** Author's Note: Okay. Well, what I've come up with here is a written version of the 'Lab Rat' comic. I've been trying to overcome this awful writer's block, and I read somewhere that the best way to get over writer's block is to use prompts, or to rewrite stories that you already know. We'll see I guess. I've added a little bit here and there... so... yeah. Still, not my story at all. I'm honesty a new Portal fan, so IF I did somehow totally mess up something, please let me know! I'd hate to slaughter the story... (I know I rage when somebody else does.) Enough of my ramblings though. Hope you like it! - SeasprayLuv [There's a link to the comic on my page!]**
**Yes, I've posted this story a few times. I was having some technical problems with the story after I edited, I know, excuses excuses... I'm sorry for the inconvenience.**
*No, I don't own The 'Lab Rat' comic, Portal, The Portal gun, Doug Rattmann, The Companion cube, The Turrets, Aperture Science/Aperture labs, The Enrichment center, GLaDOS or Chell. Does that cover everything? Oh, the cake! I don't own the cake either. GLaDOS never would give me a piece.*
Portal 2: Lab Rat
He swept a paint stained hand through his hair, dipping his brush back into the orange paint. People had to know about this girl. Chell. The only one that he was sure could beat her. Thinking about the monster lurking around the compound, leading this poor girl closer and closer to her own death made him feel guilty...guilty among many other things. Hopeful and desperate were good examples. This place was a living nightmare. The sad, simple truth, as it stood, was that the cake was a lie. He hoped that Chell realized that. How long ago had it been sense he'd figured this out himself? He reached as far above his head as he could, carefully painting with the skilled strokes of an artist.
"It's getting hard to tell what is real..."
"It's alright." a soft voice filled the small room he was now hiding in.
"Please be a little quieter, she will find us if we aren't careful."
The companion cube let out a small sigh and continued..."Reality is a story the mind tells its
self. Remember? You told me this."
Rattmann looked over his shoulder at his friend, letting out a small laugh.
He mumbled with her, quietly trying his best to think straight, "Reality is a story the mind tells its self." another wide, purposeful stroke of orange on the clinically cold wall. "An artificial structure conjured into being by the calcium ion exchange of millions synaptic firings ..." He dipped the brush into black paint, and started painting more words on the wall.
Tenacity.
The cake is a lie.
Does it feel like a trial?
Exile.
Too many Variables.
The cake is a lie the cake is a lie the cake is a lie the cake is a lie...
He let his mind wander across the enrichment center's contents. Thousands of damned souls, a series of chambers designed to "test" these unfortunates. All of these destined to die, probably painfully and cruelly, at her hands. Not only them though... the cores, made out of unfortunate scientists and the equally unfortunate families of these scientists... the relaxation chambers, that often held a false sense of security... nothing here was straight forward.
"A truth so strange that it can only be lied into existence. And our minds... they can lie."
"Are you okay?" The cube prodded carefully into the mind of her companion, concern saturating her voice. "We'll get out of here soon... and then we don't have to ever think about her again. Doesn't that sound nice Doug?"
"We'll always think about her. See her when our eyes close. She engraved herself onto our souls." He glanced at his wall, now filled with all the truths Chell would ever need to know. "True, we'll never be free as long as she's alive. Even if in some miraculous turn of events... if she is defeated, she will live in our minds, memories and nightmares. We will never be free from her." He dropped his brush, letting it splatter what was left of his paint onto the floor. He looked over his shoulder again, at the small opening to his hiding place. He knew he wouldn't be able to hide here forever. They were after him, like always. A schizophrenic's worst nightmare come true. A REAL robot that was REALLY out for his blood. Him and thousands of others. Maybe more.
Soon, he was sure, she would send her hell hounds, the turrets, after him. Had they already been mobilized? Was it too late? He wasn't sure... but they always felt too close, like a hand reaching out to grab his throat to strangle him.
He grabbed his brush, and strapped his cube to his back as he crawled out of his safe haven.
He sprinted through what seamed to be an endless labyrinth of hallways, always looking over his shoulder, and shushing his cube when she got a little too loud. He slowed to catch his breath under one of the millions of windows in the strange building, catching an image out of the corner of his eye. A vibrant splash of color in an otherwise clinical environment. He did a double take, staring at the orange clad girl standing far below him. "Could it be that she's awake after all of this time?"
She started running through the room, right near where Rattman knew the turrets should be. He had been unfortunate enough to run into them once, while he was 'testing'. His hand absently brushed over a scar near his collar bone. Getting that bullet out had been hell. Surviving... that had been worse. For a while at least.
His hear sank to his feet. Just another lie his mind would tell him. "No, just a figment. If she was real, the turrets would see her too."
"I wanted her to be real too Doug." the small voice tried her best to comfort him. "You know that I'm still here for you. I'll always be here when you need me."
He opened his mouth to answer, when suddenly, the turrets awakened with a robotic, 'TARGET AQUIRED' accompanied, by red laser light and bullets.
For a moment, he stood... simply staring in shock. "It's her! I knew..." the sentence fizzled off as he realized something, "The end is finally upon us!" He pulled himself from the window as Chell disappeared through a door at the end of the room. There was so much to do...
He ran down familiar halls, knowing that she would be a little too busy to notice him for this short moment. He ducked into a small closet, and looked at the row of lockers. One in particular stood out, his old one. The one with a childish "do not open" sign taped to it. His fingers traced the letters slightly as he released a breath he didn't realize he had been holding. He opened it, reluctantly looking inside. On a lone shelf, lay a small, innocent enough looking medicine bottle. He stared at the "for the END TIMES" note that had been scribbled in haste, hardly taped to the bottle. for a second as his cube gasped.
"Don't do it!"
He pulled his head down in despair, "Please... try to understand."
In his mind, he was transported back in time, back to the times before sheexisted.
Doug Rattman looked around the hallway a bit skeptically, trying to ignore the feeling that he was being watched. He was tall and lanky, his arms and legs just a bit too long for his pole thin body, extremely pale, all of this topped off with one light blue eye, a darker eye (one pupil larger than the other) and a mop of unkempt black hair. A nervous expression was permanently engraved into his face, from years of trying to ignore that constant gnawing at the back of his mind that said that said that everything was out to get him. Something in his mind... voices... told him that told him that everything bad that could happen was about to happen. To him. To them. To everyone. The huge, dark circles under his eyes were proof of a thousand sleepless nights caused by this constant paranoia.
He walked past tow scientists locked in a heated conversation that halted when he closed in. He could swear that these two, co-workers... his so called 'friends' were talking about him.
"We put cameras in the cameras! He'll never expect it!"
"I know! It's genius!"
How is one actually supposed to feel about the idea of being spied on by... well... everybody? What they were really talking about was anybody's guess. Both walked away, clapping each-other on the back and laughing.
He quickly pulled the paper bag in his hands apart, looking at the innocent little bottle in hands. As much as he hated the fact, it really was the difference between delusional paranoia and a career as a brilliant scientist. He popped two of the pills into his mouth as he got ready to go back to work.
And then he was back in the present, holding the same bottle in his hands.
"Come on! You don't need those anymore, you're FINE!" The cube half screamed in panic. How could he? After all they'd been through together, he would abandon her when he need her the most?
"It's been so long. I've been saving these two for this day." He threw the pills into his mouth, "I'm going to need a clear head for what is to come."
The cube let out a shaken sob as he put a glass of water up to his mouth, "It'll be the end of us."
He said nothing.
He ran back out into the hallway, toward the door he knew would let him out of this hell...
He could feel his mind restructure its self, like a giant puzzle, and for a moment it was just like old times. His mind cleared was slowly pushing aside the fog. "There are moments when I can almost see the underlying grammar of this place. An impossibility, some mad architect's opus - A relic from an age that never could've been." He waited for his cube to answer him, but she sullenly declined. He felt so alone without her input. He went on, trying to distract himself from the painful silence. "It's a metastasized anagram of add-ons, additions and appropriations. Building itself out for itself. Beautiful and terrible...and like anything cloned from a cancer cell, probably immortal." the thought made him shudder, but right now there were more things to be worried about. He paused, looking at a sign that reminded him that Aperture Science was not responsible for any eye or toe damage caused by not wearing the recommended safety equipment.
The cube piped up, feeling his worry, "Stay to the right, turrets ahead on the left!"
He gulped quietly as he listened to their echoing Hello's and Can-help-you's.
Definitely not going that way. He pressed his body up against the wall for a moment, covering his mouth with a hand.
He ducked into one of his old hideaways, and took a long look at just one of his many murals, "Whatever you say." They were always missing something. He pulled out his paintbrush again, dipping it in one of his many buckets of paint. "Another mural to mark the occasion."
He scrawled letters across the wall with slightly trembling hands.
He set his companion cube down on a makeshift table and started painting.
"Where is the girl now?" The cube asked quietly.
He slumped down by the wall, folding his arms over his knees. "Oh her way to the final chamber." He set his head down on his arms morosely, trying to ignore the feeling that something bad would happen to her.
"You mean with HER?" the cube sputtered in surprise. "She doesn't have a chance!"
Rattmann reached over, pulling a folder out from under the paint can. He opened it up, reading it slowly. "Oh, she has more of a chance than you think..." He opened his mouth to say something else, only to have a huge explosion throw him onto his side, and his cube onto the floor. Paper flew through the air as the room shook its self apart. "What was that?" He struggled to push the rubble off of his fragile body. It only took a moment for him to realize something was off. A small whimper came from a nearby pile of rubble. He carefully pulled the cube out of the trash.
"Are you okay?
"T-the room shook itself to pieces."
"Like and unbalanced centrifuge."
"I heard an explosion. What could it mean?"
He slung the cube over his back and scooped up as much of Chell's file up as he could and then ran out of his room."There's only one thing it CAN MEAN."
He ran, and ran and ran, ducking through vents, climbing through holes in the walls... through the very skeleton of the giant known as the enrichment center. He climbed until he reached his objective. There she was, in all her robotic glory. GLaDOS. She lie in a pile of her own ruin, sad and vulnerable. Dead. Totally and completely. He stared in awe, "She did it. It's over."
The cube lie silent.
"The ultimate systems crash." Once again, his mind was drawn back into the past.
Doug was walking up the stairs apprehensively, staring at the huge AI that he was helping build. He shivered as he thought about just how much could go wrong. His thoughts were interrupted by one of his co-workers.
"It's been a hell of a morning. You missed all the fun. We had to hit the kill switch again."
He hurried up the rest of the stairs, staring at the huge AI hanging down from the ceiling.
He shivered again and answered his overly cheerful companion, "Henry, you have a strange idea of fun."
Henry laughed light-heartedly as usual, punching Doug's arm. He turned his laptop where both of them could see it. There wee a few charts up, marking GLaDOS' advancements and fall backs, and then impressively violent videos of her trying to kill everyone involved in the experiment. One of her seceding, pulling a man from his desk and ripping him nearly in half...the man screamed pathetically at the top of his lungs, trying to pull himself back together. The kill-switch was hit. GLaDOS drooped down sleepily as the unfortunate man was taken away. The scientist was named Wheatly or something, if Doug remembered right. In any case, he'd probably end up being used for something. Aperture labs didn't have the funds to be wasteful. He looked away in disgust as Henry went on, "Hey, we're lucky to be working on this." he spun his laptop back and started looking at more figures.
Doug shook his head, "You've got a strange idea of luck, too."
Henry snapped his laptop closed and spun around, smiling hugely, "Think about it! Every generation gets some new frontier to tackle. Einstein got relativity. The NASA Cowboys got the moon. All the easy stuff is taken." He threw his hands up, "I mean take a look around you, we're on the bleeding edge here! Artificial consciousness is the next frontier!"
Doug rolled his eyes and crossed his arms, a small smirk adorning his face. "...and yet
every time we turn it on, it takes a sixteenth of a picosecond before it tries to kill us." That man's screams would haunt him tonight.
Henry sighed, losing his unrealistically cheerful demeanor. "Last time was a tenth of a picosecond. See, we're making progress." he went on, his face becoming more serious, "I'm telling you, this is our generation's moon shoot."
A loud, rumbling voice rudely interrupted the conversation "Cave Johnson here: You lab boys quit your yappin' and get back to work! I don't pay you to sit around and talk about lipstick and feelings!" 'This has been a pre-recorded message'
I really do wish he'd stop making those.
Doug looked away from Henry, a morose look on his face, "I'd rather have gone to the moon."
He was brought back into the present, by his cube's voice, "Where's the girl? She didn't stay to check out her handiwork?"
Rattmann shook his head slightly, as he put his cube back on his back. "She must have gotten out. Probably on the surface, soaking up some sun." He smiled at the prospect. When was the last time any of them had felt that kind of warmth?
The cube piped up in agreement, "I'm sure you're right." She stopped for a moment, and then went on in a sheepish, embarrassed tone, "What is this "sun" of which you speak?"
He pulled her onto his back and started to move, feeling all the activity around himself. Surely, the turrets and other robotic monstrosities in the base would be in a state of disarray. Their metaphorical queen had just been violently deactivated. "And she had the right idea. Come on, we're wasting daylight."
"Watch out for the turrets, the queen may be dead, but this hornet's nest has been kicked."
He nodded in a agreement as he ran for the exit.
And there it was.
He pushed through the doors, suddenly finding himself immersed in the light of the sun, and fresh, clean air. A scream of 'FREEDOM!' erupted from his lips as his cube hissed at the sun.
As fast as his celebration of freedom overtook him, he was overwhelmed by another feeling entirely. "Shh, quiet down cube. I hear something."
She could sense it too, "Quick! Get down before it sees you!"
And there he saw it. Chell, his savior. His only hope... she was being pulled back into that place. He watched with wide eyes as he ducked a little farther behind a well constructed pile of rubble. "No! It's dragging her back inside." She lie defenseless as the Party Escort roughly dragged her back into the living hell that was the Aperture lab. As he watched, his shock slowly evaporated, his face falling into a stern grimace.
Once again, he remembered.
Doug worked studiously, writing notes about an updated version of the portal device that he'd been working on. He knew that it was close to being finished... so close. He wiped the sweat off of his face as he connected a few brightly colored wires. This gun was fantastic! Not only could it shoot portals at greater distances, it also had a tractor beam for picking up anything from the insignificant weight of a potato, to who knows what else. There would have to be a lot of testing on this one. No sir, we aren't banging rocks together here. he laughed absently, thinking about the founder of Aperture. He set down the device and wrote a few quick notes. His chain of thought was interrupted by the cheerful voice of his partner Henry.
"Hey, Doug, can I get a hand here?" He stumbled in awkwardly, holding what looked like a giant eye in his arms.
He shuddered at the thought, "Um, sure."
Henry held it up, a focused look on his face. " Just reach inside, past all those gears and turn on the power supply." Doug shrugged, apprehensively reaching toward the inside of the deadly looking "eye". Just as he was about to reach in, he was interrupted, "Wait a sec. Safety first. Are you right handed or left?"
"Right" He said, holding up a thin finger.
"Better use your left then." Henry mumbled with a serious look.
"Why?" Doug asked absently as he reached inside.
"Just in case."
He looked inside at the sharp looking cogs. Getting a hand stuck in there would not be a good idea. He switched it on, pulling his hand quickly to safety as the cogs started turning with finger crushing mechanical purpose. Henry made a move to walk out of the lab, a deep, thoughtful look on his face. It was one that Doug wasn't accustomed to seeing.
"What is that thing, anyway?" He tucked his hand inside his pocket, playing a little with the fabric. He was suddenly very thankful for his fingers.
Henry smiled lightly, looking very tired, "Just the latest in AI inhibition technology." He moved a little closer, letting Doug get a better look, " You can think of it as a conscience."
Doug almost laughed at the absurdity of the idea. He took a breath and tried to regain his composure. "What?" Henry chimed in, right on cue.
"If that's all you use to control her, it won't be enough." He crossed his arms, a worried look plastered to his face. I have a feeling, this is the look I'm going to wear for the rest of my life...
"Why's that?" Henry's voice was serious.
Doug sighed..."You can always ignore your conscience."
Oh... and how right he was.
He was snatched back into the present by a quiet, comforting voice, "You don't have to go back in there."
He shook his head, a look beyond depression set in on his features, "I can't just walk away."
"You're right!" The cube added shrilly, "Walking is too slow. Run away."
He slumped forward, a gesture of defeat, "Running is what I've been doing. Running and hiding."
"It's why you're still alive." She was calm, "You're not a hero. Heroes die."
A spark of guilt flashed in his eyes, "You don't understand. It's my fault she's down there. I'm not leaving her. I would have been trapped forever if not for her."
"Listen, it's too dangerous. You're going to get killed."
"So be it. But I'm done running. I have to at least try to save her. At least that."
"Then you really are crazy."
"Yeah." he sighed as he looked back at his personal hell, "Yeah, that's what they tell me."
(End Chapter 1)