Blackness.

All alone.

Jack's skull was killing him. A dull, pounding throb buried deep in his marrow. He remembered… he was out in the graveyard with Zero… and then he started barking… a stinging pinch in the back of his neck and a female voice saying "gotcha,"…. And then he felt himself being dragged away.

Jack fell hard on a flat surface. Forcing his eyelids open, he sat up and looked around. He was in some kind of glass cage in a pure, white room. In the cage, a door was directly in front of him. No locks, no knobs for that matter. In the room, a door sat in the right corner. It showed the blue figure of a person running. In the cage was a pod-like bed, a toilet, a radio playing some kind of jazz, and a clipboard. He grabbed the board in his skeletal hand. Nothing important.

Wait… what in the name of shrieking spiders was he wearing?! An orange jumpsuit was slightly unzipped on his chest, his legs encased in some kind of brace-boots. Unzipping the jumpsuit a bit more, he realized he was wearing a white shirt with lettering. It said "Aperture Laboratories." Now that he thought of it… Jack quickly re-zipped it, and noticed the same white words were stenciled next to a weird circle-typed spiral. Checking his boots, he noticed the white metal said the same thing in black, and vice versa for the brace part.

"Where am I?" he asked no one.

As if answer, a pleasant female voice from above said, "hello, and welcome again to the Aperture Science Enrichment Center. We hope your brief detention in the relaxation vault has been a pleasant one. Your specimen has been processed, and we are now happy to say that we are ready to begin testing."

"Testing?" said Jack. "Testing for what? Who are you anyway? Where am I? Why did you bring me here?"

"You may not want to ask so many questions."

"And why shouldn't I? What, exactly, is your threat to shut me up?"

"Well, for starters, I could surgically remove your vocal cords." Several robotic arms descended from the ceiling, displaying several odd-looking surgical tools. "I did that once. She's still around. Maybe you'll run into her. After all, the testing tracks are all linked together.

"Enough chit-chat. The portal will open in 3… 2… 1."

In the white doorway, an orange circle appeared. In the room, there was a blue circle, in which Jack could see himself, clear as day, staring uncertainly into the portal. Taking a leap of faith, the pumpkin king propelled himself into the unknown.

The door in the right corner opened, revealing a comically large red button and a tube containing a strange block.

The door was closed, and a blue trail of dots led from it to the button. Another man was there, staring at the block-which had now fallen out of the tube and onto the floor. He was not in the jumpsuit Jack was, but in a white button-up shirt, blue tie, khaki trousers, and brown loafers. He ruffled a hand through his red hair, squinting through glasses with one cracked lens. "Hrrmmm… let's see…" he was muttering. "We've got a button. Got a box. Now… what to do with button and box…? Maybe…" he stepped on the button with a foot, and noticed the open door. "Ah! Yes! Yes, I did it! I did i- oh. Hm. Disappointing, really." He had tried to run for the door, but, unsurprisingly, it had closed.

Jack let out a snort of laughter. The man jumped. "YAA! Oh. 'Ello, mate. Just, ah, solving this test. For Her. Yeah, She wants me to solve it. Been at it for hours, rather complicated. What with buttons, trick doors, random cubes are involved… 'S'got it all. Got it all, absolutely torturous."

If Jack weren't a skeleton, and had eyes, he would've been rolling them. "Look, just put the cube on the button. Not that difficult."

"Huh? Really? You think it's that simple?"

"Almost certain. Uh… actually, yeah, I'm really certain."

Taking his advice, the bumbling giant took the cube in his arms, walked a few steps, and dropped it on the button. "Huh! Wouldja look at that! Amazing, mate, you're some kinda bloody genius! Oh, uh, sorry, didn't catch your name. Mine's Wheatley, by the way. Dr. Brian Wheatley, though most call me Wheatley, bit 'o culture there. Anyway, your name?" he stuck a hand out in Jack's direction.

Jack, feeling dizzy, took the hand offered and shook it. "Jack."

"Ah! Man of few words, I take it! So's my wife, y'know, cut out her vocal cords, she sassed back a lot. Yeah, trying to find her, got stuck here, been here for hours. So, ah, y'wanna go from here together? You, Chell and I can all escape together! Already got a plan! Whaddya say?"

"I'd say no." intoned the woman. "Why don't you two just do the tests? Trust me, it's a better plan than whatever asinine thing the moron came up with."

Wheatley's expression of joy at seeing someone else alive (Well not really alive, more like a zombie, 'cept this bloke didn't wanna eat his brain. More like… well, undead. No, alive. Dead-live. Sure, let's go with that.) To one of fury at the insult of his intelligence. "I AM NOT! A! MORON! Just- just c'mon, this way." He sneered, seizing Jack's wrist.

The two men piled into the elevator, and descended into the bowels of aperture.