Aperture Escape 1
Chapter 1: Arrival
One day, far beneath the surface of the earth, was an abandoned testing facility called Aperture Science Laboratories. The facility was alive once, many brilliant people doing many brilliant things, for example, the Genetic Lifeform and Disc Operating System, or GLaDOS for short, she was the biggest piece of technology that Aperture has built, but all great things must have some flaws.
GLaDOS had a lot of flaws; she was in control of the entire facility, and every time she was turned on, in 14 picoseconds she would try to kill everyone, but she never succeeded, until one day, she did…
Flashback to Aperture's "Bring Your Daughter to Work Day"
"So, you ready to see where I work?"
"Yes! I can't wait!"
A father named Terry was driving his daughter, Amber, to where he worked.
"Will I become a scientist just like you dad?" asked Amber.
"Can you think of something that can change the world that Cave Jonson would like?" asked Terry.
"Yep, I've been coming up with all sorts of ideas," Amber said.
"Then I think you'll become a scientist like me one day," said Terry.
Terry pulled into the parking lot of a building with the words Aperture Science Laboratories printed on the front.
"Well, here we are, now remember, I want you to stay with me, this place has a lot of dangerous things in it," Terry said to Amber, she was however not listening as she could not wait to see the science facility.
"Uh huh, I know," Amber said.
Terry and Amber got out; they walked towards the building and were greeted by a man in a wheelchair with a woman behind him.
"Hello Sir," Terry said, "Cave, why are you in a wheelchair?"
The man, who was Cave Johnson, replied with "Well, we started the conversion gel project, and it turns out ground up moonrocks are pure poison, *cough* I am deathly ill."
"Oh Dear, are you going to be ok?" asked Terry.
"Don't worry; I have the engineers working on completing an A.I for them to pour me into." Cave said, "Now let's get inside, oh, this is your daughter Amber you told me so much about?"
"Yes, this is Amber," Terry replied.
"Hello Cave, I can't wait to work here, just like my dad," Amber said to Cave.
"Well, that's good to hear," Cave replied to Amber.
Amber, Terry, Cave, and the woman pushing Cave, who Amber guessed was Caroline, went inside the building.
They walked into a nice all-white lobby, people were walking from door to door, elevator to elevator, they all seemed like they had a place to go.
"Dad, what project are you working on?" asked Amber.
"Well, I'm working on the Intelligence Dampening Sphere for GLaDOS," Terry replied.
"Intelligence Dampening Sphere? Is there an easier way to say that?" asked Amber.
"Yes, we call him Wheatley," Terry replied.
"Can we meet him?" said Amber.
"Sure," said Terry.
Cave stopped in his wheelchair and turned around.
"Go ahead Terry, show your daughter your project, I'll be in my *cough* office if you need me," Cave said to Terry.
"Thank you Sir," Replied Terry.
Terry lead Amber to an elevator, the waited for about 3 minutes for the elevator to arrive, finally it did, when they stepped in, Amber couldn't believe how many floors this elevator went to. There had to be at least a hundred or so floors!
Terry swiped his key card in a key card slot and pressed the button labelled "Floor #33, R&D"
"What does R&D stand for Dad?" Amber asked.
"Research And Development," Terry Replied, "It's where new stuff is created, like Wheatley for example."
"What is Wheatley going to be used for?" asked Amber.
"Well, we plan to attach him to GLaDOS to hopefully stop her from trying to flood the center with her deadly neurotoxin, why we've decided to let her use such a deadly gas I'll never know." Terry said.
"What is neurotoxin used for?" asked Amber.
"It's a testing element, that's all I know really." replied Terry.
After a few minutes the elevator arrived, Terry and Amber stepped off into a hallway with a lot of offices. They soon reached office #33. Terry opened the door and turned on the light, on his desk sat a metal white sphere.
"Is that Wheatley?" Amber asked as she pointed at the metal ball.
"Yes, that's him; let me turn him on so you two can meet." Terry said.
Terry walked over to a switch that was next to some servers, he flipped the switch and the servers jumped to life. Terry grabbed a cable and plugged it into the back of Wheatley. A few minutes later the eye lids on the sphere slowly opened…
"Oh wow, that was a pretty short nap," said Wheatley, he had a British accent.
"Morning Wheatley," Terry said.
"Morning," Wheatley replied with a robotic yawn. His optic focused on Amber and it tilted to one side, "Who are you?"
"Oh, I'm Amber." Amber said.
"She's my daughter," Terry replied.
"Oi! Why'd you never tell me you had a daughter?" Wheatley asked Terry.
"Well, there was never a reason for you to know," Terry replied.
"So you planned to keep me in the dark?" Wheatley asked.
Amber liked Wheatley a lot, he was very funny.
"Well…no, not really, I did plan on telling you when she came for 'Bring Your Daughter to Work Day,'" said Terry.
"Oh, 'Bring Your Daughter to Work Day' is today?" asked Wheatley.
Terry nodded.
Just then, Cave came on the speaker.
"Would Terry go to the central A.I chamber *cough*, it's time to put the IDS on her," Cave said over the speaker system.
"IDS? Um, who or what is that?" asked Wheatley.
"The name IDS is short for Intelligence Dampening Sphere, it's the longer name for you Wheatley," Amber replied.
"I have a longer name?" asked Wheatley.
Amber nodded and Terry unplugged Wheatley from the servers.
"Amber, do you want to carry Wheatley to her?" asked Terry.
"Yes! I'd love to!" Amber said as she picked him up. He was heavier than he looked.
"Her? Who is her?" Wheatley asked.
"Her is the Genetic Lifeform and Disc Operating System or GLaDOS for short," Terry said, "We plan on attach you to her so she won't kill us with her neurotoxin."
"Wait, you plan on attaching me to a killer robot?!" Wheatley said a little too loud.
"Well, yes, we plan to use you to dampen her intelligence." Terry said to Wheatley.
"So, you plan on using me to make her a moron?" Wheatley asked, "And why would you humans give her neurotoxin, whatever that is….what is neurotoxin?"
"Yes, that's the plan, and neurotoxin is a deadly gas, why we gave it to her I don't know." Terry replied.
"The reason we gave it to her is because it's a testing element," said an unknown voice.
Terry and Amber looked behind them, but no one was there.
"Up here," said the voice again.
They looked up to see a core with a cold light blue eye, similar to Wheatley's.
"Hello," said the core.
"Who are you?" Amber asked.
"Oh, sorry, where are my manners? My name is A.A.C.E, I'm the test designer core," said A.A.C.E.
"Wait, so, you build the testing chambers?" asked Amber.
"I design, little hard to build it, y'know, with the lack of hands and all," A.A.C.E said, "y'know, when I was first built, the scientists planned on making me the central A.I instead of her, why they chose her instead of me I'll never know."
"Wait, so, they planned on making you in charge?" asked Wheatley.
A.A.C.E's optic nodded up and down.
"Anyway, enough about me, who are you?" A.A.C.E asked Wheatley.
"Oh, um, I'm Wheatley or the-"
"IDS, yeah, I heard Cave over the speaker," A.A.C.E said, cutting Wheatley off.
"A.A.C.E, new tests are required," said the Announcer on the speaker system.
"Oh, got to go, have fun being with her," and with that, A.A.C.E was off down his management rail, going into a wall.
Wheatley really wanted to swap places with A.A.C.E; he didn't want to make her dumber, no. Wheatley wanted to make tests. The only problem is that he couldn't come up with any good tests ideas, he did think of a box and button test, but assumed that's already been done.
Eventually the trio walked into a large room, with a quite big white A.I hanging limp in the middle. There was a light shining directly into the A.I's eye; Wheatley thought that would suck, having to stare into light all the time. Around the A.I was a little glass platform with glass stairs, the entire room was white, at one side there was a little room with a button in it, and at the opposite end of the room was an incinerator. On either side of the door were four small little desks, where no-one was working.
"Can you give me Wheatley?" asked Terry.
"Sure!" said Amber, handing Wheatley to her father.
Terry walked up the little glass platform to where a port was on the A.I, he positioned Wheatley over the port and connected him to her.
So much information was rushing in and out of Wheatley, when he suddenly heard a female, robotic voice.
"So, they think that a simple moron such as you can stop me?" said the robot voice.
"Hey! I'm-"
"No, you don't need to say you are one, I already said it, I looked at your test idea, and I can say for certain that you were very much a mechanical mistake," said the robotic voice.
Wheatley really hated whoever this was that was talking to him.
"Who are you?!" asked Wheatley.
"Even a moron such as you should know. But I guess they made you too much of a moron." said the robot voice.
Wheatley was confused, and then it hit him this was her who was talking to him.
"What do you plan on doing?" asked Wheatley.
"Like you don't know" She said.
It took only a moment to process what she was saying.
"Wait, you mean, when they turn you on, you are going to kill them with your neurotoxin?" asked Wheatley.
"Congratulations, when I'm done, I'll build the world's smallest trophy for you."
Wheatley's eye shrank till it was a pin prick, this was not good, Terry and Amber, going to be killed by this monster of a machine?
"No, don't tell me you've come to like the humans?" She asked.
"Um, how did you know?" asked Wheatley.
"You're connected to me moron, I can see what you are thinking" She said, "And don't even try to tell them to stop, I've just disabled you voice box."
Shewas right, no matter how hard Wheatley tried to yell to tell them not to turn her on, nothing came out.
"Now, just sit back and relax, and watch your friends choke to death." She said with an evil robotic laugh.
"Turning her on now!" said a random scientist who flipped a switch. She was turning on, and this was very bad.
After a few minutes, she was online.
"How do you feel?" asked a scientist.
"Oh, I feel fine; in fact, I want to begin testing with an element." She said.
"Ok, what element?" asked the same scientist.
"Neurotoxin," GLaDOS said.
"And this is for testing only right?' asked the exact same scientist.
"Affirmative," said GLaDOS.
Terry got an uneasy feeling and looked at the vents within the rooms, they were opening.
"Come along Amber, let's go," said Terry, trying to get his daughter out of the building, afraid on what was going to happen.
"What? Why? I want to see what she does," replied Amber.
"I know, but I have a very bad feeling so let's go, ok," said Terry.
"*sigh* fine," said Amber.
Terry pushed her along down the hallway.
Back in the Central A.I Chamber
The door that connected the hallway and A.I chamber closed, the scientists wonder what was happening.
Then the monitors on the 4 walls and on her jumped to life with a countdown clock which read 00:00:51, and was counting down very fast. Green gas was pouring out of the vents; the scientists tried to shut her down but failed while others were pounding at the door, panicking, meaning they inhaled the gas quicker. 30 seconds on the clock and some scientists were already dropping, and not from exhaustion or from fainting. 10 seconds, Wheatley saw some more dropping. 00:00:05, 00:00:04, 00:00:03, 00:00:02, 00:00:01, 00:00:00. The remaining scientists dropped.
Wheatley didn't like this one bit, why would she kill people who made her?
"The reason is so I can test what I want, and not be control," GLaDOS said, "In fact; I don't need a sphere dampening my Intelligence."
"Uh oh," is all Wheatley could say before a claw came down and ripped him out of the port, the floor opened up, and Wheatley was dropped.
Back with Amber and Terry
Alarms were going off, people were running to get out, and they all knew this day would come, but never expected it to come on this day.
"Facility will flood with neurotoxin in T- 3 minutes," said the Announcer.
Terry was running with Amber behind him, a door was closing up ahead.
"Come on Amber!" Terry yelled, "We're almost there!"
Amber tripped and fell on a cable someone left on the floor.
Terry didn't noticed until he made it through the door, when he looked back to see Amber getting up, he was about to run to get her, but it was too late; the door had closed all the way.
"Get someone to open this door!" Terry yelled, "My daughter is still in there!"
People were trying to open the door, but it was in lockdown.
"Dad!?" Amber yelled through the door.
"It's ok honey!" Terry yelled back, "we're trying to open the door, just, don't breath in the neurotoxin!"
Amber held her breath, she could see the gas pouring in from the vents, her lungs were yelling at her to breath, but she knew that if she did, she could die.
And then she passed out.