Chapter 1
"BLUE! I said to shoot the portal over there not there! You're gonna get us killed! What kind of idiot are you?!" Yelled P-body at Atlas. Atlas was used to this yelling, it was a habit that P-body had picked up several weeks ago. But she had never been this short tempered.
"OKAY! I'm sorry. I'll try harder next time." Blue mumbled under his breath, "But maybe it's not me…"
"Did you say something?" Orange snapped in an annoyed tone.
"Well, maybe it isn't me. Maybe… Maybe it's you." Blue said, instantly regretting it. He was terrified of what horrible thing Orange had in store for him, after saying a thing like that, Blue knew he would never again see the light of day. Verbally.
"I was actually considering giving you a second chance. An opportunity to redeem yourself." Atlas never heard her using these kind of words on a regular basis either. She was not that profound. She was more of a 'make-it-up-on-the-spot' type of person'.
A wave of static reached them. Both of them shoved their hands over their ears, trying to clamp the noise out. Finally the crackling subdued and a voice rang throughout the test chamber. "Break up the fight. You're wasting time. Training is over. Look on the bright side, you got a whole chamber farther than you did yesterday!" The voice chuckled softly, "Not that that's much of an improvement. I've seen smarter piles of garbage. You've just given me an idea, maybe I should test garbage piles instead of you. At least they would complete more test chambers than you. Gosh, now that I think about it, even plants would make better test subjects than you two!"
"YOU WANNA TRY THESE TESTS YOURSELF?!" Orange screamed at the loudspeaker.
"Did I catch her on a bad day, or is she always like this? Because if she is, maybe I should replace her with a garbage pile, you can stay, Blue." The voice laughed at it's own joke. It's laugh was like an electronic version of a stream's burble.
Blue exhaled, long and hard. "She's only like this if you're unlucky enough to catch her on a bad day. Or should I say week…"
Orange just scoffed, "I never have bad days."
"So they always come in weeks?" The voice chuckled.
"No. I never have bad days. Or weeks. Or months, if that's what you want to nag me about next. GLaDOS," She indicated towards the loudspeaker, "Thinks being annoying is the same as being funny. What do you think Atlas?" Blue was rarely ever called Atlas, especially by P-body. He didn't want to get on anyone's bad side. So he tried to make it seem like he was indecisive.
"I have no strong opinions on this topic," He chose his vocabulary carefully, trying not to upset anyone, "I think both opinions are equally valid. And one is not better or more... valuable than another. However, both of you are correct, yet that makes both of you incorrect. Both sides have pros and cons-"
His speech was cut short by the irritated P-Body. "Look Mr. Fancy-talk. I don't have time for your little shenanigans, just pick a side already! I've had enough of your smart talk and don't want to hear anymore of your lecture!"
"Oh, so I'm the one using big words?!" Blue had had enough. Orange was officially crazy. And officially annoying. Talk about a royal pain. "You're acting like a queen, and a snobby queen at that! You think I'm a peasant who has to bow down to your every wish and ambition. I'm not gonna bend a single muscle in my back just to shine your shoes! YOU HEAR ME?!"
"I'll just leave the door open, you can make your way out when your… Um, done." GLaDOS had complete control over the facilities. She could have grabbed them with a robotic arm and thrown them into the incinerator if she felt like it.
They kept bickering minutes after she stopped talking. She could always listen in to every conversation they ever had, or assume that it was just a waste of time and turn them onto mute like she often did. She decided to let them continue to argue and just go about her business.
"I tell you every day: What to do and when to do it! What do you repay me with, MOCKERY?"
"I just wanted to complete this test chamber, but Ms. Snooty-Pants won't participate!"
"I'm participating more than you are!"
Their voices trailed off, soon nothing but a dull lull, as GLaDOS drifted off into sleep mode.
Back in the test chamber P-Body and Atlas were still arguing strong as ever.
Eventually, GLaDOS woke up, and to no surprise, they were still bickering. Ugh. GLaDOS had no time for this, she needed to get them back to testing.
GLaDOS tested her subjects to their limit. She conducted horrible experiments on people and kept them locked away in chambers. Humans couldn't stand it. All they did was die, die, die. It was annoying. You could throw whatever you wanted at them, and they would live. But one thing in the wrong spot, and it was all over. Humans didn't last long. And sometimes, they were horrid, dangerous, ignorant, monsters. She definitely did not want to go through what happened with the last one again. It was too risky. That's why she tested robots and, in this case, cyborgs. They couldn't feel real pain, nor real pride.
The door had been wide open since GLaDOS left them, however nothing had passed through the threshold. She had been gone for almost an hour, when she noticed a warning sign flashing across the display from the camera footage.
"What's this?" She asked to herself, making sure it wasn't on the loudspeaker. She leaned forward in her seat, frowning at the sign.
She decided to ignore the warning like she often ignored P-Body and Atlas's heated conversations. She figured it wasn't important. It was probably just a warning telling her that a naughty turret decided it was a good idea to set off a firework in the break room. Sigh, those turrets were the most unpredictable little things.
The warning wasn't important so she set about terminating it along with the stupid turret. She decided to put her skills to better use, like breaking up Orange and Blue's fight for good. She went on the intercom, trying to get the system to make more static, just to annoy them. When the system has pumped out all the noise it had in it she started.
"Will. You. Stop. Bickering?!" She shouted over the intercom. "You stubborn, little idiots have been at this for HOURS!" She hissed. "Orange. Shut up. Blue. Get out of her way. Both of you, get onto the next chamber! Both of you won the argument, now just SHUT IT AND GO ON WITH YOUR LIVES!"
"Yeesh, is it her bad day too?" Blue snickered.
Orange surprisingly giggled, and GLaDOS shouted, "Yes it is, thanks to you two morons. Just. PLEASE. Continue testing. All you have to do is step through the open door. It's that simple. ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING?! Do I need to bring up the garbage threat again?!"
They unwillingly stepped through the door, after many minutes of being prodded with insults from GLaDOS, only after which she got the same warning once again, only this time it was accompanied with a shriek much like that of a fire alarm. She was still on the intercom, so it wasn't just her who had to endure the pitiful sound of a burning building.
Atlas and P-body flinched, then stopped walking and attempted to muffle the sound with their hands, but to no prevail.
"WHAT WAS THAT?!" Orange screamed, nearly as loud as the alarm that just blared.
"Some turret decided to play a prank. By setting off a firework in the break room." GLaDOS wasn't sure though, seeing how the break room was the only place in the facilities where she didn't have security cameras in. She would need to check in person to be sure, yes. But things like that happened often enough she was quite confident with her presumption.
She turned off the intercom, disabled the alarm, and switched the loudspeaker back on. "Sorry that was so loud. I, um, should go check on that I guess."
The intercom went quiet, and silence drifted upon the unhappy partners once more. The silence was so overwhelming it was as though a thin veil of death had settled over everything within a one-hundred mile radius.
"You know," P-body said quietly, as they both walked up to the doorway. "I'm sorry. That was all me. I don't even know what I was arguing about most of the time…" She tilted her head and put her hand on the back of her neck. She laughed sort of softly, kind of a mix between a cough and a giggle.
"I guess you do win." She smiled as her cranky mood melted away from her circuit board.
Atlas was relieved that she was back to her normal self, no matter how it happened. "Let's go?"
P-body nodded. "Let's go."
They walked through the doorway. The room was musty and dark. The smell of it was revolting. Like that of rotting flesh.
"Hey! Where are you?" GLaDOS was back to the intercom. "I can't see either of you!"
They both walked back out of the room, even though they had only been in there for a few seconds, the experience was horrible and they acted as if they had never saw it. The warning still glinted over GLaDOS's screen, and even though she had disabled the alarm, it still flashed through her mind.
"We were just heading to the next test chamber. Like you told us to." P-body looked up at one of the cameras.
GLaDOS saw them walk into the room. "I see you two have made up a-" She saw the door they entered was rusted and sparking, little bits of metal chipped away here and there.
Why hadn't GLaDOS made the connection before? I'm so stupid! She thought to herself, there wasn't any turrets in the break room and I knew that doorway didn't seem like the correct one! I should have realized sooner! That door didn't lead out of the chamber, it lead into the room with- Her thoughts were disrupted by the pause in the soft 'pitter patter' coming from the test chamber. Her mind was frantically racing, what should she do? She had to do something! Maybe they hadn't seen anything? In that case she couldn't spare having them see it again! All she could do was yell.
"No! Stop! Get out!" She shouted in attempts to stop them. "That's not the right door!" She opened the exit door on the ledge, and then raised panels to create stairs. "Look! Exit! Real one! Right there!" It was pointless. They weren't listening to a word she said. Those stupid cyborgs! Getting desperate she tried to close the door. Maybe it could still open and close despite its age? She jammed her finger on the close button, over and over and over. But the door's age had taken a toll on it, it no longer would open and close. Why couldn't it just have spared her one more bit of motion?
"Do you smell that too?" Blue questioned in a zombie-like manner.
"Urgh, yes… It is awful!" P-body mumbled, clamping her nose. Blue followed suit.
"I don't know why GLaDOS has a room that smells like this," She made a circular motion with her hand indicating the darkness that encompassed them, "But she can't have a good reason for it. If she does I'll give you my rations for a week!" Orange's voice cracked on the last word of every sentence.
"I'll give you mine for a month…" Blue said under his breath.
The room was extremely dimly lit, and hard to navigate. A hallway branched off of the room and Orange and Blue didn't have any better options, so they continued down the hall. They could hear each other's pained breathing, each puff of air smelling of death… Disease… Absence of life.
Their faint footsteps echoed throughout the maze. Turns and twists in every which way appeared at every corner.
"I highly doubt that this is a test chamber…" Orange whimpered.
The hallway started to widen until it became about the size of a room. The hallway ended abruptly, and the walls were adorned with the remnants of broken crushers, panels, and stairs. The floor was stained with a brown residue from toxic goo and blood. Splintered portal guns lay scattered across the floor. Shattered cups and disfigured, used food cans sat in various places around the room.
Companion cubes lay everywhere, empty, the top ajar, waiting to be filled with whatever the "weight" was in the "weighted companion cube."
P-body gripped Atlas's hand subconsciously. Both of their eyes widened. This was where the smell was coming from. And it wasn't only the nose that was horrified, it wasn't easy on the eyes either.
~Thanks to my best friend, Atlas!~ ( atlasblue)