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Triangle and Robert #2236 Triangle? Repeat that last part! / I may not be able to destroy you, but this body will remain mine! \ _... ..._ / Butter? Bolton? / THE TRIANGLE WILL BE SILENT! \ _ba...ter_ / Ha! You missed! I'm still not sure what I need to do, but we bartered for a turkey baster at a swap meet recently, and I'm going to go fill it with pancake batter. / Curses.
http://tr.froup.com/tr.pl?2236
Triangle and Robert #2237 I put lots of butter in this, just in case I got the vowel wrong. / Robert! You did it! Now get a container with a tight seal. / Right! / Curse you, Triangle and Robert Wacky Scheme Consultants!
http://tr.froup.com/tr.pl?2237
Triangle and Robert #2238 Now put it back in the artifact room and reseal everything. / I don't know how to put the alarm system back together. / The alarm system is mostly to keep you out personally. I'll install a new one later. / You seem less angry than i've come to expect. / I saw things in its memories. I think I understand some things about the Fourth Race that I didn't before, though nothing directly plot-relevant.
http://tr.froup.com/tr.pl?2238
Triangle and Robert #2239 I guess we should call Cube and let him know it's safe to come over. / Why? / So he can... / / I'm going back to bed. If Cube wants our help he can pay the standard... no, the hazard rate.
http://tr.froup.com/tr.pl?2239
Triangle and Robert #2240 Having left Triangle and Robert to deal with their own problem, Cube seeks a safe place to begin his experiment. / I obviously can't do this in public, but it has to be outdoors so I can follow the signal. Where could I set up a bunch of geometry supplies and not get arrested? / I wonder if that thing Triangle and Robert do where they wander around aimlessly until plot happens would work for me. It's worth a try.
http://tr.froup.com/tr.pl?2240
 
Triangle and Robert #2241 I'm doing something wrong. By the third panel of aimless wandering the plot should have gone somewhere. / Maybe if I wear a silly hat...
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Triangle and Robert #2242 Either this hat isn't silly enough or this sort of thing only works for the main characters. I'd guess it's a main-character thing and not a hat-silliness thing. That means I need to apply actual thought. / Large open area, unpoliced, where I'll go unnoticed while setting up disgusting geometry equipment. Oh. Obvious answer. Use the enemy's secrecy against them. Do it on the ruins of their abandoned research base. No one should be able to see in. / I should probably use a biohazard suit anyway, so the potential decaying filth problem won't be a big deal. I think this is an actual plan. An unsavory plan, but I've done worse.
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Triangle and Robert #2243 Barren? No food waste? No trash? No abandoned barbecue pits? Someone's been here. Someone was either looking for something or trying to ensure no one else would find it. / I'll assume for now that they did their job right and there's nothing for me to find here. I really do not look forward to doing this. / Note for human readers: Geometry supplies, while nearly essential to polygon reproduction, are generally considered highly embarrassing. / Right, so can I do this experiment in private?
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Triangle and Robert #2244 This panel denotes the passage of time, clumsily. / Is it okay to put you back in the strip now, Cube? / What do you think? / I think you're in some sort of underground prison. / And? / And I'm grossly overusing in medias res? / Correct. / I suppose you can't start writing this comic over and come in earlier, before the whole ambush? / I'd rather not raise that question.
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Triangle and Robert #2245 Do you have an escape plan yet? / Shouldn't I recap how I got here first? / Your call. / I'm working on sort of a plan, but it'll be more likely to work if I don't say anything about it out loud until I spring it. I might as well collect my thoughts in flashback form. / I set up the... equipment and started it. Before I could make sense of the results, they'd detected what I was up to. I should have realized they'd locate me as quickly as I could locate them. I also should have expected them to have teleportation. I made a lot of that sort of mistake, all in all.
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Triangle and Robert #2246 I'm not sure if they were shooting to kill or not, but when I took cover they switched to gas grenades. I didn't totally lose consciousness. / They didn't use the teleporter on the way back. I'm not sure exactly where this dungeon is, but I do know the general area. / Why didn't they teleport back? / How would I know? / You know a fair amount about teleport tech. You don't have a theory? / Of course not. It's not like that would be integral to the escape plan I'm forming, now would it? / Uh. . . yes.
http://tr.froup.com/tr.pl?2246
Triangle and Robert #2247 So, what do you know about your captors? / It's definitely the shadow agency that replaced the RDCLBA. They're not just about covering up Fourth Race technology, though. They're trying to exploit it. / You've tried to do that yourself. / Yes, and I've worked alongside an acknowledged supervillain to do it. But I published my results. Well, most of them... / I was writing them all UP for publication, honest. I just hit a couple roadblocks. Also, I never attempted any inhumane experiments on the very building blocks of our species. These guys are, I'm pretty sure.
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Triangle and Robert #2248 They're definitely experimenting with the very building blocks of our species. It's whether the experiments are inhumane that I'm not entirely certain about, but there's strong reason to believe they are. / Such as? / I saw a pile of line segments, twitching. They might not have been torn from the living, but they smelled of death. I saw a... a mass of white pixels. I couldn't even understand what it was exactly, but it seemed like it was trying to speak. Or scream. / There's worse than that going on, behind massive steel doors with defenses scarier than anything I can remember. I heard bits of conversation.... Anyway, they chucked me in this cell.
http://tr.froup.com/tr.pl?2248
Triangle and Robert #2249 To all those who create, there looms the specter of incompetence. To those who seek to create life, that specter may, itself, live. Thus it is that Prozac the Bear enters our story. / Hi! / The reification of my own incompetence, he can also serve as that of others', when those others seek to create with forces beyond their ken. / And their Barbie and Skipper! / Ah, if only they were content to play thus with dolls. / Do I have to have any idea what you're talking about? / You don't have to have the idea. You are the idea.
http://tr.froup.com/tr.pl?2249
Triangle and Robert #2250 Even the ones that move fall apart. I don't think we're looking at enough parameters. There's some additional input we need to provide for the geometry to be self-sustaining indefinitely. / Had I mentioned to you I was thinking there might be more of a temporal component involved? / That's right. That periodic... what did you call it? / "Heartbeat function". / How long would it take you to set up some sort of test? / I think we can do it manually next run, just to get an approximation. / Let's do it.
http://tr.froup.com/tr.pl?2250
 
Triangle and Robert #2251 *doop* / What was that? / Second pulse in two... one... / *BOOP* / Repeating first in two... one... / *doop* / Someone is making a horrible mistake right now, aren't they?
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Triangle and Robert #2252 *BOOP* / The pulses are having an effect! / It looks like the short edges are buckling outward and curving. / *doop* / Medial line? Should we keep going? Now that we know the function works, maybe we should try to tune it. / *BOOP* / That has to be coming from the lab on this level. I'm thinking I should be looking even harder for an escape opportunity now.
http://tr.froup.com/tr.pl?2252
Triangle and Robert #2253 Well? / Gut instinct. / I hear someone coming closer to this cell. / Sure, it might be enough data. / I've just never seen you freeze up in the middle of an experiment. / Something just felt wrong about the curves. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'll be more comfortable if we check everything over. / (Scientists. Not guards.)
http://tr.froup.com/tr.pl?2253
Triangle and Robert #2254 Hey out there! Can you here me? / What was that? / Research subject. Don't listen. / (Sounds like one's new.) / I'm a scientist too! My name's Cube! You're probably read parts of my Fourth Race research! / He's lying, right? / It doesn't matter either way. / What do you mean? / You don't interact with subjects. It invalidates the data. / Subjects? I'm more valuable to you for my knowledge! You should be interrogating me! / (They've already left.)
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Triangle and Robert #2255 Not a polygon, then. You were right to stop the experiment. / It was going to be some sort of lifeform, though, and it seems a lot more stable than the last few. / Are you saying we should continue the run? / Not tonight. If it's not a polygon it might not be bound by polygon limitations. We need to reinforce the containment in case it's some sort of monster. / The containment's built to withstand anything up to and including a Sentry attack. Unless you have some other objection, automate the pulses for an overnight run. / No really coherent objections, no. I'll start coding.
http://tr.froup.com/tr.pl?2255
 
Triangle and Robert #2256 Sometime after midnight: / Soemthing woke me up. Is someone out there? / Quiet. / Something horrible has happened. I don't know if you're really Cube... I probably shouldn't be doing this. There's an automatic lockdown going on to keep it from escaping... it already did... I'm scared. / What escaped? / I don't know. We were bringing an artificial rectangle to life and it went oblong on us. It looked like it might somehow be... I don't want to say. / Let me guess. Lockdown protocol makes no provision for the safety of survivors? / Exactly. We both need to escape from here now.
http://tr.froup.com/tr.pl?2256
Triangle and Robert #2257 If you can't actually open the cell then what was the point of coming over here? / If you're really Cube, shouldn't you already have an escape plan? / I was working on one, but it involved a guard opening the cell door before I pulled anything. Can't you science the door open with chemicals or something? / We don't have chemicals. / Let me backtrack there. We don't have science chemicals. There are munitions. You'll have to tell me how to use them. / Make a list.
http://tr.froup.com/tr.pl?2257
Triangle and Robert #2258 You'll want to keep unrolling the fuse now. Get it out to its full length. / [[Cube waits]] / Good, good, keep going...
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Triangle and Robert #2259 Cube, I presume. / I want to make one thing clear: not only don't I trust you, I also don't trust the situation. / This whole thing could be staged to manipulate me, either with or without your awareness of that fact. / That does sound like something Cube would have written. / I guess you'll want to scout around now. The lab where... the lab is down on the right, the open door. Stay 300 pixels away from the lockdown barriers unless you want to get shot at.
http://tr.froup.com/tr.pl?2259
Triangle and Robert #2260 I have no idea what happened here, but I'm disgusted by it. They made a monster? It broke things? / Things that... / Maybe I should be looking for escape routes, not thinking about what this stuff was for. / That hole... I'm going to very carefully stand so that there's no way the hole and I can both be on-panel, because if it's what it looks like the safest panel to be in doesn't include it.
http://tr.froup.com/tr.pl?2260
 
Triangle and Robert #2261 The hole, in the lab... / We can't get out that way. If it leads anywhere it's to more defenses. / I didn't think we could. The hole, though. It's shaped like / That's why I wanted you to see for yourself. It's not something to mention out loud. / But why would... the hole was left by something going OUT. What exactly did you do? I think I need to know before we can continue.
http://tr.froup.com/tr.pl?2261
Triangle and Robert #2262 I'll tell you, but keep one thing in mind: I know my way around more than you. Your chances of escaping go down without me. / We were trying to create new polygonal life, using harvested raw materials. Nothing we brought to life stayed alive for more than a few minutes, until I added a new parameter. What started as a rectangle curved. / A rectangle... BECAME that? / Yes. We assembled it from parts. We didn't know what it would do, but we thought it was safely confined, until after it changed.
http://tr.froup.com/tr.pl?2262
Triangle and Robert #2263 So it's a newly created entity. / If you insist on applying logic, but I don't think this is a logical situation. I think it's the real thing. / Where did it go? If it went in a straight line after making that hole, what would its destination be? / It would pass through a guard station, then a hallway, then I think through a subject pen. / Past there... bathrooms, janitorial, then solid rock. / No clues there. Maybe predicting its moves is a waste of time. We just need to get out of here. Do you know of any teleport systems nearby?
http://tr.froup.com/tr.pl?2263
Triangle and Robert #2264 I don't think there are any teleporters in the complex. They throw off the experiments. / How far underground are we? / Something like three hundred meters. / How many entrances are there? / I wasn't cleared for that. I only know two. / What kind of scientist are you? You're not cleared for something, so you actually don't try to learn it? Where's your insatiable curiosity? / I'm not sure, and I don't feel like looking for it.
http://tr.froup.com/tr.pl?2264
Triangle and Robert #2265 We can blast through one lockdown barrier. What'll be waiting on the other side? / That depends. Maybe nothing but carnage. / Some philosopher automata from Tetris got repurposed. They might have been dispatched here. If so, I doubt there'd be any other guards. / What other possibilities? No. Wait. / Repurposed? How did you manage that? / I don't know the details. There are a lot of different research teams down here, and they don't all intercommunicate. / Pity. I almost had a plan.
http://tr.froup.com/tr.pl?2265
 

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