Jack Frost lay asleep in a tree near his lake in Burgess, his staff cradled in his arms like a stuffed animal. Curled up on the branch he was laying on, the white haired, blue hoodie clad teen spirit was completely unaware of the shadow that crept up the tree behind him in the pre-dawn twilight. The shadow soon gained shape, forming into a tall, lanky man who wore black robes and had black hair, grey skin, and golden eyes. Pitch Black, for that was the man's name, silently slipped Jack's staff out of his arms and suddenly shoved him off the branch as an orange rimmed hole opened up in the ground below the limb. With his work done, Pitch slipped away just as suddenly and silently as he'd arrived, taking Jack's staff with him and leaving no sign that he'd ever been there.

Jack fell into the hole and, before he'd even had the chance to fully awaken, found himself falling down into a room from another hole in its ceiling, the two holes connecting and forming a sort of tunnel. The boy lay senseless on the floor for a moment before glancing up, still dazed, to see the hole disappear without a trace. As he sat up slowly, rubbing his head and jaw gingerly, a knock on the room's nearby door caught his attention just before it opened and a man poked his head in, peeking around before stepping into the room. The man was tall and lanky, had medium length golden blonde hair that verged on being light brown, had sapphire blue eyes which almost seemed to glow in the dark room, wore a white lab coat with a blue tie, had wire-frame glasses which had rectangular lenses, and wore black shoes. As the man caught sight of Jack staring half-stunnedly up at him from the floor, he froze in his tracks and started shouting, speaking in a strong British accent. "Oy! Who in the bloody 'eck are you?! 'Ow'd you get in 'ere?! I can't bloody well believe this! I just got back from bloody space and already there's whacky stuff goin' on and people fallin' from the bloody ceiling! Oh... Oh dear... The... Is.. Is the... Is the ceiling malfunctioning again? Oh... Man alive, I hope it's not... I don't wanna have to talk to Her again!"

Jack blinked bemusedly up at him for a moment, trying to gather his wits. "Who's 'Her' exactly? And who're you for that matter? I'm Jack Frost. Nice to meet ya."

The man chuckled softly and gave him a friendly grin. "I'm Wheatley. Nice to know you can talk, Mate. The last test subject I looked after couldn't. I asked her say 'apple' and she jumped! Can you believe that? Bloody mad!" Jack couldn't stop himself from laughing at that, but he calmed himself as Wheatley continued. "Anyways, 'Her' is the gal that runs this whole place. She's really bloody terrifying... So... 'Ow'd you get in 'ere any'ow?"

Jack grinned and shrugged. "To be honest, I have absolutely no clue. One moment I'm fast asleep in a tree and the next thing I know, I'm falling out of the tree, into this hole in the ground, out of a hole in the ceiling here, and landing on the floor. The really weird thing is, the holes looked colored around the edges... It may have just seemed that way because I was still half-asleep and really out of it, but the edges of the first one looked orange and, just before the one in the ceiling disappeared, just before you came in, I could swear the edges were blue..." Jack trailed off, contemplating the strange events that had unfolded so far. Wheatley looked unsettled and when Jack noticed, he looked up at him curiously. "What's up?"

Wheatley chuckled nervously and shrugged. "The sky?" He laughed along with the teen for a moment before he sighed, raking a hand through his hair and ruffling it up. "Seriously, though, those colored holes you mentioned sound an awful lot like portals to me..."

Jack cocked his head in curiosity, a quick, bird-like movement which was a trait that he'd picked up from spending a lot of time with Toothiana and Baby Tooth along with the other little faeries that helped collect teeth. "Portals? What do you mean?"

Wheatley shrugged once more, looking as confused as Jack. "I don't understand 'em much myownself, honestly. About all I can tell you is that they're hole-like things that you can put on things using a special gun, and they connect together to make a sort of tunnel-like thing that can take you from one portal to the other. It's bloody brilliant really!"

Jack couldn't keep himself from looking impressed. "That does sound useful. Say... Where exactly am I, anyways? This doesn't look like any place I've ever seen before..."

At the question, Wheatley looked nervous again and glanced about warily before moving closer, kneeling down, and whispering very quietly to Jack. "This, Mate, is the Aperture Science Enrichment Center, and please believe me when I say that you do not want to stick around 'ere. We need to get you out of 'ere."

Jack grew nervous and uneasy at Wheatley's response, a wave of fear creeping over and threatening to engulf him. He tried his best not to show it and his confusion made the feat slightly easier. He was rather proud of his ability to keep his voice from shaking as he spoke, trying to make himself sound casual and unconcerned. "Why? What's so bad about this place? It seems alright to me."

Wheatley's straightened up and stiffened, his eyes wide in shock. "What's so bad?! Jack-o, 'aven't ye 'eard the rumors and stories about this place, Mate?!"

Taken aback by his new friend's intense reaction and feeling like he was missing something very important, the young winter sprite shrugged uncomfortably. "I've never heard of anything by the name of Aperture before..."

Wheatley blinked and scratched the back of his head. "Never heard of Aperture? I could'a sworn we were rather infamous..." He sighed. "Mate... This place used to run tests all the time and had several people participating in them... Only, well... a lot of the tests were... um... well a bit dangerous, if I'm honest, and uh... most of the test subjects...well... they died..."

Jack's unease grew with the revelation and he couldn't stop himself from tensing and shivering as he looked around him, seeing his surroundings in a new and suddenly sinister light. The fear only intensified when he looked around frantically for his staff and couldn't find it anywhere. Wheatley noticed the boy's anxiety and shuffled closer to him, laying a hand on his shoulder in hopes of reassuring and comforting him. When Jack looked back up at him, his icy blue eyes were wide and dilated with the fear that washed over him in waves, nearly overtaking and overwhelming him. He couldn't keep his voice steady this time. It shook as he spoke and was very quiet, the young spirit's instincts screaming at him to not let himself be overheard. "Do you know how to get out of here then? Can you help me?"

Wheatley nodded and gave a warm, reassuring smile. "Aye, just follow me, Mate. You stick with Ol' Wheatley and ye'll be outta 'ere in no time, Pal." Jack nodded with a weak grin and stood up very slowly, his legs wobbling and threatening to give way beneath him. Wheatley noticed this and helped him to his feet after standing up himself, giving the boy a few moments to steady and compose himself. When he took off, running out of the room and down a hallway, the winter sprite was running right behind him and following him closely.

The two friends traveled like that in relative silence for awhile before Wheatley stopped and looked around, seeming nervous. When Jack paused next to him and looked up at him curiously, the core sighed. "Okay, cards on the table... I got bad news, Mate. Looks like, in order to get you out of 'ere, we're gonna need to go through some of the old testing tracks... Again..." When Jack's expression shifted from questioning to confused, Wheatley decided to clarify. "Ye see, 'round about a year ago, I helped a test subject escape from 'ere. Chell was her name, if I remember right. She's the test subject I mentioned earlier that couldn't speak. Any'ow, in order to escape, she had to get a portal gun which was in the old testing tracks. Matter o' fact, we should probably get you that old portal gun... According to my sensors, it should be back in old tracks somewhere..." Wheatley looked the door in front of them over thoroughly. "Hmm... Umm... Yeah... Looks like I'm gonna have to hack this door in order to open it... Oh well. Shouldn't be a problem. Now let me see here... Maybe it needs a password... Oh, oh! I know, I know, I know! Open Sesame!" Wheatley and Jack both watched the door for a beat, but it didn't so much as twitch, let alone open.

Jack sighed and shrugged. "And here I thought that always worked..."

The man, which Jack now suspected to actually be an android given his implication of having sensors, gave a sigh of his own as well before backing up a ways. "Right then. I'm gonna have to break out the hard core, expert level hacking maneuvers... I didn't wanna have to do this but you asked for it, Mate! You brought it on yourself!", Wheatley said to the door before letting out a war cry and charging at it at full speed. The door opened with a grating noise and a hiss just before Wheatley collided with it which caused him to halt on the spot and spin to look back at the door in surprise. "Oh... Must've scared it open... Um... Just like I planned actually..."

Jack chuckled and gave a friendly roll of his eyes with a kind grin on his face as he followed his friend into the room. "Whatever you say, Pal." Once inside, he stopped and looked around the gloomy chamber warily. It was a dark, medium sized room with vines dangling from the ceiling and growing along the walls. There was a stack of metal cubes laying in there as well.

Seeing nothing threatening, he stepped further into the room and unknowingly crossed into the path of a red laser sight that he hadn't noticed before Wheatley could warn him or stop him. When he heard a child-like voice call out into the eerie silence, "Target Acquired", however, Jack scrambled frantically to get out of the way. He leapt behind the stack of cubes as a spray bullets was fired off. Peeking around the stack, he shivered when the same innocent sounding voice called out again. "...Are you still there...?" Jack resisted the brief temptation to answer it, ducked back behind the cubes, and turned his attention, instead, to Wheatley who had jogged over, as quickly and stealthily as he could, with concern written all over his features. Before he could speak, however, Jack did. "Now what do we do?! How in the world can we get passed that thing without getting shot?" Wheatley thought for a moment before perking up and clapping his hands, nearly bouncing around in his excitement. "Oh, oh! I know! When Chell ran into some of those turrets, she'd just knock 'em down!" Jack perked up at hearing that and grinned, an idea forming in his mind. Using his powers, even though they were somewhat limited by the loss of his staff which acted as a conduit for them, he managed to summon a snowball into his hand which Wheatley eyed curiously. He risked another peek at the turret before hurling the snowball at it with all of his might. The snowball collided with the turret in a burst of snow and knocked it over. After a spray of bullets, the turret shut down with a quiet "I don't hate you" which made Jack feel guilty. After looking around for more turrets and not seeing any of them or their tell-tale lasers, Jack cautiously crept out from his hiding spot and walked over to the fallen turret. He stared down at it for a moment before grabbing it, setting it upright, and giving it a gentle pat on its shiny, white hull. When he noticed Wheatley staring at him with a mixture of curiosity, incredulity, and even awe, Jack shrugged nonchalantly. "I felt bad knocking it over like that. I couldn't bring myself to just leave it."

The core gave a soft, amused chuckle and shook his head in admiration. "You're a strange one, Mate. Anyone else wouldn't 'ave thought twice about knocking it over and leaving it. I suppose you're at least a good kind of strange. Come on now. Follow me an' let's get outta 'ere." As Wheatley took off running again, the immortal teen followed him while dragging his hand along the wall which made frost bloom from his fingertips and curl along the wall after him. Wheatley watched with amazement as the fern-like patterns wove their way along the wall with a soft, light crackling sound. "Corr... That's somethin' else, Mate... 'Ow'd ye do that?"

Jack grinned sheepishly and shrugged, rubbing the back of his neck in a shy gesture. "Just a perk of being the Spirit of Winter. Thought I'd brighten things up a bit in here."

Wheatley chuckled and guided the boy out of the room through a panel in the wall that he'd opened, leading him into a big, open space that was full of metal catwalks, railing, and pipes which criss-crossed their way through the area. Jack looked around with curiosity and amazement written plainly across his features, something that made his friend chuckle. He wandered along the catwalk for a few moments, feeling the cold, hard metal beneath his feet as he followed Wheatley. Suddenly the boy grinned and sprung into the air before landing smoothly and lightly on the handrail in a crouch, his toes curling instinctively around the rail to keep him balanced. The height did nothing to faze him in the slightest and he grinned as he leaned over to get a better look at what lay below him. Wheatley shuddered at the dizzying drop even though he kept firmly to the center of the catwalk which ensured that he was in no danger of falling. "Yeah, the place is huge. It goes down for miles and miles underground. Pretty spooky huh?"

Jack chuckled and turned to him with a grin, his previous fear of the place now vanished. "No way; this is great. What's down there? Do you know?"

Wheatley gave a shrug. "I've never actually been down there myself, Mate, so all I could tell you is things I've heard; rumors and stories mostly. Apparently that's an old section of Aperture, the original testing facilities and whatnot, that was quarantined and sealed off years and years ago. It was just abandoned for some odd reason. I'm not sure anyone, even She, knows why, really."

Jack pondered that information for a moment, wondering what made the lower parts of the lab more dangerous than the small portion he'd seen so far of the higher levels. "Whatever made them close it off must've been pretty bad, even worse than the turret things that are up here. I wonder what..."

"I couldn't tell ya, Mate. I just 'ave no clue," Wheatley responded quietly. He wandered off along the catwalk with Jack following him while walking on the handrail. This made the android nervous at first, knowing he might be unable to catch the boy if he fell, so he watched him carefully. After several moments passed and Jack managed to jog along the handrail without even the slightest hint of losing his balance, Wheatley relaxed and turned back around.

Jack glanced around, feeling a bit uneasy. Biting he lip, he decided to voice his thoughts to his friend. "Does it feel like we're being watched to you?"

Wheatley gave a rather dry chuckle. "Oh I'm sure we are, Jack-o. She's got bloody cameras all over the flippin' place in 'ere."

Spotting one of said cameras, Jack grinned and summoned up a snowball before hurling it at the camera, hitting it right on the lens. The boy and android both laughed before jumping startledly when a computerized, mostly monotone female voice spoke out. "Please refrain from attacking, damaging, and otherwise destroying laboratory equipment. Thank you."

Jack looked around for the source of the voice when he noticed Wheatley shivering and whimpering, curling in on himself while trying to stay standing. When the android sensed his friend's questioning gaze, he sighed. "That's Her... The gal that runs this place... She's the one I've been warnin' ya about, Mate..."

The winter spirit shivered at the revelation and looked around warily, jumping again when the voice spoke up once more. "You are Jack Frost correct?" At the boy's hesitant nod, it continued. "I am GLaDOS. I run and oversee the testing here at the Aperture Science Enrichment Center. I am sure you're wondering why you are here, correct?" When Jack nodded again, GLaDOS proceeded to explain. "You were summoned down here because I want you to run a few tests. I have a bit of a problem and was told you could help; I wish to see if this is true. You will, of course, be free to go afterwords as will your friends."

Jack stiffened at her last words. "My friends? They're down here too?! Are they alright?!"

GLaDOS chuckled dryly. "Oh they're just fine for the moment. And they'll continue to be so long as they keep their wits about them in the test chambers."

Jack relaxed marginally with the reassurance and then sighed. "I suppose I have no choice then... What do you need me to do? What sort of problem am I supposed to be helping you with exactly?"

"Just run the tests that I will have Wheatley accompany you through. The problem is none of your concern for the time being. Good luck."

When a clicking noise sounded over the intercom, signaling that the connection had been cut off, the two friends sighed, Jack giving a shrug. "Well now what?"

Wheatley gave a shrug of his own. "I guess we go run those tests. Ye think ye can 'andle 'em."

The teen chuckled and grinned. "Bring 'em on. I have the feeling this is going to be fun."