Artemis in Aperture
Chapter 1: Waking Up
Through fogged perspex, a faint fluorescent light shone. It illuminated the shadows of tiny water droplets condensed on the transparent barrier that prohibited passage between the boy and the rest of world. The light was turned on as per clinical protocol; it served no other purpose but to ensure no subject grew panicked at the sight of the dark. Such a reaction would undoubtedly result in further sedation.
This particular subject, the boy who lay under the clear plastic pane, would not have been afraid of the darkness had light been absent. At the age of four he had announced this logical bravery to his parents, ensuring the concerned couple that no night-light was necessary, also adding that warm milk was an unstable investment seeing as agriculture stocks tended to dip in the winter.
That had been years ago. Now the boy had grown; he had walked through veritable war-zones he had saved the existence of his species, stolen fortified objects, out-witted the topmost minds of the century, among other accomplishments, most of which less than noble. The boy had done much in his short existence. Unfortunately for him, fate and powerful enemies were not finished with him just yet. The amount of strife he could endure had not yet been fully tested.
The boy's eyes were open just a sliver, staring off into space. They were gazing into the pale light through the fogged perspex, his pupils shrunken to periods in the bright light. He blinked. Was this a dream? It seemed so. His eyes moved in their sockets to look around, but moving them too far prompted sharp pain in his forehead. He had been drugged, certainly. How had he gotten here? He didn't remember anything about going to sleep. What had he been doing yesterday? He couldn't remember. Why couldn't he remember? Not remembering gave him a particularly uncomfortable twinge. He glanced around again, passing through the pain, trying to formulate concrete data.
Facts: He was lying down, sealed in a capsule. There was a pillow under his head, and a fogged plastic pane above him. How had he gotten here? He couldn't remember. The light was unbearable, piercing into his pupils. There was something in the air; he was breathing in sedative, something very synthetic by the smell. Why couldn't he remember? He was by far the most intelligent person he knew, but the boy couldn't even think, couldn't even process what was going on. A slow draught of panic fell into his breathing. All he could move were his eyes. He couldn't remember. He couldn't remember.
Suddenly there was a hiss. The piercing lamp went off. For a moment there was a blissful dark respite until slowly more distant lighting flickered to life, illuminating the surroundings. The perspex window slid back, allowing the boy to sit up and look around; allowing him to wake up.
Movement was a positive sign; he had not been poisoned. Feeling in the boy's arms and legs seeped in with renewed circulation. His fingers no longer felt foreign, his toes were no longer satellites. The air tasted stale, but at least out here it was clear of synthetic chemicals. The action of sitting up dissipated the boy's headache. He finally had a chance to look around, though what he saw was not at all heartening. He blinked. He was in a cage: a cell made of the same transparent plastic that had contained him before that had been placed in some nondescript concrete room. One barrier opened, only leading to the next.
With shaking feet, the boy attempted to stand. His physical ability was less than good even when he was not shaky and drugged, and he soon found himself propping up his weight on the edge of the capsule where he had been lying. The smell of the sedative from the capsule was quickly evaporating into the well-circulated , and yet still stale-smelling, air in the rest of the room, but he was able to pick out the distinctive but quickly disappearing must of a common sleep-drug now that his mind had started to function properly. He must have been lying in that cell for a long while; his bones felt stiff and disused. A few deep breaths later, he was able to stand unaided, and his thoughts were flowing normally again. Well, as normally as they could be. considering the circumstances. To the best of his current abilities, the boy had regained his confidence, his mind, and his basic motor functions. Once sufficient data of his situation be collected, surely nothing could stop him from orchestrating an infallible plan and subsequently returning to his comfortable life back home.
Unfortunately for this idea of eased escape, of course nothing would come so easy; before he could conduct any further analysis of the cage he found himself in, there came a voice. It was a computerized voice no doubt; female, mature, robotic, inhuman. It spoke with no concern for the confusion still slowly lifting from the boy's head, or the immobility still slowly melting from the boy's limbs, or the desolation quickly settling into the boy's chest cavity. At it's sound, the boy's eyes widened in surprise. His pupils once again became dilated marks punctuation, as though a piercing light was again trained on his pale face.
"Hello again, and welcome to the Aperture Science computer-aided enrichment centre."