Prologue: Like Father Like Daughter
April 25, 1952
Caroline furiously scribbled test subject reports on her Aperture Science clipboard. Twenty of the hundred test subjects had survived this round of propulsion gel testing. Cave said that they would have to make the tests harder to account for the high success rate. They didn't want to make it too easy. Aperture Science had a reputation to uphold as the leading research center for ten years running. She wrote a note to herself to hire more test subjects from the soup kitchens.
Caroline looked up from her paper work when she heard a young girl's laughter. She couldn't leave her desk to look after Chell, but she felt like she could at least yell from her desk. "Chell, come here. Don't play with the repulsion gel." She could see Chell bouncing off the walls, literally. She laughed as she shot from one wall to another up to a high platform and back down. Caroline was secretly glad that Chell would never actually be testing. She would never tell Cave, but the whole testing matrix as much as she loved it couldn't be a place for a girl as smart as Chell. She could see Chell running the place after Cave, like father like daughter.
Chell ran into the office with a baseball that she had soaked in repulsion gel. "Mommy, watch this!" She threw the ball at the wall and it bounced into the window to the desk where it shattered Caroline's cup of coffee. Luckily, the water in the coffee dispersed the gel. "It's Newton's law. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction."
Caroline sighed and started picking up coffee mug shards. "Chell, I'm glad that you know your Newton, but you have to be more careful."
Chell sopped up the coffee with her handkerchief. "Can we not tell dad?"
Caroline dumped the pieces into the trash. "Agreed."