Chell stumbled, her foot caught in the tangle of vines, wires and other debris covering this patch of floor. She flung her arms out to steady herself, and the device flew out of them, hit the ground with a thunk and skidded into an oily puddle ahead. She untangled herself, grabbed the device, and entered the next chamber.

"This next test involves turrets. You remember them, right?" the Voice asked sarcastically. "They're the pale spherical things that are full of bullets. Oh wait; that's you in five seconds. Good luck."

Chell shot a venomous glare at the nearest camera, and knocked over the first turret. Peeking around the corner, she saw the next one was facing her. That was fine; she'd just portal behind it. She aimed at the nearest wall, pulled the trigger – and the device went fzzt. She shook it gently, tried again, and was rewarded with a few sparks and a longer ffzzzt. Disbelieving, she stared down at it. This insane, ingenious little invention had been her only means of survival through god-knew-how-many chambers of hell; she had almost come to think of it as an old friend, and now it was just going fzzt at her. In her frustration she whacked it with the palm of her hand.

"You broke it, didn't you? You actually broke the portal device," the Voice said, cold and disdainful and coming from everywhere at once. Chell ignored it, alternately shaking the device and firing at the wall. Something had to happen, it couldn't be completely fried… a few more fzzts, sparks, and something did happen. A weird-looking, rainbow-edged something. Vaguely, Chell remembered what She had said all that time ago, when she'd first got hold of the device – 'Do not submerge the device in liquid, even partially.' This must be why.

The portal it had finally produced was neither blue nor orange, but a varying mixture of colours. And it led somewhere that didn't look like any part of the facility she'd ever seen. Admittedly, one dark corridor was much the same as any other, but there was something indefinably different about it. She cautiously poked the end of the device through, ready to leap back at the first sign of trouble. Nothing unusual - apart from the weird portal itself, anyway - so she grabbed the deactivated turret and pushed it through. Still nothing.

"That shouldn't be there." Her Voice was flat, carefully modulated, but Chell could hear a faint note of surprise in it. "I don't even know what that is, but I do know it isn't part of this test. And it isn't something you should be messing about with." Still ignoring the Voice, Chell stared through the weird portal and thought. Whatever it was, and wherever it led to, it wasn't the facility, and that meant it was a way out of the facility. "I know what you're thinking. And it won't work. Whatever is through there, it won't do you any good," She said. "So stay right there until I work out how to fix this; since it seems to be up to me to fix everything around here."

Chell hesitated, considering the chances that something even worse than her current situation lurked on the other side of the portal. They were fairly low, she thought, but she couldn't eliminate the possibility. She could probably complete this test, and the next, and the next, until that odd little core came back or she came up with an escape plan, but that strange portal was obviously a quicker way out of here. After a whole microsecond of deliberation, she jumped through the mystery hole.


Isaac stared at his RIG map. He had almost reached the tram station, but a small blip had distracted him. It was only a tiny patch of distortion on the hologram, probably nothing, but… He turned around. It would only take a minute to double back and check it out - whatever it was - before heading to the medical deck. The last thing he needed was more problems on this ship.


Chell squinted around, her eyes slowly becoming accustomed to the relative gloom after the harsh lights of the facility. She seemed to be in a metal passageway; there were bags and suitcases scattered around, abandoned by their owners, blue-lit doors at either end, a horrid smell of blood and rot, and some rather unsettling stains on the floor. The whole place had a creepy feeling, like something hidden in the walls was watching her. Not that this was new to her, but it still freaked her out slightly. She was trying to get away from that kind of feeling.

She turned towards one of the doors and started walking, figuring it would be best to get away from the portal. She'd only taken a few steps when a vent to her left burst open, and a… thing leapt towards her. Thing was the only word she could think of; it looked roughly humanoid, but had blades instead of arms, mutated legs, and it was making the same kind of noise as a death metal vocalist doing warm ups before a show. Instinctively, she tried firing a portal underneath it, and a burst of useless sparks informed her the device was on the fritz again. Since it was almost on top of her, and there was little else she could do, she rammed the end of the device into its face, making it stagger back a step.

She turned and ran in the opposite direction, reaching the door just as it opened. In a split second, her mind registered two facts; there was someone in a weird, robotic kind of suit standing in front of her, and he was pointing a weapon at her. Chell dropped to the ground, beginning to wonder just what the hell she'd walked into.


When Isaac opened the door, one of the few things he wasn't expecting to see was a dishevelled, terrified woman running towards him and throwing herself at his feet, so it came as a bit of a surprise when one did. He started to lower the plasma cutter before noticing what she must have been running from; one of those infected things ran after her. He fired twice, severing both its legs, once more to make sure it was dead, and then lowered the cutter. The woman sat up, stared at it for a second, and poked it cautiously with a gun-like device she carried.

"Yeah, it's dead," he assured her. She jumped up, turned, backed away and raised her device defensively. Isaac spread his arms slightly, keeping the cutter pointed at the floor. He could understand her being a bit jumpy, as possibly the sole survivor of whatever had happened here, but he didn't want to get shot with whatever it was she'd found herself. "Take it easy, miss; I'm not the threat here."

She seemed to realise it, and slowly lowered her device. "What was that?" she asked, her voice scratchy and hoarse, as though she hadn't used it in a very long time. "Some kind of experiment?" She nudged the dead thing with her foot, looking like she expected it to start moving again.

He shook his head. "Infection, or some kind of alien, we're not sure yet. But it's not the only one around here," he said, taking in her appearance; white vest reading 'Aperture Laboratories', orange jumpsuit knotted around her waist, strange white boots with curved strips of metal attached to the back. "This is just a wild guess, but you're not part of the Ishimura's crew, are you?"

"The what?" She frowned in confusion. "I just came through there," she said, nodding towards a glowing hole in the wall of the corridor.

Isaac looked at it, then stared. He'd never seen anything like it before, and couldn't help wanting to examine it. Oh what the hell, he thought, edging past the woman – who was still kicking the dead creature – to take a look. He stepped over the white, ovalish thing on the floor and peered through the hole. What little he could see just looked… blank. Plain white-and-grey walls, and bright overhead lights. He leant forwards, trying to get a better look through.


Chell watched the guy out of the corner of her eye as he walked past her to check out the portal. "Don't," she called, seeing him start to lean through it. "There's another turret round the corner; an active one," she said.

He stepped back. "Shouldn't we close it up?" he asked, looking towards her. At least, she assumed he was looking at her; those glowing blue lines were on the front of his helmet, right?

She looked at it, and shrugged. "I'm not sure how to. This thing's kind of broken," she told him, lifting the portal device.

"Want me to take a look?" he asked. "I'm an engineer; fixing things is kind of my job."

An idea started dawning at the back of her mind; the portal gun might be broken, but she hoped it would sort itself out once it dried out. But if this guy was an engineer there was a chance he could get that turret working again. If what he'd said was true, and there were more of those mutant things about, an automatic-firing gun could come in handy – provided she kept it pointed away from herself, anyway. "That turret could be more useful," she said, nodding at it. "This basically just makes holes in walls. That shoots everything in front of it, when it's activated." She thought that would be the simplest way of explaining things quickly; it probably wasn't a good idea to be hanging around this close to the portal, in case She figured out a way to drag one of them back through.

The guy gave her a sort of half-shrug, half-nod, and picked up the switched-off turret. "Come on. I'm supposed to be getting to the medical deck; I can take a look at this thing on the way." He led her through some corridors, and onto something that looked like a small, battered tram car.