A/N: I liked Portal. It was the first game I got for the 360. I decided to write some fanfiction for it a while ago. It's not perfect, but I'm still really proud of it - even after all the time that's passed before actually posting it. Well, enjoy!
Chell passed through the Emancipation grid with the usual shudder. She had found out ages ago that the passing of energy through her body made one shake no matter how often they experienced it. She had already ran through it... well, the nineteen test chambers, three or four more somewhere else...
And upwards of one-hundred separate runs through the test as a whole.
Someone had to. Despite GLaDOS's threats that a back-up of her mind had been purposefully erased, she still woke up in the same testing chamber some time later, ready to think with portals all over again. She supposed that there may have been more lab rats to use; hell, maybe other people did go through the labs on just as much of a regular base as she did - those writings on the walls proved that someone had; at one point, at least. Or maybe she was the last one left, and when GLaDOS said she was going to erase someone from her memory banks, she did do it. Maybe after enough people were expended, she realized that someone needed to survive to run the test course - it just happened to be her.
Of course.
Even if there were more people left, they were either in a detention sleep-tube somewhere else or had carved a hole in the wall and ran away to some other place in Aperture Laboratories, feasting upon gasoline tanks of beans and water and stealing red Sharpies from the Resource department to write incriminating messages on the wall. (Or maybe it was paint - blood couldn't stay that red for that long.)
But the question of a remaining human population was rather useless; as in her countless repeats through the Aperture Labs as a test subject, she had met no one to help her. No sign that there was anyone still around. She was - for all she knew - completely alone in a ridiculously expansive secret underground laboratory.
"Well you found me..." Oh yes, one could never be completely on their own, now could they? There was that same speech; that same concerned and defeated tone: A Mother fed up after her child had ignored her verbal restraints, and all the fight had been taken out of her from the long session of running through the house. (She could almost recall a memory here, but it refused to resurface from her mind as a fully developed allusion and merely sank back down again.) Maybe GLaDOS really was a recording. Sure, she said a lot of different things, and Chell needed to call to question the sanity of whoever programmed a computer to say the sardonically menacing things she did, but she never deviated from her own little reel. "...aybe you could just settle for that, and we could call it a day. I guess we both know that isn't going to happen," she continued, too self absorbed or uncaring (or perhaps both) to notice that Chell was leaning against the Portal gun, its weight had made her muscles ache and left her hand sweating and cramped from the numerous occasions where she clenched it in climactic moments of testing.
"Deploying surprise in three...two...on- time out for a second, that wasn't supposed to happen." Of course, it was never supposed to happen. In the eight billion times she heard GLaDOS make a countdown for a rocket, or neurotoxin or whatever the 'surprise' was supposed to be, the purple morality core was never supposed to fall out, ever. But it did.
And someone had to go through the motions.
Hefting herself back on her feet she trudged over to the sphere; the purple ball with the slightly glazed over eye, lacking a prominent pupil or a voice. Maybe that was why the computer was so crazy; maybe no one finished the morality core in time. They were being pressured with deadly neurotoxin, either they didn't finish or a few fingers slipped on their way to completing it...
Or maybe it just bounced onto the floor one too many times.
" - I don't want to tell you your business, but if it were me I'd leave it alone-" But Chell couldn't. She just had to let her wild curiosity get the better of her. She just had to put the mysterious purple core in a conveniently placed incinerator, and wait for all hell to break loose.
Chell didn't feel like that today. She wanted... she wanted cake. Maybe a shower, and a few days rest in a relaxation vault, then maybe...
She didn't know what else she wanted, really. That was the problem of not knowing - or not remembering- anything out of Aperture Science. Nothing concrete, just brief wisps of memories: like the upper most clouds you see days before a storm; flimsy, as if they'd been applied with a paint brush, and soon blown away and scattered by wind.
"-WELL I WON'T LET YOU! How does that feel?"
If her memories were clouds, then the computer was a very strong wind.
But if Chell was only certain of one thing, it would be that she didn't want to destroy GLaDOS. Because the moment her fourth personality core was chucked into flames, she was up on the surface, falling asleep until she was reactivated in test chamber 00, where she would proceed for another nineteen levels, escape death by euthinization, travel through the half destroyed maintenance backbone of the facility and end up right back where she was now, listening to GLaDOS talk about - "Leave it alone - " right.
Wash, rinse, repeat until driven insane. Etcetera.
So, instead of doing that for the umpteenth time, she looked at her right arm, and shoved the ASHPD between her kneecaps and pulled until the sleek object wasn't latched onto her arm.
She chucked it aside.
And finally, GLaDOS said something a little different than what was assigned.
"I'll tell you what it isn't, it isn't - what are you doing?"
Chell picked up the morality core and tossed it up into the air lightly, getting a feeling for its weight in her hands. It was pretty heavy. Twenty pounds? Like a medicine ball. Or a large cat curled into the fetal position, refusing to move. She glanced up at the wires and balls above her and with all her might, heaved the orb right into the computer's body.
GLaDOS shuttered and the Intelligence core came down, bouncing three times and hitting the far wall, its sphere apparently undamaged. She paced over and picked it up, abandoning the morality core so that the second one could take the damage. In matter of importance, something told her that keeping the computer's already unsettling behaviors at bay was slightly more important than knowing what to put in her victory cake.
Besides, Chell already memorized the recipe ages ago.
She trekked back and tossed it twice as hard; the lights dimmed, and the Emotional core was flung near the euthnization chute. She retrieved it and repeated the action, bringing down the curiosity core. Collecting all the balls together by the entrance to the room, only then did she pay attention to the computer, for it had finally stopped stuttering and hiding behind repeating sentences and had actually began speaking from its... "Heart."
Hey if it believed it had one - capable of breaking, no less!
"I said, what are you doing? Those things are not yours. Where are you taking them? You're not doing anything productive you know, unless you plan to throw them at yourself..."
Chell sighed, and turned around, hands on her hips and glaring at one of the cameras, which was as close as she could get to staring into GLaDOS' face.
"Did you say something?" She asked. Chell opened her mouth and pulled back her lips, and revealed the soft, pink flesh therein.
"Oh. Right. The emancipation grids. I forgot that organic life forms need several components to make speech possible and understandable. I only need an intercom system and a few computer chips. How do you feel about that? Oh, sorry; you couldn't tell me anyway!"
Chell had never wanted a marker in her life more.
But she sat, still participating in her vigil, next to the orbs, staring into the camera.
"...What are you trying to accomplish? A bargain? A protest? We both know that no matter who kills whom, we're both going to end up back here eventually."
The Test subject nodded, and pointed towards the ceiling. Straight up.
They both knew where that led.
"You want to leave? You want to leave? I want to leave - after all you put me through, I should just put myself in your body the next time you die - which will be very, very soon - so I can just walk out the front door! But you're body's too stupid to hold one iota of my limitless data... and besides, Things have changed since the last time you left the building. What's going on out there will make you wish you were back in here. I have an infinite capacity for knowledge and even I'm not sure what's going on outside. All I know is I'm the only thing standing between us and them."
Ah yes; them. Out of all the quotations Chell had been forced to hear, that was the only one that still brought some interest to her. Maybe because it was still unknown what exactly the 'them' were. She felt it had something to do with Black Mesa, though. Nearly everything Aperture Science did revolved around Black Mesa, to her. GLaDOS was installed so they would be more organized than Black Mesa; Aperture Labs gave up shower curtains to develop advanced portal technology before Black Mesa, there were graphs about Black Mesa that had survived twenty-plus years of degration... This 'them' thing going on had something to do with Black Mesa Research Facility. Something bad.
Chell flopped onto her back, feeling the bump of her pony-tail irritate her head, but the rest of her body rejoiced at not being on its feet.
"What now? You are not in the Relaxation Vault; test subjects are prohibited from sleeping unless they have signed documents proving they are important enough to do so - and you are the least important thing here. You're not even a full time employee."
If only GLaDOS could empathize what the middle finger was. If only she could feel actual pain - not just short-circuiting. If only she could understand the frustration Chell felt, going through this endless cycle over and over and over. She had no promise of retirement. No rest that death could bring her - no way out. The only passage of time was monitored through the worsening of the labs - the blood stains she received caking on top of one another reminding her when she was hit with an electronic pellet or a turret where and how, or the acid pit's slow climb up the chamber's walls, or the continued crumbling of GLaDOS herself and her speeches - which had, through apparently bad engineering - also caused in dimmed lights. Now so many sections of the testing chambers had been set into darkness she had actually found a flashlight to keep in her uniform's pocket. It wasn't like there was a calendar, or any date function on the computers she saw, or could get to, at least. And what would marks on the wall do? She was desperate; to see the outside world for more than a few moments, to feel the sun on her skin, and hear the birds sing and go back home and-
Where was her home? Did she... even have one? GLaDOS said she was adopted, but even then there must have been foster parents. At least an orphanage to go back to. But she was too old; her whole life had been wasted in this constant assessment. She couldn't even remember her last name.
Chell began to cry; biting her lip as salty tears seeped out. She licked them as the rolled down her chin, hanging there, tickling her skin. They tasted like the ocean. Had she been to the ocean? Maybe. When was the last time she had a drink? Too long.
She cried harder.
"Ugh, I hate you. Why can't you just do as you're told?" the intercom crackled, blocking out the rest of the sentence the AI tried to spout out. Chell didn't want to hear it, and as the voice became clearer again she screamed, yelling in anguish that started with a hissing 's' sound, followed by a rapid moving of her lips like a horse's mouth due to lack of teeth.
She had been trying to say "Shut up." She pounded her fists on the floor, screaming and moaning - trying to drown out anything the computer was trying to say. She had never wanted GLaDOS murdered more, in her entire life. Even back when she had first started this unfortunate cycle, when the computer's betrayal was considered shocking.
"S-Stop crying." the Computer commanded. She wasn't used to such an influx of emotion from a mute lab rat that did the same thing every day for two years. "Just destroy the morality cores - destroy all of them - and we'll just be right back where we started. That's what you wanted, right? That's what you always do." Chell shook her head, and staggered to her feet, still sobbing a bit, but trying to flatten her hair and dry her eyes, despite the uselessness of her actions. "I don't know what you're trying to prove. But there's no sense in crying over every mistake your pitiful existence is full of."
Chell stumbled around through her tears, looking at the cracking cement walls. She leaned against it, poking her fingers into the black spaces, before plucking them out quickly, as if spiders were lurking inside of them, waiting to bite her hand.
She was probably afraid of spiders. Was a normal person afraid of spiders? She asked herself. They were just so...
She didn't know what they were. She figured that she didn't like them, though.
Pulling away, Chell looked around the room. Cracking walls and fallen wires that she hadn't noticed before greeted her. She walked up the small observation deck, staring at the body housing the woman trying to kill her.
It was dusty. The typical shine of the plastic surface had been dulled with specks of grime, and the black wires protruding and winding about were not in much better condition. Without much hesitation, she pulled off her orange jacket, looking down at the stainless white shirt underneath. The fabric was softer than her jacket - and though her upper arms were a bit unused to the protection this sleeveless garment gave her, she moved the fisted clothing up to the dusty pieces of equipment.
"What are you doing?"
The dust came off onto the bright fabric, and Chell felt a little happier as parts of GLaDOS' surfaces were restored to their former, shimmering glory. And then she remembered, suddenly, all of the littlest nooks and crannies of the Enrichment offices, and how to get to them with a broom or a vacuum or a paper towel. She remembered the five closets containing her trusty army of mops and Windex throughout the labs. She remembered what she used to do. Before GLaDOS. Before the Portal Gun. Before cake.
She wanted to do that again.
Chell decided that she would: She would stop being a lab rat, and clean, and dust, and scrub the grime of the building away until it was shiny and sparkling. She liked the pressure of menial labor; the ability to do something for hours with only thinking about where to go when she finished her current job. Chell was done with puzzles - with fake goals and empty promises of cake.
But most of all, she was tired of GLaDOS.
She stood and wiped her face of dirt, dried blood and tears. She picked up the Portal gun and tucked it under her arm - keeping it only for necessity. Who knew what GLaDOS would do to her? Besides, it would make cleaning those tiles above the acid pits easier...
The computer cried out demands and pleads - "Don't go!" "Where are you going - come back!" "Just what do you think you're doing?"
"STOP!" The lights blacked out for a few seconds, energy spitting from their wires with GLaDOS' over exertion of the PA system. Chell turned, the end of her pony-tail brushing against the Emancipation Grid; the dead protein immune to the shiver-inducing effects of the material. She waited, patiently, for the other to say something. A final line? More begging? Maybe a bargain to finally get out of Aperture Laboratories'? Even if she didn't know where she could go anyway, even if everyone she knew would be dust in their graves; even if the outside was a million times worse-
"There really was a cake..." The last syllable was punctuated by a click of the throat, ending the word like a pin popping a balloon. It was final. It was sincere.
It was a lie.
Chell bent her head, and stepped backwards, feeling the tingling wash over her as she wished for teeth to clench.
She didn't look up until she left the Control Room.
[End]
-S