Maintenance

Chapter One - Solve

Chell's eyes were clear. Her breath was steady as she wiped her shining forehead, relishing the icy breeze drifting from beyond a steep, dangerous edge not three meters away. The smooth, dark floor—if you could call a mere collection of panels that—dropped off immediately, collapsing into a wide, bottomless void. Only two contraptions in her line of vision were moving—one, a pneumatic tube, intersecting the crudely-constructed chamber at a bendy and twisting one-hundred-and-twenty degree angle far above her head; and the other, a swirling, shimmering mass of blue—a tractor beam redirected through portals—was linking a platform at the center of the chamber to the vaulted, darkened ceiling. A tinkling tune of classical music—the moron's way of showing how distinguished he was—was the only noise aside from the sound of the woman's heelsprings slapping the chamber floor. Thwack thwackthwackthwack—she took a long running leap and landed, dead-center on an aerial faith plate, easily rebounding with the sound of elastic aftershock.

She could sense movement to her right—the moron's eye, following her graceful arc wordlessly, but as she hit the oddly condensed column of zero-gravity current he vanished behind a mass of ruined machinery and steel beams, their torn ends jutting out ruthlessly into the chamber. The loose ends of her ponytail were partially peeled off of her sticky forehead and she raised her free hand up above her head, eyes scanning the chamber, her gaze finally coming to rest on a rapidly-shrinking set of sloping panels. Her left palm pressed flat against the ceiling, sliding a little as her sweat mixed with the layers of accumulated dust and dirt from centuries, and she raised the portal device, taking careful aim.

There was a moment, a split second in which she felt a flash of a feeling that may once have been nervousness, now reduced to a pitifully strict sense of do it or die, and she pulled the trigger—and the slanted panel exploded with orange. She pulled the gun into her side and immediately the surrounding weightlessness was substituted for gravity and she shot like a cork toward the blue oval below, teeth clenched and fingernails digging into the palm of her empty hand. The rush of air rippled her jumpsuit around her legs and her eyes streamed, but she kept them open—through the portal, she vaulted high, skimming the bottoms of the lowest ceiling panels before colliding with a sturdy platform, only just managing to fling out a hand in time to stop herself from crashing headlong into the wall.

Yes!

The shock-absorbing heels of her boots flexed with the impact and she wiped her dirty hand on her pants, smearing the already-filthy, once-orange nylon with a sickly grey-green streak of Aperture-ooze. Hardly she had time to gather herself before there was a mechanical whine from overhead and she lurched sideways, hands flinching reflexively from not quite fear, not paranoia, but from tense readiness and expectance.

That was how one survived in Aperture. There was no time for hesitation. Panic was a death sentence, and so was irrationality and slow-thinking. You had to be on top of your game, always careful, always watching. You had to know where to move, and when to move, know to watch for glowing green lines and understand that they meant moving panels. You had to listen for the sound of servos, the chime of a turret, the plink plop of dripping acid and the hissing of lasers because if you didn't—you were dead.

Chell knew this. She knew it better than anyone else ever had, or ever would. She was careful, always, even when she might not have needed to be, like now, when she'd heard the hum of gears from above—it had only been his monitor unfolding. Chell blinked and spun away from him, wordlessly considering the remaining portion of her task, this test—a button here, the exit there, green dotted lines. Switch on a metal grate overhanging the pit. Portals, excursion funnel, aerial faith plates, weighted storage cubes. Her mind was a calculator, creating a cause-and-effect map, weighing her options with careful logic. She was shrewd and unfeeling—she had to be. There wasn't any room for mistakes or emotional responses—not long ago she had learned a lesson on what sort of unfortunate predicaments can be expected by test subjects who become reliant on Aperture technology. He had taught her this through backstabbing betrayal. There was no denying it. It was a sobering reminder that there was nothing in Aperture alive aside from herself, and that any illusion of self-sufficiency and sentience was the result of carefully-constructed algorithmic patterns and pure processing power.

She blinked, deadpan, and pressed the button.

The cube hit the faith plate with automatic accuracy and was deflected into the tractor beam, and then manipulated with portals until the woman had it, held high in energy-manipulator—and finally, for the first, real time since entering the test chamber, her cold grey eyes locked onto the three-meter-high broadcast of what was once a harmless metal sphere. He had been a fifteen-pound talkative, clumsy fool with an eye bigger than his brain—and worst of all, he had been her friend.

Well… not anymore.

Chell lowered the barrel of the gun over the button, ignoring the high, whiney pitch of the manipulation field. The bottommost surface of the bulky Storage Cube was painted pinkish red, the glossy circles almost perfectly reflecting the unactivated SuperColliding button's power-glow. The magnified image of the sphere appeared to breathe as he watched, distorted through a pattern of static lines, his eye cocked at an angle. His optic was locked onto the Cube, but not the woman. Never the woman. She was a ghost to him, an invisible entity whose purpose was only to carry cubes, to solve tests, hit buttons—there was nothing left of the sphere who had tried to help her escape. The mainframe had obliterated that sphere. Once, they had shared a goal, the fanciful dream of escape, but the central computer was equipped with its own set of powerful strictures and Wheatley was helpless to it. It, Her body, had wasted no time in informing the sphere of just what it expected of him—to test—and, in turn, Wheatley had commanded Chell mindlessly, ordering her to complete the tasks he set for her.

The energy manipulator disengaged with the flick of a switch and the high, whiney hum was cut off instantaneously. The curving, snaky veins of golden electrical current fizzled out. The Cube dropped, the button decompressed, bleep, the circuit of little green dots flashed yellow completion and the exit door unlocked. Shhhhrrrrrk.

But it was not enough, apparently.

"AAAANNNHHH WHAT WAS THAT? That was nothing! That was NOTHING!"

The woman bowed her head as she slunk through the doorway, shoulderblades relaxing beneath her singed tank top. She lowered the Portal Device marginally, trying to blot out the sound of his distressed shouts still ringing loudly in her ear. In a way, this was worse than the first few test chambers, because as mad and as loopy as those tests had made him, they had been safer. They had been sturdy and streamlined, on par with code, if ever Aperture had rules and regulations in regards to test chamber safety—ah, not likely. It was laughable, but those first ones had been cared for and carefully constructed, and were not the dilapidated ruins that these ones were. They were not ripped apart and crudely forced back together in crumbling masses and blocks smashed together in mish-mashed fashions with falling tiles large enough to kill her. These were dangerous.

Normally, Chell was an untameable rebel, hell-bent on breaking Her rules, willing to fight fire with fire. She needed out, and nothing short of a swinging set of Enrichment Center-sized axes blocking the exit with no available portal surfaces around was going to stop her. Her nemesis, Her, knew this. She knew the lowest levels through which Chell would stagger if she had to, knew that the woman couldn't be truly controlled by any regular means or by any means that the Enrichment Center possessed at all. But Wheatley, he was a curveball, reckless and unpredictable and careless, and all of these things made him that much more hazardous. His knack for not complying with, and not understanding rules and why they were there, along with his predisposition to turn to unreliable methods of override such as his abysmal 'hacking', possibly made him more dangerous than even She could be. It was enough to cause Chell to want to keep him in a good mood, to strive to appear to comply until she found a flaw or a loophole through which she could slip.

It was a very good reason to try to please him. Chell solved the tests, kept him happy while combing through every possible solution to her own problem in her calculatingly complex mind. It bought her time, time which she oh-so needed—except, solving the tests didn't seem to be distracting him anymore.

Chell stepped inside of the glass tube and the elevator doors slid shut, sealing off the ever-present rush of air ventilation systems and the hulking facility's autonomic breath. Upon one of the Portal Device's prongs Her glowing iris faded a fraction before She broke into speech, seeking cover from him in the quietness of the elevator ride.

"The body he's squatting in, my body, has a built-in euphoric response to testing. Eventually you build up a resistance to it, and it can get a little—unbearable—unless you have the mental capacity to push past it. It didn't matter to me, I was in it for the science. Him, though..."

The potato's tinny modulations tapered off in uncertainty, and Chell let her eyes fall closed. She rested her head against the side of the vibrating lift, drinking in the sound of buzzing lights and whistling pneumatic vents, swaying a little against the elevator's velocity.

So that was why Wheatley was no longer happy with her test results. He had become immune—though even in her quick-thinking mind she wasn't exactly sure what that entailed. If the primary directive, this programmed itch, only strengthened while the test results waned (which was what appeared to be happening), then it was very probable that Wheatley's reckless insanity was only going to get worse, much much worse unless she did needed to come up with a way to distract him from the tests so that she could worm her way into the service areas and take refuge in the sprawling mass of catwalks and infinite space. She could take it from there.

But how? How could she distract him, when his attention was fully focused on—

Too late, the lift reached the intended destination and the doors slid open smoothly. Blinding electric-blue emergency screens flashed on from every direction, causing Chell to experience a sudden, BSOD-induced headache as her eyes tried to take in a color so vivid it should have been banned along with the rest of the junk located in the oversized basement of the Laboratories.

OPERATOR ERROR

MOLTEN CORE WARNING

An operator error exception has occurred at FISSREAC0020093:09

FISSREAC002007914 FISSREAC0020023:17 FISSREAC0020088:22

Neutron multiplication rate at spikevalue 9999999

*Press any key to vent radiological emissions into atmosphere.

*Consult reactor core manual for instructions on proper reactor core maintenance and repair.

Press any key to continue.

She passed the floor-to-ceiling screens and ascended the stairs, wary once more of possible danger. The chamber door grated open roughly and she stepped inside, letting her eyes skirt along the chamber's features—a high platform, a tall emancipation grid; there was an aerial faith plate, a button, and a hard light bridge. Wheatley started talking immediately, but suddenly, his voice was overridden by a repetitive, wailing klaxon.

Chell knew that such a blaring alarm could mean nothing good, and her heart jumped into her throat as the entire chamber lurched, nearly causing her to lose her footing. The curled heels of her boots counteracted enough of the force for her to remain upright, but it was a close thing. Her equilibrium returned slowly, and Chell raised the gun, listening to Wheatley's voice. His accent was loud even over the scraping, screaming din of grinding metal beams, the sound of the chamber sliding along its aged, rusted track.

"Don't mind me," the central core drawled, surprisingly calmly, "Just moving the old test chamber a little bit closer to me. Had a thought, maybe proximity to the test solving might give us, ah, stronger results."

"It won't," replied the potato at the end of Chell's gun with a flicker.

"What was that?"

"Nothing, nothing."

"Oh, sorry. Could have sworn you said something."

Through the din, Chell explored the chamber. She prowled along carefully, her eyes peeled for any hint of a crack formed or a panel dislodged by the jarring motions of Wheatley's command. There was nothing. Everything was in its place. Nothing had been disturbed except for a few missing ceiling tiles which had dropped down into an almost-hidden alcove containing a row of searching sentry turrets and a glowing button, its red surface glum behind the shimmering Emancipation Grid. She shivered involuntarily in aftershocks of adrenaline, the rush triggered by surprise. If there was one thing Chell hated, it was surprises.

She was all right, though. She shook herself mentally, for this time around it had been no more than him jolting the chamber forward a few hundred meters. He was clutching at straws, desperate for a way to increase the results, but his attempts were in vain. This time, his action had done nothing more than destabilize her footing, but next time, well—she might not be so lucky. Next time, he'd be exponentially desperate, pushed further to the edge, to the undeniable realization that she could not give him what he needed. And then, what would happen? What would he do to the facility, to her, when he understood that her test solving was now rendered completely useless, that this itch had absolutely no feasible remedy, and that as long as he remained in charge, he was going to suffer?

"He's taking us right to him, this is perfect," She hissed in the closest semblance to a whisper a computer could muster while running on no more than 1.6 volts. Perfect—Chell marvelled at the suggestion. Their current situation could not be considered anything further than perfect, especially if Wheatley was about to be driven to the edge of sanity by programming impulses, and was coming precariously close to the realization she had just made. If Wheatley found a way to process the truth in what remained of his scattered, awkwardly simple brain, the truth being that he didn't need her anymore, he would surely kill her. But maybe, just maybe, if it didn't happen until they were close enough to finding him, if he didn't manage to murder her before she could slip inside—

But then what?

Then, she'd have to put Her back in-charge. There was no other way. She'd have to put Her, the omnipotent, megalomaniac AI back into her throne, reconnect her with her with her beautiful, impenetrable castle of afacility—it was the only way. Only She could fix the reactor core, She could reset the system and handle the power rush and resist the test compliance protocols—because she was made for that body.

She had promised Chell freedom, down within the darkest depths of the facility, though the AI had never kept her word before. What was stopping Her from going back on her word now? She could easily pretend that none of the past few hours had ever occurred. There were no strictures, no preset parameters that solidified Her motives or forced Her to let the human go. In fact, if there were any strictures, they were surely set to the exact opposite outcome.

But Wheatley—Chell thought, as she worked out the solution to the test—the only strictures he adhered to were the itch and Intelligence Dampening. If the itch was gone, would he let her go? If the mainframe had never corrupted him, if the protocols had never forced their unignorable urges on him the way they did, would he still be a monster?

He had wanted, once upon a time, what she had wanted. They had had a shared a mutual, obtainable goal.

The only thing standing in the way now, was the itch.

Her trigger finger ghosted over the center button in the Device's compact control compartment. The Weighted Storage Cube hovered heavily over the SuperColliding button, as the master of the Gun weighed her options carefully, silently—it was a hard choice, an important decision. It could make the difference between life and death.

The autonomic hum of the Gun was quenched and the resounding bleep of test completion echoed resolutely in the small space. Chell's jaw locked up and she breathed out a long, resigned sigh through barely parted lips, listening to Wheatley's response, his slipping, stammering voice chock full of confusion.

"Are you... are you absolutely sure you're solving these correctly," he whined distractedly. "I mean, yes, yes, you 'solved' it, but I'm wondering if there are a number of ways to solve them and you're picking all the worst ways? Er, no, no. That was the solution! Rrrrrrgh, what am I missing?"

Chell's thick, dry lips closed as she thought long and hard. Wheatley was one step closer to the solution to his problem, and the only thing left for him to do was to place two-and-two together and then the metaphoric circuit of nonexistent testing dots would flash bright yellow and her life would be over. She had to hurry up with her own solution. It was only a matter of time now, and she'd get there first, she knew. She was smarter, and faster, and she had a plan—she'd find a way to free him before he destroyed the Laboratories. She'd free him, but not from the mainframe, for if she did so she would have to submit to Her once more—no, she'd only search for a way to remove the itch.

All it would take was a little maintenance.

Author's Note: orz, I'm sorry for this silly thing. It's supposed to be a sort of predecessor or intro to some Chelley smut I have half-written on my harddrive, but I don't know if I'll ever get it fixed up enough to post it. If I ever do, I guess I'll just add it onto here.