Author's Note: This is a little bit of an experiment for me. It's a project I started more than five years ago but abandoned because I wasn't good enough at writing to pull it off, as it has a lot of originality to it. This is an ongoing, valiant ~attempt~ to finish it regardless.
This story heavily concerns the surface world outside of Aperture, which is an AU separate from the Half-Life/Portal 'verse. It is my own, but because the idea is so old, it is a very full-fledged and detailed AU that I've put a lot of thought into. Prepare for loads of Portal characters, humanizations, OCs, and AU worldbuilding, as this is supposed to be a pretty decently-lengthed story that chronicles the long chain of events that led up to the battle of a little place called Lunar City, and what happened there as a result.
Tl;dr: it's about damned time I tried to do something with this monster. I hope somebody out there appreciates this epic train wreck of a thing. :) So, without further ado...
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To foe of His—I'm deadly foe—
None stir the second time—
On whom I lay a Yellow Eye—
Or an emphatic Thumb—
Though I than He—may longer live
He longer must—than I—
For I have but the power to kill,
Without—the power to die—
—Emily Dickinson, My Life Had Stood—A Loaded Gun—
THE AMAZING ALLIANCE OF APERTURE SCIENCE
Chapter 1: Inside The Gateway
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4 years before the events of Portal 2
It was a very dark, cold, and rainy night, despite it being midsummer. It was the Fourth of July, not that you'd ever know it unless you poked your head inside one of the jam-packed dives on Main Street, or witnessed the explosion of one of the regular, rainbow tin-can firecrackers tossed under a parked car. A freak summer storm had been gripping the city, having drifted from the eastern seaboard a day or two ago, and it was the subject of this exact storm that followed many spirited, un-dampened greetings and salutations. It had been largely a hot, dry summer besides, and as such, the sun-dried miles upon miles of wilting wheat and barley on the countryside basked in the relief of the shrouds and curtains of rain that had persisted for most of the afternoon.
The city streets were an oil slick, the downtown core painted a lively kaleidoscope of neon from the advertisements of businesses, each trying to outdo one another and persuade the many merry party-goers to haggle and window shop, or else have a pint and shoot the bull. The eye-wateringly inviting display only had one hole-in-the-wall, a once-grand hotel, with many leering windows and a dimly lit basement parlor that had the well-earned reputation of being the dodgiest dive in Lunar City.
The place had been named The Gateway Hotel, which did nothing to dispel the rumors that had circulated about the place for many years. They said that it was haunted by the ghosts of the men who had come to Lunar City back when it had been nothing more than a struggling mine-town, and that they had stayed at The Gateway while they had worked—and died—in the mines.
Stories had been swapped so many times in the parlor of the old Gateway so often that it was a miracle that there was still a crowd around to listen. But late in the evening on the rainiest Fourth of July on record, there was no shortage of listeners, not even for balding Mister Barney Bowtley, who was one of the long-term residents of the derelict hotel.
"'Woken up three times last week! Three times, god's sake! By the same sound in the pipes. Sounded like… sounded like moaning. And clattering. Clattering and moaning, or my hearing's as gone as Chris Pennyman after a double shot of Rye."
"Pretty well gone, then, Barney," grunted the bartender over the tinkle and thump of mugs being put down and the sound of scattered laughter.
The man called Barney was sitting at a table against a wall opposite the bar, and had drawn a bit of a crowd in addition to the drinking-mates hand selected to sit at his table. It was always so, in the parlor of the Gateway—Barney was a regular, and he always had a story to tell; and the barman, Jim, he was called, quite enjoyed listening to his tales.
"So you really think this place is haunted?" asked a younger-looking boy seated around Barney. He looked to be no older than twenty-one, and his face was milky white under his freckles and mop of dark brown hair.
"Oh, yes, son," said Barney casually. "Don't I know it. Jim knows it. Everybody who's ever stayed at The Gateway knows it," he said, to nods and general agreeance. "Hundreds of missing workers, over the years, you know! All disappeared. Just gone. Checked in, and never checked out, ain't that right, Jim?"
"Aye," said Jim distantly, wiping a glass.
"And what's more, they never said much about them mines, did they? Kept quiet. Nobody knew a thing 'a' what they were diggin' for. It became a great mystery. Some folks even went so far as to take a hike through the fields to the mines and see for themselves what'd happened. Authorities were everywhere, once'a'pon a time. But they never found 'nothin', did they? Didn't report anythin' on the news, at least. All got hushed up, for some reason."
"And what happened to them, the people who'd gone to look? What did they find out?" asked the pale boy, quite forgetting about his drink.
Barney took a long draught before he continued. "Dunno," he grunted. "Never came back."
"What'd'you mean, 'never came back'?" asked a tall man seated at the rear of the crowd.
"Can I say it any plainer? They never came back."
"But what happened?" asked the boy, frowning. Over the bar, a smile tugged at the edge of Jim's mouth, before he went back to wiping the dust from a glass. He'd heard this one a time or two before.
"Nobody knows," continued Barney. "See, that's the myst'ry of it. They disappeared, and some of 'em had people who came lookin' for 'em. Raised quite a stink about it, too, but they never found 'em. They said, that there was somethin', somethin' livin' down in those mines that didn't like to be found, an' when all those Yanks from the coast came over here, lookin' for work, all those men who fought in the war and all that, when they came here and dug them holes, or did whatever they did, they found somethin' down there they weren't a match for. An' their spirits, some of 'em escaped, and some didn't, and of the ones who did, some came back here, an—"
"That's a load of crap," the tall man interrupted.
Barney took a minute to reply. He sipped his beer, and then tilted his chair back against the wall, casting his face in semi-shadow.
"If that's what you want'a believe," Barney said finally. "But anyone 'round here'll tell you—you don't cross the fields in the east, them ones behind that big house up on the hill. And they'll tell you, too, that there's something in the ground that makes the ground move when you're not lookin'. They'll tell'ya, there's somethin' in there that makes the plants grow slow and the water taste funny. Everybody in Lunar City knows, you don't grow crops, because nothin' grows here except that wheat. It's no good for bread anyways, and you don't drink the water."
There was silence.
"Is that really why the water tastes funny?" asked the boy, finally, turning around to look at the barman.
"Don't I know it," answered Jim. "Only funny folk drink the water. Like the Rat Man." His eyes flicked briefly to the corner of the room, and several heads turned. "I'll bet he drinks the water," he whispered.
"Oi!" called Barney suddenly, and a few people jumped and slopped beer down their fronts. "Speaking of, ol' Rat Man!"
The attention of the group was diverted toward a dark corner, where a pair of the most eccentric and unlikely drinking mates you'd ever see sat. One man, his back to the crowd, looked quite ancient, with wispy, frizzy white hair. A ludicrous amount of rings decorated his crooked fingers, and a pair of cracked spectacles hung from his nose. He had the look of a man who had once been handsome, but age and pouring over one too many textbooks had given him the rather amusing appearance of something between a mad scientist and someone's goofy great uncle. His companion was obviously the one who was called the Rat Man; younger than the Mad Scientist, and yet still very old, he had the distinct air of one who spent most of his time within a confined space. He was sallow and stooped in his chair, and fidgeted in a jerky, twitchy manor, shielding his face with thin hands from onlookers. It was clear at a glance why he was called the Rat Man.
The Mad Scientist turned in his chair and spoke in a cheerful manner to the room. "How do you do, how do you do," he twirled his hands in greeting. "I am Clifford, and I see you have met my comrade, Doctor Rattmann. I was out for a stroll when I bumped into him by chance, and we fancied a drink. Charming place, this." He nodded at the barman, and Jim nodded back.
"We was all wondering what you and your friend could tell us about the world below the wheat, Rat Man."
Clifford's smile faltered.
"I-I'm afraid we don't know what you're talking about."
"Come off," slurred Barney, clearly drunk. "I know you, old man. You work for that guy, the one that owns that house on the hill. You're the gardener, or somethin', right? That rich man owns that house, and that house is as cozy with that wheat and barley as I'd ever get, and I don't mean the wet kind," he raised his mug, "Hic. You must know what happened to them folk in the house, right?"
"If you mean Mister Johnson, I'll have you know that he passed away quite a few years ago." Though Clifford's voice was level, something like a shadow shifted in the depths of his crinkled eyes.
"Ah! See!" This piece of information seemed to rouse Barney. He stood up on his chair, brandishing his mug to loud cheers. "Somethin' happened to him, too, then. Good ol'—wha' was his name, then? Hic. Caldwell? No, that's not it. Corning? Hic."
"I believe it was Cave, Mister Barney," supplied Jim.
"Right you are," said Barney with another hiccup and a nod. "Cave. Cave Johnson! That's no coincidence, then, that the Cave Monster got 'im."
"There is no monster—"
But at that second, a rolling clap of thunder sounded from outside. "Jesus," whispered Jim, eyeing the grimy windows with distaste. "This is getting to be some storm."
"There is a monster," Barney spoke loudly over the thunder, "Because it wasn't no machine—wasn't no machine! That made them holes in the ground, was it."
Again, there was silence, save only for the sound of heavy rain beating against the bar's windows, and the slight whisper of linen as the Rat Man shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
Clifford spoke first. His voice was a whisper. "How do you know about that?"
Barney took another long draught. "I've seen it," he finally said, sitting down, sombre. "I've seen it with my own eyes."
The bar went silent again for a time before the Rat Man spoke for the first time, his lips barely moving. "What did you say?"
"I said," said Barney absently, "I've seen it."
"You've seen the pits?"
"Yes, an' ones bigger than a man, bigger than this room! Dark, inside. Dark… except for the lights."
"Lies," the Rat Man hissed.
Barney sat up straighter in his chair, fixing the Rat Man with a calculating look. The onlookers' heads were swivelling between the two in stunned silence. The Rat Man hardly ever spoke.
"I'm tellin' the truth," Barney continued, still watching the Rat Man closely. He had shrank back into the shadows, and his companion Clifford looked at a loss of what to do or say. "What, you don't think somethin' tore great chunks of the earth away, like that? Whatever makes the lights, makes the holes. Bad news, I'll say. Great big hidey holes for whatever's'n there and wants to come out at night. Some'a those lights, they had the look of eyes. Wha'd'ya say about that, Rat Man, great big eyes—"
But whatever Barney was going to say next, his admirers never found out, because as quick as the flash of forked lightning that illuminated the bar's windows, the Rat Man's hands were around his throat, and he was shouting, 'do not speak of it, do not speak of it!'. Everyone in the bar was yelling at once; Jim hopped clean over the bar to help and Clifford leapt from his chair, both joining the throng stampeding to break up the fight. Several glasses fell, and the sound of broken glass was added to the din; tables and chairs were thrown back and the two men fell to the floor. With effort, the Rat Man was pulled off of Barney, who began choking and yelling, his eyes streaming; and with surprising strength, the Rat Man shoved Jim off of him, who had been about to forcibly remove him from his bar. He leapt to the safety of a shadowy corner, muttering cryptic warnings and threats, and something about a 'Her'; his voice was shaking and his hands were wrapped around his knees as he rocked himself slowly.
Clifford followed him to the corner, pain and regret etched in the lines of his aged face. "Come on, up you get," he coaxed the Rat Man to his feet, and led him toward the door, shaking his head sadly at Barney as he passed. "Mind them, now, let's get you home, it's not so bad..."
"Madman!" yelled several of the onlookers, much to the barman's displeasure; Jim was trying to keep the mass from rioting in the parlor.
Barney was choking, egging them on. "Yeah! An' get out, an' stay out, you madmen!" He sniffed violently and downed the rest of his drink.
Lightning flashed just as they reached The Gateway's exit and Clifford wrenched the door open, ushering the Rat Man out into the storm, both men pulling the hoods of their travelling cloaks over their heads as they went. The door banged shut behind them, and a clap of thunder rolled loudly over The Gateway, while its crowded parlor broke out in whispers of glee and gossip as the two men disappeared into the wild night.
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