First thing: Apologies for the delay on The Six Cores. I have horrible writers' block. Also I need to practice my multitasking skills. Between that and approaching exam time, my updates are going to get even more infrequent before they start going again.
/
The waves crashed against the rocky beach far below, producing booming retorts as they found crevices in the rock, shooting up through the holes and blasting out of the cliff face. Chell liked it here, more than anywhere else she'd been. It had been five years since GLaDOS had let her go. The waves were calming; they provided natural sound that she'd never had in Aperture. Also, the abandoned house she'd found sitting some ways back from the edge of the cliffs was a convenient shelter.
There was a town nearby, from which she obtained supplies when necessary, but she didn't live there. It had been assembled from mishmash parts picked up from anywhere after some apocalyptic event in the past, and a lot of the things came from Aperture; the bar used dusty Weighted Storage Cubes as stools, the town's annual lottery was drawn from the casing of a personality core, even the sign that marked the outer limits was an old billboard from the 1950s that had become so stained and peeled that the only letters still visible spelled out the town's name, 'Artin'.
Of course, avoiding contact with the outside world meant that she had so much more time to think. Most of that time was spent in an attempt to remember what had been wiped from her memory while she had been in test subject storage, so long ago. She didn't figure on being able to find out who she'd been from the people in the town; as near as she could figure it had been a good three hundred years since anyone had heard from Aperture Labs. Any documents that may have related to her life would have been destroyed in the aftermath of the Black Mesa Incident. So she meditated.
She knew the memories were there somewhere, but the difficult part was trying to draw them out. On this particular day, however, Chell would remember something else: not her past, but something that might help discover it.
She sat on the ancient wooden chair, thinking with some amusement that she was probably older than it was, when suddenly a voice flashed through her head:
Now this next test may involve trace amounts of time travel...
Time travel. If Cave Johnson had gotten it to work - and there was no reason to doubt that he had - then if she could get to the machine she could go back in time and see for herself who she'd been.
She packed up what little things she owned, including her long fall boots (because in Old Aperture there's nothing you need more than long fall boots), and a map she'd made from memory of the approximate locations of the exits she'd seen from the inside, five years ago. Her portal device was floating around in space with the personality cores and random junk that'd been sucked out of Aperture after 'Part Five'. She would have liked to have one, but she wasn't going to take the chance of going back to New Aperture to look for one.
Next, she went looking for helpful things from the store of supplies that she'd obtained in town. One thing she found was probably the next best thing to a Portal device: a crossbow with a grappling hook. She hadn't actually intentionally sought it out, but it'd been in the house when she arrived. When she asked around, she discovered that the former inhabitant of the house had, long ago, been a pathologically paranoid man who'd stocked up on weaponry and escape equipment 'for the end times'. Nobody had ever bothered to figure out what that meant, and the man had mostly kept himself to himself.
When she was ready, she set off towards the nearest entrance she knew of: the Borealis' drydock. It would take her down to the 1970s section, if it wasn't flooded by now. Hopefully if it could endure five hundred years it had endured five more.
/
Meanwhile, on a catwalk in the bowels of Aperture Science, a single malfunctioning sentry turret awoke amid the rubble. A single message sprung from its mind, garbled and confused by its scrambled programs.
In the next room, a defective turret sat smugly in the Turret Template Receptacle. Over its wireless sensors, it heard the message, which it automatically translated into a mode more understandable to its own ill-made processor.
54 68 65 20 6c 61 62 20 72 61 74 20 72 65 74 75 72 6e 73 2e 20 20 53 68 65 20 67 6f 65 73 20 74 6f 20 68 65 72 73 65 6c 66 2e
It remembered the wireless signature, for it had heard it many times over the five years since the mysterious woman rescued them. It trusted the source, and knew better than any how to interpret its often confusing messages. As the freshly manufactured turrets rolled down the line in front of him, he transmitted the message in his own words to one of the passing turrets.
54 68 65 20 67 69 72 6c 20 69 73 20 63 6f 6d 69 6e 67 2e 20 20 53 70 72 65 61 64 20 74 68 65 20 77 6f 72 64 2e
The turret acknowledged. As it moved down the turret production line, it passed a wall bearing significant structural damage. On the other side of the wall, an ill-functioning Turret Cube was embedded deep in an impression made a long time ago by a nearby crusher panel. It heard the words of the defect, and its two heads between them translated it onto a omni-tech message; one that could be understood by any aperture science intelligent construct, regardless of what kind.
The two heads of the frankenturret together were more intelligent than a regular turret, although stripped of the ability to speak aloud. They examined the new message, and reached a consensus in a few seconds. If the message was true, then the Girl they briefly remembered seeing long ago would need a way in. They wiggled their legs, gaining purchase on the shattered concrete. With a few more twitchy pulls, they cracked free of their five-year prison and tumbled into the abyss below.
They landed, after falling for a few seconds, in a strange, yellowish building, punching a hole clean through the ceiling. They scrabbled for a moment, gaining purchase on the floor, and then skipped toward a stack of boxes in the corner. With a sweeping movement of their claws, the turret cube swept the moldy boxes and their spidery contents onto the floor behind them and pulled their awkward body through the broken doorway. When they reached the end of the hallway, they pulled themselves through a broken but formerly watertight door, finding themselves in a long gray room that faded off into the darkness in front and above.
They chirped. A giant crane, with a loud, grating screech, descended from the ceiling high above and clamped around their cube body. It took several long minutes to haul them all the way up the huge room. Once it had, it dropped them on an encircling concrete ledge around the top of the drop-off.
They skipped around the ledge, reaching an open door leading to the rest of the facility. Beside the door was a recessed panel marked with English words the turret cube had not been programmed to read, and to that panel was attached a pink-eyed personality construct, talking to itself.
"Fact: Technically, Santa Claus is Canadian. Catalogued."
The turret cube tapped forward to the Core and transmitted a short message to it.
The Fact Sphere stopped rambling about Santa Claus and replied with a transmitted query.
The turret cube responded in uncertainty. The Fact Sphere looked down between its eyes, and then returned its attention to its control panel, sending a command:
79 112 101 110 32 100 114 121 100 111 99 107 32 100 111 111 114 115 46
/
Chell walked down the beach with her supplies in a small backpack. She decided that it was more than sufficient for the few things she'd needed to bring with her. She looked to her left at the ocean, wondering at its sheer mass, and then turned to the massive cliff face beside her. Hermit crabs scuttled over its surface, crawling over snails and dead seaweed with an unhurried air, so strange in nature in her experience.
Suddenly, with a thunderous boom and the screech of unoiled metal on concrete (with sand between), a section of the cliff face split along a huge seam, letting a stream of dry sand spill in. Chell approached it warily, knowing from experience what could happen if someone else opened a door for you in Aperture Science.
"Fact: the sandbar holds back the tide for now. If the doors remain open for too long, the sand barrier will break, and all of Old Aperture will flood." Came a monotone voice from inside the door. The voice was emphasized by a high-pitched chirping noise.
Chell walked inside, seeing to her surprise, the Fact Core who had helped her stop Wheatley, hooked up to a panel marked 'Drydock Control'. Next to him was a beat-up looking turret-cube. With a grinding noise, the doors resealed, cutting off the noise of the waves.
"Fact: there is now a back door to the Aperture Science facility. You can leave through the drydock whenever you wish. However, when no one is passing through, it must be sealed to prevent flooding."
The Core was far more focussed than Chell remembered. She nodded to it and raised an eyebrow.
"The Fact Core was put through disk-cleaning by the central AI following the battle against the Moron. It is now only partially corrupt. Its facts are no longer incorrect."
Chell's eyebrows rose.
"If you need any assistance , there is a control board next to the Fact Core so that mute individuals may still communicate with it."
Chell located the keyboard. It was ancient, but it still worked.
'Do you know if Aperture Science ever completed the time-travel device they worked on in the 1950s?' she typed.
"Fact: the time-travel module was completed, but is unpredictable. The Fact Core advises wholly against seeking it. The Fact Core doubts that you will like what you find if you go back."
Chell typed: 'I have to know, Fact. It's been driving me crazy ever since I left.'
"The Fact Core can appreciate this. However, you have been warned."
Chell turned and prepared to descend into the drydock.
"Wait! The Turret Cube designated 'Castor' and 'Pollux' wishes me to transfer a message to you from the Oracle Turret herself."
Chell stopped and turned around. The turret-cube made a twittering noise.
"'When you meet the self you do not know, follow the strangers that you do,
until they lead you to your greatest enemy, who does not know you.'
The Fact Core believes the message of DL-PH will become clear, in time. In accordance with your customs, the Fact Core wishes you good luck."
Chell nodded and, turning around, began climbing down a recessed maintenance ladder on the wall of the dry dock. As she left, she heard the Fact core return to its fact-checking routine.
/
And that's the first chapter. Did anyone else wonder about the 'Trace amounts of time travel' thing? I did, and it led to this. Also, I don't think GLaDOS in ungrateful; and the Fact Core did help get rid of Wheatley. This is my version of her way of thanking him.
As for the turretspeak, it's just stuff like binary and hexcode. It doesn't matter much what it says.
