The excursion funnel carried her up slowly, until her back pressed against the ceiling. The test subject flashed a bright smile at his cracked monitor, firing a blue portal onto the angled panels. She tumbled through the air, coming out the other side, soaring over the wall…
And coming down hard on the black panels on the other side, on the one spot not coated in the blue gel, arms wind-milling desperately as the recoil from her boots thrust her forward another inch. Her jaw hung open in a silent cry, her eyes open as wide as they'd go, terror etched across her entire face.
Something in him stopped for a moment, leaving a stiff, cold spot in his center that remained after she'd regained her balance and backed away from the edge. She slumped against the clear plastic wall, one hand over her heart, gasping for air. Her gray eyes frantically scanned the room, trying to figure out what she'd missed; what had almost cost her her life.
They returned to his monitor.
"Hey, don't look at me, lady! I didn't change anything in this one! And it's not like I can tell you the solution, can I? We answered that a while back, remember? It was very painful, and I don't fancy going through it again, so you're on your own, got it luv?"
She sighed and nodded. He hated how…"complacent" seemed like the right word, sort of calm, and accepting, and sad sounding all at the same time. He hated how complacent she was about the whole thing. When she'd been testing for Her, she'd been absolutely furious, her eyes filled with hate; with him, she just looked tired, like she'd carried a whole shipment of Weighted Storage Cubes all the way up from wherever-she'd-gone, down there. Sometimes she even seemed to be enjoying herself, hurtling through the air via repulsion gel, or the free-fall after disconnecting from an excursion funnel. She never scowled at him, though she seemed to have decided to make a habit of breaking his monitors, which was actually what had gotten her into this mess: she'd used the gel to knock off two of the turrets, and snatched the third to shatter the out of reach screen, after which she'd simply dropped it down the pit and continued with business. Part of him was vindictively pleased; most of him was exasperated.
The woman had pulled her knees to her chest, and was looking around the walls again, confused and hurt by her own lack of understanding. There was something half-hearted in it, as though she wasn't expecting to find the answer anymore, but couldn't think of anything else to do.
He couldn't take it anymore.
"Look, you're really close, you've just got to find the exit! Seriously, you've basically solved the test, it's just a matter of getting out of there. You can do that much on your own, right? You're good at getting out of places…"
She held up her hands, helplessly.
"Don't give up! You can't just give up, that doesn't help anyone! Look, you've just missed one…tiny little…thing, so you just find that, or the exit, whichever you find first, it'll make the other obvious, and then you can get out. Simple."
The hands raised a couple inches, her shoulders hunching up around her chin in a shrug.
"Oh c'mon, lady! It's so easy, it's literally right in front of you!" A tiny spark danced painfully across his circuits, warning him how close he'd come to giving an actual suggestion. He watched, nervous, as her hands and shoulders lowered, her gaze sharpening a little as she peered at the wall across from her. Suddenly, her jaw dropped, eyes widening in mild surprise, lightly slapping herself on the forehead. She made a hurried warp across the room, collecting the gel and moving it to that one spot where the last turret had stood, before resetting her last two portals and rising up again.
Her back brushed the ceiling. She smiled and fired blue, dropping through, arching over the wall, landing on the gel, and bouncing on and straight through the door which he had to scramble to open in time.
"Oh, have you solved it?" There was a playful edge to his voice that hadn't been there before. She winked and blew a kiss to the camera, before passing into the next chamber.
Based on the true story of me in Chamber 16. I spent ten minutes circling that room, trying to find the damn exit, before I realized my mistake...I find it hard to believe Wheatley wouldn't have commented if Chell had actually been acting the way I did.