The sky was azure, so blue that it burned itself into her eyes and fluttered in her gaze even when her eyelids were shut. The stench of wheat was overpowering and Chell felt her back arch as she emptied the contents of her stomach onto the ground. It was too much to take in all at once; the visual stimulus alone would take several hours to really get used to, and she couldn't say how long it would be before the stench ceased to turn her stomach.

Now there was the sour, acid reek of vomit to contend with. Wiping her mouth clumsily with the back of her hand, she stumbled backwards and her legs buckled, forcing her into a sitting position on her Companion Cube. The gritty blackness that served as a reminder of the Cube's stint in the incinerator was rubbing onto her orange jumpsuit. Slowly, she rubbed her finger in the stuff and when she pulled it away the tip was black.

The fact that the Cube had managed to survive made her feel somewhat better about the situation. Despite the fact that it had never done anything but hum on occasion, she considered it a friend, the one thing that had not yet tried to brutally murder her with spike plates and fire and neurotoxin. She gave it a reassuring pat and her palm came away black.

Craning her neck, Chell turned and glanced at the shed. It was an unassuming shed with a boring exterior; she never would have guessed that anything of worth remained behind those faded doors. Seized by an impulse she couldn't explain, she got to her feet and went to the doors, giving one of them a stout tug. As she'd suspected, the door remained stubbornly shut, and it went so far as to screech at her when she tried again.

Well. GLaDOS had made it all too clear that she did not want Chell to return. And Chell didn't want to return (right?) so there was no harm in that. She turned back to her Companion Cube and raised an eyebrow. Wafting on the slight breeze was a static-riddled rendition of the song the turrets had just performed for her. The Cube could not form words (had never been able to form words) but the tune was the same. She almost smiled, but the facial muscles required for smiling had long since forgotten their task, and she found that she couldn't quite do it.

Maybe now that she was here, on the surface of the world, she would find more reason to smile. There was nothing gladdening about Aperture, even if her "best friend" was hiding in the facility, no doubt watching her and hoping she would leave. Chell didn't think that best friends had the same kind of relationship that she and GLaDOS did. Seeing as said relationship had evolved through heavy doses of attempted murder, Chell hoped that the relationship was unique.

She opened her mouth, wishing she could say something to her Cube. Maybe it was sentient, maybe not. She had never been able to tell and to a certain extent she had no desire to find out. It had been incinerated and if it was sentient the experience had doubtless been extremely awful. She wished for that familiar weight on her arm, the portal device that could hoist the Cube into the air as easily as if it were made of paper.

No, that was gone and it wasn't coming back. GLaDOS had been willing to return the Companion Cube, but the portal device? The AI wasn't stupid; she was much too cautious to return the device Chell had wreaked so much havoc with.

No portals, thought Chell, and reached to her waist. Her orange jumpsuit top was still there; it had somehow survived the trip to space. (To be fair, Chell had survived the trip to space, and that was quite the accomplishment.) The arms needed a bit of stretching, but Chell was a strong woman and she was perfectly capable of such a task. In a few short moments, the top was much too stretched out to fit her again, but the sleeves were probably long enough.

She studied the Cube for a moment before sitting down next to it, her back against one of the sides. Slinging the top around the back of the Cube, she tied the arms around her waist. Almost immediately, they rode up to her stomach and cut into her skin. So it's going to hurt. Can't say I expected better.

Getting to her feet was hell. The Cube was so much heavier than it looked, especially since she was so used to carrying it with the portal device. The corners dug into her ribcage, and she gave a tiny gasp. Instinctively she glanced around, half-expecting an irritating slow clap to emanate from the speakers. It took a moment to remember that there were no speakers out here, and no AI to use them.

She glanced up at the sky, feeling the tiniest bit sentimental. Somewhere, spinning in the endless void of darkness that was space, two Cores floated. One of them was probably squealing in delight; his vocal processor would short out if he kept it up. And the other… the other Core…

This is no time to be sentimental, she thought busily, adjusting the Cube on her back. She was going to twist her spine like this, but there was no way she was leaving the Cube behind. It had survived this long, and if she left it lying in front of the shed, she had a feeling the GLaDOS would recover it. The idea of her Cube being dragged back to Aperture was almost too much for her to bear.

The first step was truly awful, and she nearly buckled under the weight. The arms of her jumpsuit cut so viciously into her stomach that she thought she might throw up again. It was only when she realized that the jumpsuit would snap in time that she took another step. By the time her jumpsuit wore out, she wanted to be in civilization, or at the very least close to civilization. She could always leave the Cube and come back for it later.

The next step wasn't half as bad, and the third even less painful than that. There it was again, that blazing determination that made failure a non-option. She was Chell. If there was anyone who could survive this situation, anyone at all, then it was her.

She would make it, and she wouldn't even have to die trying.

Ping.

Sleep Mode disabled.

Test Subject #1 is on unauthorized leave from the facility. Test Subject has removed Companion Cube #1498 from facility.

Apprehend Test Subject and return both to facility as quickly as time allows.

GLaDOS had never been the sentimental type. Even with that Caroline woman floating around in her programming, she had kept such pathetic urges to a minimum. Still, with the removal of Chell from her facility, GLaDOS had made the spur-of-the-moment decision to return the Companion Cube. She didn't entirely understand her motivations for doing so (and she couldn't chalk them up to the deleted Caroline, either.) It would make sense for her to be celebrating right now. The mute lunatic was no longer a part of her facility, and would not be returning to bother her.

And that was just it. Every single time she reminded herself that Chell was gone for good, she felt a shudder run through her gears and plates. At first she had attributed it to a shudder of excitement, but she wasn't excited. Then she had assumed it had been some sort of primal, instinctual shudder of relief: a dangerous predator had been eliminated. But GLaDOS was no animal, and as far as she knew her programming held no basic animal instincts. It was fast becoming too irritating to bear, and yet she found that her massive brain of sorts would not stop straying back to Chell.

The testing was going smoothly. The Orange and Blue robots were fun to watch, and currently the "itch" was not bothering her. She knew it would come back, of course, but at the moment it didn't concern her. No, the only concern was the shudder in her gears, and the thoughts of the human she'd only just punted to the surface.

The instinct to check the cameras on the shed was hard to ignore. GLaDOS was extremely curious to know what had happened to the little human she'd grown to… well, not like, but respect. Yes, that was it, she respected Chell. She respected Chell's tenacity and her seeming inability to die. Both were traits that she herself possessed.

She swung in her chassis idly, still actively resisting the urge to peek at Chell's going-ons aboveground. The human's life was no longer of any concern to her. No doubt Chell would go on to create a life for herself, fall in love (ridiculous), procreate (truly disgusting), and then she would die for good and GLaDOS would never have to worry about her ever again.

And there it was, that shudder. It was beginning to feel uncomfortable and she wished it would stop. With a hum of annoyance, she went back to poring over her own data files. She had never enjoyed reading her own files; it felt strange and awkward. The shuddering had grown to be too much of a nuisance to ignore, however, and the act had become all too necessary. She was prepared to spend several hours on the task, and was actually planning on doing it, but a voice came on over the speakers and she froze.

"Test Subject #1 has taken unauthorized leave from the facility," the Announcer told her.

Oh, GLaDOS thought. I neglected to authorize Chell's departure. It wasn't as if it mattered, anyway. The Party Bot had brought Chell back the last time (she'd downloaded its memories before tossing it on the scrap heap) but this time there was nothing in the facility that would take note of the human's departure. "Companion Cube #1498 was removed by Test Subject #1."

"I'm aware of that," GLaDOS snapped, mostly because the Announcer's voice was interrupting her reading session. "Is there anything useful you have to tell me?"

The Announcer continued blithely on, completely unaware of her annoyance. "GDA has been employed to apprehend Test Subject #1."

There was a moment, after the Announcer faded away, during which GLaDOS was unaware of the trouble she was about to be put through. GDA? she thought, pulling up the files. What is… oh.

The "oh" signified that she had gotten the files, and one glance at them reminded her as to GDA's identity and purpose. "No!" she screeched, searching for her cameras. With a rush of static, the speakers connected, and she spoke into them in the hopes that GDA was still loitering in the facility (unlikely, but possible.) "Test Subject #1 and Companion Cube #1498 are authorized for leave!" she exclaimed, her voice colored with desperation. "There's no need for them to be apprehended!"

The cameras were working. Her optic flared as said cameras swiveled, tracking the movement of an unmistakably human figure. Chell? No, it was that android, masquerading as a human in order to get by in the human world. Androids had been outlawed when it had become impossible to tell them apart from regular humans, but (according to records) Cave Johnson had been adamant that the Guard Dog Android remain. Apparently he'd been proud of the creation.

All GLaDOS could feel about it, as she watched it stalk through the wheat in the direction of the human, was hatred.

"SPAAACE~!"

Wheatley sighed. The sound was a mix of static and apprehension. He'd been here for what, a day? And there was no sign of rescue, no Apple, nothing but the singing Space Core and the twinkling stars that were probably bunches of miles away.

And through all this hardship and whatnot, here he was feeling awful and guilty and just pretty bad about this whole situation. "My fault," he mumbled, shuddering as the sound died. There was no one to hear him except that moron Spacey. Wheatley was taken with the idea of giving everyone names. There was Her, the evil AI who had tried to kill him (and very nearly succeeded) Spacey (the nickname was obvious) and Apple. It was hard thinking about Apple, because whenever he thought about her he remembered her hands all over his handle, and he was screaming something about her letting go, and being dragged into the darkness, just so he could save his own skin.

Not that he had skin. Made of metal, he was a robot. Right, of course. The point was that he could survive in space a lot better than Apple could. And then he'd tried to kill her, to smash her into little chunks of smelly human. Not that humans were smelly, no, they smelled lovely, like… cologne. Yes. All humans smelled like cologne.

"Humans smell like SPAAAACE!" Bugger, he hadn't even known he was speaking out loud. Spacey had a habit of responding to the strangest comments that emanated from Wheatley's speakers.

He had been thinking about Apple. He'd decided that her name would be Apple ever since she had shown him how obviously brain damaged she was. He would have told her about the name but to be honest he'd been a teensy bit scared she'd hurt him. He was just being careful! Besides, in the end it wasn't Apple who turned traitor, it was him…

"I'm so sorry," he said, flipping his handle idly. It was so easy to apologize when she wasn't staring him down, brown eyes narrowed in an expression that could only be described as right bloody terrifying. If they ever did meet again (unlikely) she'd probably smash him, rip off his handle, punch out his optic, pull out his inner wiring.

He'd liked Apple for a while there. Still liked her, in fact. But that didn't change the fact that he was so incredibly scared of her (mainly because of that bit where he'd tried to kill her) that he was almost glad he was in space. He'd thought that She had been bad, but he had a feeling that an angry Apple had the capability to be worse than even She could be.

"Sorry!" he said again, quickly. "That was rude. You're nothin' like Her, love, you're better than that. Sorry, love! Sorry!" The bleated pleas for forgiveness had become his lifeline to Aperture, his anchor. There was this fantasy he'd come up with an hour or so ago (how long had he been here again?) that was really wonderful and happy and everything turned out great. Somehow or other he managed to float back to the moon (Spacey helped, maybe?) and there was a portal there and he was sucked in, right into Apple's arms. And she wasn't glaring or angry. Actually, she was cuddling him against her chest and maybe even crying a little, like she was so worried about him being damaged. And he would say, really cool, "No worries, love, no worries. I'm fine, right? It's you who's the priority. You're number one. You've always been my number one."

And then, of course, he would be forgiven and all would be well.

"Forgive Jupiter," Spacey chattered. "Forgive Apple Sun white dwarf space. We're in space. You know? Space. Space space. Space space space. Space."

Wheatley gave another exaggerated sigh. "Right, mate, we're in space. I know."

"You know? You know what? You know what!"

"Space?"

"Space."

"I thought so." Wheatley flipped his handle and thankfully began to move a bit farther from Spacey. He didn't want to be alone out here (the idea was horrifying) but he needed some space from Spacey. Heheh, space from Spacey. That was a good one. He'd tell it to Apple when he got back…

Except he wasn't ever going to come back, and even if he did, Apple would hate him and wouldn't have time for his little pun. Actually, he could probably slip it in between smashes, but it was a context thing and she probably wouldn't laugh or anything.

He was getting a bit too close to that satellite. At first it'd been hard to notice because it was black and so was everything else, but Spacey had pointed it out to him earlier and now he was going towards it at a speed a bit too fast for his liking. Alright Wheatley, think. How to slow down, how to slow down… oh! Got it! Spin my handle! Okay, okay, that's not working. Spin it faster? No—hey? What?!

He had gotten much too close to the black satellite. As he neared the surface his optic focused on a large round tube on the side, just wide enough to encompass him. He was reminded of an image he had seen during his corruption (probably from Craig, the Fact Core), of some kind of undersea vessel. It had little vacuum-tubes on the outside for sucking up little sea-fishes and things, and they would stay in holding tanks inside the vessel until it returned to the surface.

It took him a full thirty seconds to make the connection, and by that time he'd already been sucked inside.

"Hey! Oy! Is anybody in here!" The holding space was tiny; there was barely enough room for him to swivel his optic, let alone move his handle. "Oy! Hello?"

"Space. Space. Bored of space. Gonna go home? Gonna go home gonna go home gonna go home?"

"Hey. Who the—oh wonderful, it's the space guy." Wheatley recognized the husky voice as that of Rick, the Adventure Core.

"Fact: the Space Core will soon be returning to Earth."

"Oh, shut up, Craig!" Rick exclaimed, and Wheatley could hear the rattling no doubt coming from Rick's holding space. "Give us one fact that's relevant. Just one. Come on, I dare you."

It appeared as though the entire lot of them had been sucked into this strange machine. There was no doubt that it was from Earth, but who had sent it in the first place? Wheatley didn't think Apple wanted him back this badly… unless she'd done it all for another Core? A hot wave of jealousy clouded his vision for a moment. Who did she want back? Craig? Rick, it was probably Rick. Rick was so good with women. But maybe Apple preferred the exuberant Spacey…

None of that mattered if it wasn't Apple who had sent the machine. And it probably wasn't Apple, because Wheatley was pretty sure she couldn't pull this all together in a day. That probably meant that someone had invested lots of money in a machine to get real live organisms from space… and had sucked up a bunch of malfunctioning Cores instead.

His casing rattled slightly. The three corrupted Cores were still chattering outside, but he managed to ignore the dithering. He was going home. He was going home to Apple, once he'd sorted out this mess with the satellite and explained to the owner what had happened. It would be alright. He was Wheatley. He could sort out anything, even Apple! Maybe not Apple…

Home. Home! His casing shivered again, and his optic swirled. Wheatley had made a lot of mistakes and missteps in his life, and he knew he deserved every bad thing he got. But right now, with the knowledge that Earth was within his grasp and that he was finally safe, he felt on top of the world. Nothing, he decided, with a rattle of his mostly non-mobile handle, could ever get better than this.

Nothing, Vulp decided, could ever get worse than this.

"What do you mean, balls of metal?" he snarled at his secretary, tugging at the roots of his black hair. He knew exactly what Nix meant, but the disappointment was making him repeat himself. He'd spent all that money on the damn satellite, and he gets this? A bunch of round metal balls that were obviously Earth-made? They were probably somebody else's cheap satellites, and now all the holding tanks in his satellite were filled. He had no choice, he'd have to bring it back to Earth, dump the mini-satellites, and re-launch his own satellite.

"Yes, sir," Nix said, reiterating her point. "Round metal balls. We have live footage from the satellite, if you'd like to see it."

Vulp sighed, leaning back in his desk chair. To think that people actually had the gall to say that his job was easy! Since when had being the CEO of a major company like Scorptech been easy? Sometimes he imagined dropping one of those loudmouthed ignoramuses in his place for a day, see how they liked it. Heh, they'd never be able to do what he did. Which was why he was making money and had his own skyscraper, and they slummed around in little towns and in the country. Ne'er-do-wells.

"Yeah, stream it to the wall screen," he said, nodding at his secretary. She backed out of the room, probably wanting to get away before he got really angry. Vulp had never been so good with anger management. It was just, when he was angry… it was like, say, life gives you lemons? Most people just go with that. No, nope, that had never worked for Vulp. When life gave him lemons, he pulverized them. With a meat tenderizer. Sometimes Nix shouted encouraging things from the sidelines.

The screen had booted up. With a blip, the blankness was replaced with a live video of the inside of one of the holding tanks on the satellite. For a moment, Vulp was crushed with disappointment. Just as Nix had said, the tank was filled up with a useless metal ball that had an annoying floppy handle.

And then the ball managed to flip over, and Vulp was staring into a brilliant blue eye.

The thrill of wonder ran down his spine, freezing him in place. He knew that eye. Well, not specifically, but he knew the concept that had gone into creating it. The Personality Cores, of course. From Aperture.

How had several Aperture Personality Cores gotten into space?

The worst part was that he didn't care. He wanted those Cores down here right now. Waiting was not an option. "Nix!" he screeched, bouncing up and down on the chair in excitement. "Come here! This is important! Nix! Niiiix!"

"I'm here!" she exclaimed, breathless and flushed. "Whatever is the matter, sir?" Without answering, he jabbed his finger at the screen. For a moment, she stared at the eye, her face enraptured. A tiny smile graced her features.

"Sir," she said, breathless again. "Is that—what I think it is?"

"An Aperture Personality Core," Vulp replied, his tone smug. "I have no idea how they got there, and I don't really care. Make sure they come down gently, right? I don't want them getting broken."

"Of course, sir," said Nix, hurrying from the room. Vulp breathed loudly from his nose and closed his eyes. Nix would take care of this. She was the only employee at Scorptech who knew of his quest, his search, the fruitless hours of hunting.

At last, at long last, he'd found a link to Aperture. With these Cores in his grasp, it was only a matter of time until he knew where the main facility was. And once he was in possession of that information, well… It was best that he not get ahead of himself.

Inside a different holding tank, a Core with a green eye rattled. Vulp watched it, smiling beatifically with his fingers laced into steeples.

Come on, Cores… Come down to Earth… And we'll have a grand old time… I promise.