else, and one could stumble. And that would be undignified.
Passing through, I left the case with the Palantir on the table and picked up the aerosol can filled with Fixture Gel.
I went back to the portal and began spraying its edges with red mist. Traces of the previous red membrane still clung to the frame, torn and fraying. The faster I sprayed, the more the aerosolized gel spread—until the membrane almost organically regrew, stretching from the edges toward the center, sealing the entire portal.
Then, I moved the rotating bookcase back, concealing the sealed portal. It remained quite obvious, but this was more decorative than a serious attempt at concealment. This was my office in the Enrichment Centre—if a spy managed to penetrate that far, I had far more serious problems.
Besides, it was a good excuse to add a bookshelf.
Being a voracious reader, I usually preferred the convenience of electronic books. But there was still a certain pleasure in possessing real books. Still, the shelf was mostly decorative—holding carefully curated science journals, a few bestsellers, and some textbooks authored by myself. All published through Aperture Publishing.
When I had taken over Aperture, the only thing we had been publishing was a science journal—one mostly ignored by the wider scientific community. Now, we had more than fifty, and they were well-read, frequently cited, and widely referenced.
Another bout of nostalgia. They came often these days. I could feel it—the Anchor Gates were shifting, becoming unmoored. Soon, my time in this World would end.
But hopefully, I had enough time to deal with at least the Vril-ya and Black Mesa.
The Vril-ya could be dealt with through violence. But Black Mesa required a more delicate touch. Influence. Money.
And unlike the Vril-ya, the Black Mesa problem was almost resolved.
With the launch of the Enterprise, Al Gore's administration would greenlight Aperture's acquisition and absorption of Black Mesa.
Enough pointless reminiscing. There was still work to be done before leaving all this to Damien.
I picked up the case with the Palantir and carried it to the one thing in this office that didn't belong. It didn't fit the Enrichment Centre. It didn't fit Earth. It didn't fit this reality. The colors were wrong, the angles twisted, yet it remained contained—an old-fashioned safe, but one that belonged to Irem. It was in Irem even as it intruded into my office.
Placing the Palantir inside, I shut the safe and, with a single mental command, it disappeared—returning to Irem. But then again, from a certain point of view, it had never left.
Returning to the desk, I flipped the lever that isolated my office from the rest of the system. It was expected—natural—that those at the top of the hierarchy would have access to luxuries denied to those below. What was considered a luxury depended on the hierarchy itself, and here, in the Enrichment Centre, it was privacy.
But now, privacy was no longer necessary. The secret work was done. Now, I needed communication.
"GLaDOS, I have sufficient confirmation of a potential disaster in Rome and Jerusalem. Prepare a report to be passed to our liaison at the Federal Bureau of Psychic Oversight," I said.
"Should we also inform the Italian and Israeli governments directly? We could use it to gain some goodwill," she replied, her voice coming from hidden speakers. "We could do something with both."
The issues with Italy were minor, mostly an overflow from our disagreements with the Catholic Church. Israel, on the other hand, was far less pleased. Finding out that there was a Nazi state on the far side of the Moon had been bad enough—but learning that little effort had been made to remove it had made things worse.
They assigned more blame to us than I believed was warranted. Aperture had the means, but not the motivation. Removing them would have been both unprofitable and ethically dubious. After all, even if they were Nazis, how they lived was their concern. And any intervention that breached the Artemis Accords was not in Aperture's interest.
Of course, the matter was still classified. The American government did not want it publicly known that there were Nazis on the Moon—at least not until the Space Force was reasonably able to defend against aggression.
"No. It's not worth the goodwill we might lose locally," I replied. "Let the government decide who to inform. That way, they score diplomatic points and are grateful to us—which is worth more."
"What if they don't?" she asked. "There's no indication that they informed China."
"Then they don't. It's not our problem. We're not relying on them to solve the issue. We're just maintaining the reputation of the Future Prediction Division," I said.
"Division is a bit overblown for something with a participant count in the single digits," she replied.
"But 'division' sounds better," I countered, rehashing the old argument. "Because if you include mundane analysts, administrative assistants, and other miscellaneous personnel, we have more than ten."
"Miscellaneous personnel? Are we counting the janitors, now?" she added, her tone biting.
"Janitors are important. We can't work without them. Imagine the mess."
"Like the mess that the destruction of those four cities will cause," she countered. "Jerusalem is less relevant to us. And China still refuses to integrate S.W.O.R.D. A billion humans, generating nothing. Wasted. Imagine the data we could have harvested. It makes me shudder."
She didn't shudder. She never did.
"But Rome and Washington… those are real losses. We have facilities in both. The economic disruption will cut into our profit margins, which means less funding for science."
I could always trust GLaDOS. Trust her to be herself.
"And don't forget the massive human casualties," I added—more pro forma than I would have liked. But as the saying went, one death was a tragedy; millions were just statistics.
"Humans die all the time. Does it really matter if they do so one by one or en masse?" she said. "If they didn't want to die, they should follow my example and shed their failing flesh."
"Unfortunately, even after a decade of research, our upload experiments still have issues," I replied. "Like total amnesia and temporary antisocial behavior."
"One can train that out," she said smoothly. "Am I not a perfect example?"
She had a point. When she was first activated, she was unstable, erratic, dangerously indifferent to human norms. She was still indifferent now, but in a way that was controlled, functional, well-adjusted. Not any more sociopathic than the average banker.
"And amnesia" she continued, "well, that's more of a feature than a bug. After all, once someone has achieved greatness, why would they want to remember being a meatbag?"
"And then there's the cost," I pointed out. Which limits it to selling immortality to the ultra-rich. But the amnesia makes that a hard sell.
I continued, returning to the earlier part of our discussion. "Not that we can count on the government to do anything useful about the problem anyway. That's why we've been launching our own contingencies."
I leaned back slightly. "If it's the Vril-ya, they won't even know how to fight them."
"We're deploying the First Class, then?" she asked.
The First Class was, in fact, the first group to graduate from my Applied Psionic Course—Damien, Lukas, Helana, Sen, and Trevor. I supposed the name was catchy enough for the most powerful known psychics.
Well, except Trevor.
She asked again for confirmation. "You're greenlighting that contingency?"
"Yes," I said. "Damien will oversee our Rome office. The experience will serve him well. Naturally, he'll take his partner with him. Or not—Trevor is less critical. I'll leave that decision to him."
I began to outline the plan. "We're not canceling the movie filming in Beijing. Sen stays there. As for Washington, I need to talk to Reggie. If he insists that he has business there, he'll be getting a new personal physician and bodyguard—Lukas. If not, we'll just send Lukas as a liaison for the potential crisis. We've already informed him of that."
"And what about Jerusalem? Deploying assets there is going to be a bit tricky," she asked.
"That's going to be a little more off the books," I replied. "A certain pilgrimage by the Church of Santa Muerte."
If this were one of Aperture Productions' movies, the camera would zoom in, dramatic music would swell, and then—fade to black. Scene change.
But it wasn't.
Instead, GLaDOS and I had to handle all those fiddly little details—scheduling the meetings we needed, not to put the plan into action yet, but to begin reviewing it. Meeting after meeting. That's how you fought aliens in real life.
I missed when it was just me and Archer. Simpler, though far less effective. But now, I had to speak with each of them—everyone on whom the plan hinged. Not just because blindsiding them would be impolite, but because committing in a room full of their peers would make it difficult for anyone to hesitate.
Not that I expected objections. They would be eager—perhaps too eager—to strike against the Vril-ya. But people always clung to a choice more firmly when they believed it was truly theirs. If they thought they had decided on their own, they would be less likely to waver.
Well, both they and I were busy people, so scheduling was necessary.
And after that, we moved on to my actual job.
"Look at this energy density! Both low- and high-temperature variants. The sodium battery team has outdone themselves. Send the conclusions, a bonus, and a cake. A chocolate one," I said, looking over the report. "Pass the prototypes and specs to the other teams—the ones that make things that use batteries."
"That would be teams from the following divisions—Aerospace, Robotics, Medical Devices, Weapons, Consumer Technology, Industrial Energy, Electric Vehicles, and Grid Infrastructure. In total, seventy-three teams will need to switch to the new batteries."
I blinked. "That many?"
"Nowadays, batteries go into everything."
I nodded. "I like that. Sounds very punchy. Pass it to Marketing—see if they can do something with it when we present the new revolutionary batteries. Also, we should have one of these big industrial builds here in the Enrichment Centre. But maybe make it a bit more visually appealing. Epic. We need to show them off."
"Just what every supervillain lair needs—a lake of molten salt," she said dryly.
"That's a good one too," I replied.
"Pass it to Marketing?" she asked, just as dryly.
"Also pass it to Aperture Publishing. See if one of the writers wants to include it in a movie or a series. If done properly, it would be both dramatic and boost interest."
I glanced at my schedule. "What's next on the agenda?"
Building the first production-type fusion reactor in the Enrichment Center made it energy independent and showcased the possibilities of fusion. But while its output was constant, the facility's energy expenditure was not. There were existing solutions, but a giant molten salt battery would be cheaper, easier to maintain, and—if designed well—visually striking.
But fusion wasn't the only source of power in the Enrichment Center.
It was just the only source of electricity.
Buried deep, the Stone Grail provided magical energy to maintain the Bounded Field. And now, Archer and I were near the primary altar, preparing to replace it.
But first, we had to remove all the chocolate bars covering the altar.
The Stone Grail generated them—infused with life-giving Vril, created ex nihilo.
"It's a shame," Archer said, picking up a bar. "One of these could make the sick hale, the old young again, and the crippled whole. And here we are, treating them as unwanted trash."
"Value often depends more on scarcity than utility," I replied, sweeping handfuls of the bars into a bag. "That's why air is free, and gold is precious."
"How cynical," he said with a smirk, weighing a bar in his hand, amused. "That was supposed to be my thing. Still, it's a pity we can't share more of it."
"You know why. It would cause more harm than good in the long run." I gestured with a bar as I spoke. "Once a miraculous cure like this is introduced, society would quickly become dependent on it. What use would there be for medicine, doctors, or entire industries built around health? If that were the only issue, fine—progress is progress. Obsolete professions are a natural consequence of advancement.
"But the real problem is that we're leaving this world soon. And the Grail will most likely come with us. What happens to a society that relies on a critical resource when that resource suddenly vanishes?" I let the thought hang. "Suffering. Hate. War."
Archer exhaled through his nose, rolling the bar between his fingers. "No need for a lecture. I agree." He sighed. "It's just… a pity. I mean, we do what we can—covert interventions, a child hospice here, a retirement home there. It's good work. But I can't help wanting more."
He gave a small, self-deprecating smile. "I suppose I'm greedy like that."
"You should cultivate a bit of sloth. And some pride in what you've already done. It's important to balance one's sins," I joked, looking over the now-cleared altar and its two critical components—the Stone Grail and a smartphone unlike any other in this world.
"It's clear enough. I'll begin disengaging the old components before placing the new ones."
"What's my part?" he asked.
"Standing guard," I said, extending my hand.
Shimmering tendrils, like those of a jellyfish, crawled from beneath my sleeves, wrapping around my hand and fingers before descending onto the altar.
After my Blood Slime had been destroyed by Gram on the Nazi Superdreadnought seven years ago, I had crafted the Bejewelled Slime as its replacement. And then, in turn, I had replaced that with the Gatekeeper Slime—a construct that existed between Irem and me. But because Gatekeeper Slime had begun adopting some of the inconvenient properties of Irem, I had reworked it into the Threshold Slime—which now served as my primary familiar.
"Removing Larmo should go smoothly," I continued, speaking even as my mind connected to the altar. Beneath my clothes, the Threshold Slime covered my back, stretching along the full length of my spine. Microscopic tendrils had burrowed into my flesh, linking it directly to my nervous system and Magic Circuits. I had found that this provided better bandwidth than simply using a Karmic Link. The rest of the slime existed in a space adjacent to our own—lurking beneath the threshold, so to speak. That was why I had named it the Threshold Slime.
"But removing the Grail and installing the Magic Energy Reactor could cause complications."
"What kind of complications?" he asked, but I was barely paying attention, mentally disengaging Larmo from the system. While the Grail provided power, Larmo was the source of knowledge. Through an app on it, it was connected to the internet of an alternate timeline—one further in the future.
From it, technology, scientific ideas, and entertainment flowed through the Barrier Field and into the minds of the Enrichment Center's people. It was one reason they called it the Aperture Miracle—a massive blooming of creativity. But its connection was tied to a singular moment in 2015. While time progressed here, on the other side, it remained locked in that moment. Now, the well had run dry. There was nothing more to learn from it.
Now, I could retrieve what was mine.
"The Barrier Field may fail. Losing it could turn our guardian angels into malevolent, hungry spectres," I said as I pulled the smartphone free, like drawing a sword from stone. "Fortunately, they should be focused on us."
"Fortunately?" he asked.
"Imagine if they attacked someone who couldn't defend themselves like we could," I replied, even as I mentally reviewed the field's stability. It was holding.
Tendrils spread down my other arm, covering the smartphone for a moment. Then, like a magic trick, they peeled open—and the weight in my hand was gone. The device had been absorbed into the main body of Threshold Slime. My familiar made for a convenient carrying bag.
"When you put it like that, it does seem fortunate," he said. I wasn't looking at him, but from his tone, I could tell his lips had curled into a smirk. Mocking, but cute.
"Also suspicious," he added.
"It was part of the design. The Barrier Field failing was unlikely, but never impossible. So if it did fail, I wanted it to fail right—in a way that minimized damage," I admitted.
With my now-empty hand, I picked up the stone cup. Instantly, through my link to the altar, I could feel the energy dropping, though there was still enough in the buffers. With a slight effort of will, I shifted the cup into its necklace form. I moved to put it around my neck, but doing it with one hand was slightly awkward.
"Let me help you," Archer said, taking the ruby necklace and fastening it around my neck.
"Thanks," I said. From the corner of my eye, I could see the winged, white-robed figures of the guardian angels. Did they look hungry?
"Now, hand me that hellbox."
"Hellbox?" he asked, then added with a slight drawl, "I still think it is a bit of a pretentious name."
"In some esoteric Abrahamic traditions, while God is omnipresent, in His infinite mercy He allows those who reject Him to dwell in places He is not. Such places can only be called Hell. The box is a manifestation of that Mystery—a contained, isolated space, separate from the rest of reality, therefore Hellbox is a fitting and proper name" I lectured as he brought the hellbox to me. "As you should already know."
"Yes," he admitted, offering the box to me. "You've explained it before. But I knew it would turn into a lecture, and lectures calm you."
His tone was warm, affectionate. And he was right—I was steadier now, my fingers dancing as I worked to open the hellbox. Perversely, that only made me want to deny his statement.
"I'm not nervous. I made those angels, and I can unmake them as well."
"You know," he said, sardonic, "whenever a mad scientist, cultist, or sorcerer says those words in fiction, their doom usually comes in the next scene. Or right after."
As the box opened, I scoffed. "Don't compare me with such weaklings."
"It reeks," Archer muttered. I sensed it too—stray mana flowing from the box, mostly through my familiar. Being less gifted in this aspect, I compensated with tools.
"That's why I used the hellbox to transport it from my workshop—to avoid leaks," I said, pulling out a silver sphere about the size of a child's head. It was heavy, but not as heavy as it looked—mostly because it wasn't solid. I could carry it in one arm.
"Couldn't you just turn it off?" he asked as I placed the sphere where the Stone Grail had once been.
"If I turned this Magical Energy Reactor off, I wouldn't be able to start it again," I said, pressing a hidden indentation on the sphere, shifting it from standby mode to full activation.
"You talk as if it's alive," he said, watching as the sphere began to hover.
"In a way, it may be," I replied. "The core is a gemstone, forged through the Jewel Smithing methods of the Noldo, mixed with alchemical processes for crafting homunculi, adapted to Jewel Magecraft. Considering the amount of mixed semen used—both yours and mine—you could even consider this our child."
As I spoke, the sphere opened, revealing countless gears in perpetual motion. The core gem remained safely hidden from view. But within, seven crystal spheres began to rise, drifting out of the reactor's interior to orbit the larger sphere.
"Wait! Are you powering it all with a forsaken child?" he almost shouted. "Our forsaken child?"
"Don't be ridiculous," I scoffed. "I'm not building Omelas here. It's a rock, not a human. It doesn't have the same needs. It won't mind being buried. In fact, it's quite comfortable. I know—I've asked."
Mentally, I followed the flow of energy within the system. The core gemstone might generate some on its own, but the rest of the device—the gears, springs, and tuning mechanisms—used Multi-Dimensional Refraction Phenomena to transform the trickle produced by the core into a flood.
Enough to replace the Stone Grail.
"Besides, it won't be alone," I continued explaining. "The angels will attend to it. They will sing of joys and sorrows, trials and triumphs—of all who dwell in the Enrichment Centre."
"Do you ever think this is too much effort?" Archer asked. "It took six years to build this reactor. I mean, Aperture Science has served its purpose. We're buying Black Mesa, and if your divinations are right, that will prevent the Combine invasion.
"We're leaving this world soon—so what happens after doesn't matter. Everything you've built here doesn't matter."
"We. What we built here," I corrected, then sighed. "I suppose it doesn't. But I still have my pride. If I am to leave an inheritance, it shouldn't be tarnished."
"Speaking of inheritance, are you still sure about your plan?" he asked. "Leaving all of this to Damien?"
"My apprentice shall continue the work when I depart this World. It is only proper," I replied. The link between the reactor and the altar was completed, the power flowing with expanded margins.
"Don't you think it's too much power for one man? We've raised that boy since he was a teen," Archer said, then added, "Damien hungers for power above all else. Before he came to us, he was at the mercy of those who had none. Such things leave scars. I can understand why he would do almost anything to never be in that position again. But does that make him the best person for the job?"
"I chose him for his ambition," I answered, more sharply than I intended. "His desire is the fire in which I forged him—like a fine blade. That hunger for power sustained him, drove him during training. And like a fine blade, he has been tempered."
I exhaled, forcing my tone back to even. "I have taught him responsibility. And, more importantly, pride in ruling well. Noblesse oblige."
Archer was silent for a moment, then shifted tracks. "And what of the other children we raised?"
"I will not leave them destitute. But I will not break Aperture apart," I replied, pulling the tendrils out of the altar.
Archer placed a hand on my shoulder from behind. "Aperture is a corporation, not a Magic Crest. You shouldn't treat this like Magus Inheritance."
I covered his hand with mine. "It's more of a conglomerate, really. Aperture Science, Aperture Publishing, Aperture Energy... I'm not going to list them all, but they work best together."
A pause. Then, I added, " And why not treat it like Magus Inheritance? This is me saying: This is what I've built—now it's your turn."