Disclaimer: Contrary to 'popular belief' I do not own Portal, Portal 2, Valve, the United States or the Moon, so don't sue me for it.
A/N: Just about nothing from either Portal 1 or Portal 2 is in this. Nor is this, in fact, made from author's original content. This story is a mix of all the things that Aperture was supposed to get, but were ultimately cancelled, whilst still set in the universe of Portal.
She woke to the sound of seagulls flying across the sea, and the sight of palm trees that barely cover the blue sky. She sat up, and dragged herself lethargically out of the bed, looking around a little as she did so. The springs attached to her boots touched the floor before the tip of the boots did. This person has a name: "Mel". Mel wore a blue colored jumpsuit, and blond hair tied back in a pony tail. Everything else about this person is otherwise negligible… if it were important she would have remembered it.
As she looked around, Mel saw an abandoned sea-side hot-dog stand, and a few tables and chairs. Further out Mel saw the beach and the clouds across the horizon. What Mel did not see were seagulls that were supposed to be making the irritating screech.
In curiosity Mel took a few steps closer to the beach. She staggered for the first step, as she had slept for a long time (or so she assumed), but quickly regained her balance in the next few steps. Her walk was cut short, however, when she suddenly faced a wall made of glass which had, somehow, just appeared in front of her.
Mel took a moment to sidestep this obstacle, but was met with another wall of glass which had suddenly risen from the floor.
Choosing to go in a completely separate direction, Mel walked 180 degrees from where she walked before, only to be stopped after ten meters; yet another wall of glass appeared in front of her.
In a moments notice, she found herself surrounded by walls in all four directions around her, made of glass and plastic frames, completely entrapped. All the furniture began to fold into itself neatly; peculiar inventions, they seemed to be, being able to collapse so perfectly. Once all the furniture was gone, the hot-dog stand followed suit, collapsing neatly into itself, until it was all but completely gone.
Soon after that, the palm trees seemed to do likewise; Mel had not even thought such possible, but then she didn't expect the tables and chairs to collapse, or for glass walls to appear in the first place.
Again breaking into the unexpected, the glass walls around Mel began to inch closer to her, closing her in as though they were traps from a cursed Egyptian pyramid, until Mel had barely enough space to move her arms. A slight sense of claustrophobia crept into Mel's thoughts as she wondered who or what was making all this happen.
Mel began to notice that the sound of the sea seemed to get louder… as though a large wave was coming. The thing was, the sea level was not rising at all. In fact, the sea level was getting lower, until even the sea off the coast had completely been drained out to reveal what looked not too much unlike an empty swimming pool.
As though to top it all off, the blue sky that Mel had first saw when she woke up turned into a bland, grey ceiling with a cinematographic flash. What Mel had first thought to be a nice beach vacation had turned into what seemed like a film set, only without a camera or a crew.
A voice began to echo, coming from what seemed to be above Mel's head, or perhaps all around her. At first it was purely garbled nonsense, but after a few seconds of gradually increasing in volume, the echoing voice made out a singular clear word: "A-A-Activat-Activated." A technological, user-friendly sounding 'beep' accompanied the voice, as though to affirm the activation. The activation of what Mel knew nothing of.
"Hello. It is currently seven fifteen a.m., November eighteenth, nineteen-eighty-seven," the voice announced in a voice, multiple times clearer than the one it was before. It was a broken but smooth synthetic female voice, of absolute calm and a clinical tone. "You have been detained in the relaxation vault for… nine… zero… zero… zero… four… zero… days."
Another beep ensued, followed by a completely different voice. It was that of a male, Midwestern male in a hearty tone; "Good morning there, test subject. Rise and shine," said the second voice. "This is Cave Johnson speaking. Now I'm sure you're wondering where you are, what you're doing here, who I am, and if the data on the charts show anything, who you are. But don't worry; I come in peace." Mel listened rather intently to the voice, hoping to get a clue as to the answers to any of those questions, only to find the voice barking out in laughter. "Ha! Gets them every time," he said, seemingly making a joke to someone Mel could not see.
"Anyway, your contract is about to expire, so we're just going to run you through one last test course before you leave," the voice explained. "Don't worry. It should be just like the same thing you've been doing in the past few courses."
'Cave Johnson' paused to listen to someone else's voice. Mel strained to hear what the voice said, but the voice sounded too distant and muffled to make out. Cave Johnson, however, did not seem to have any trouble understanding the muffled voice. "Oh al-right. I'll tell them…" he said, a little hesitation in his voice. "That was Greg, my right hand man. He's one of the best employees around here. He fills in for Caroline from time to time," Cave explained, "anyway, Greg says that it seems that the F-Stop machine is not working that well due to a few bugs, so you'll be working with whatever else we have. In any case, you shouldn't have much of a problem, unless you have any allergies to, say… killer mantis men."
Cave paused for a moment, as though to let Mel digest that information, before again barking into laughter. "Ha! They keep falling for these. It's unbearable." After a moment of calming down, Cave Johnson continued in a more serious tone, "Now, since the elevator system has been too expensive to maintain, we've decided we'll be transporting you via the pneumatic diversity vent. Have fun on the ride."
Before Mel could quite take the time to wonder what a pneumatic diversity vent was, the ceiling directly above her opened up, and a large, plastic tube, large enough to fit a person, extended from the ceiling, and much like a vacuum cleaner that it much resembled, began to suck in.
Mel, having nowhere to run and nothing to grab onto, was quickly sucked up through the tube at high speeds, flowing through it as though a gas/pressure operated slide that went up instead of down.
As Mel flew past, she was able to catch a glimpse of the various different directions that the pneumatic diversity vent seemed to branch to and from; a large cube flew in from one of these branches, and within a few moments, flew out of another branch, before Mel could carefully study the cube, especially given the high velocity she was travelling at.
Eventually Mel was brought through what seemed to be a point that differentiated objects: in front of her (and rapidly nearing) was a part of the pneumatic diversity vent which seemed to laser-scan every object, and grab it with complex robotic arms accordingly. Upon reaching this point Mel was unceremoniously grabbed by one of the arms, and thrown through another branch of the vent.
As she flew through yet another part of the vent, Mel saw a large room (which she supposed was where 'test courses' were conducted), with 'Chamber 17' written largely and in bold on a sign; Mel was unable to catch much else of the room, before she whizzed past it.
After another few seconds of twists and turns, however, Mel seemed to reach the end of her ride in the vent; she knew this as she suddenly fell painfully onto the concrete floor, and out of the vent, with a smack.
A technological sound beeped, which seemed to announce the start of a voice-narration.
"Great invention, the pneumatic diversity vent," Cave Johnson said. "Sorts through things quicker than any human can manage. Expensive as hell too." Cave was interrupted but the muffled voice once again. "Oh, Greg says I've got an interview with some people from the public health department. I'll be right back; in the meantime, the Gyroscopic Liability Absolver and Disc Operating System will guide you through the first few test chambers. Good luck." Hesitating to leave, for a moment, Cave added as a footnote, "Greg? Can we think of a shorter name for that? I mean, Gyroscopic Liability Absolver and so on is a really long name."
Mel pushed herself up, her bones aching a little from the experience she has had in the past ten minutes or less; having just woken up, thrown through an air vent and dropped onto the floor could not have been good for her.
She looked around to take in her surroundings. To Mel it looked more like a mental-hospital ward than a test course. Just as she was about to voice her opinion, though, Mel was hit by a large, heavy metal cube that helpfully popped out of the pneumatic diversity vent, which she had not yet moved away from.
A/N: I was inspired to do this by, firstly, taking a look at an older Portal fanfic I wrote, and from looking at all the cancelled things that never made it into Portal 2, so I decided to make a Portal fanfic made up (almost) purely out of cancelled or deleted content or concepts. The only problem is that Valve remains secretive of the 'F-Stop' mechanic that was supposed to replace the portal gun, which means that I currently have no central mechanic for Mel to work with, so ideas are welcome.
Also, do not expect regular updates as I have yet to sort out a reliable time-table.