A/N: I have no idea what I'm doing. Yes, yes, I know-Feature Creep needs updated. I'm working on it! In the meantime, enjoy the start of another story.

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"Root," I whispered, "this place is really creeping me out. Can we just go?"

Next to me, the hacker smirked. The tip of her tongue peeked out from between her lips as she concentrated on the silver keypad next to the double metal doors. She used a tiny screwdriver to remove the screw holding the cover in place and pried it off, revealing a circuit board. The golden traces glistened in the light of the cell phone screen I held in shaking hands, a poor-man's flashlight.

The rest of the hallway was pitch fucking black, and it was freaking me out like nobody's business. But we couldn't risk the glare of a flashlight, not yet.

"Hold the phone steady," Root said. She eyed the circuit board and spotted the connector she was looking for. Fishing out a thin cable from her pocket, she carefully plugged one end into a minuscule four-pin header on the circuit board and motioned for the phone. I handed it over. Root plugged the other end of the cable into the phone. The screen lit up her face and wavy hair, giving her an eerie, otherworldly look.

I couldn't stand not having something in my hands. I reached into my skirt pocket and grabbed the compact flashlight, its diamond-pattern grip digging into my palm, but I didn't dare click it on lest it be visible through the narrow windows high up in the wall behind us.

The skin crawled on the back of my neck. We were being watched. I knew it, could feel it, even though I knew that the lax security guards were loitering far away, having a smoke on the other side of the building. I resisted the urge to look around. If I glanced away from the light of Root's phone, I would be done for.

Fucking phobias.

"Come on, Lizzy," Root drawled, her childish voice unconcerned and more than a little condescending. Her fingers tapped away on the phone screen. "You've been on tougher infiltrations than this."

"That doesn't make it any less creepy!" I complained.

"Relax," Root said. "It's a cakewalk. She's already killed the lab cameras and She says there's only the two guards outside."

There was no doubt who She was; the capital S was evident in Root's voice. Root only invoked the big S when she was talking about The Machine—"Sybil", as I called the mysterious artificial intelligence.

"Two guards is still two more than zero!" I hissed. "And it's dark ."

"Once we get past this door, we can use the flashlight," Root said. On cue, there was a click , disturbingly loud in the silent hallway. Root yanked the cable, reattached the faceplate to the lock, pulled the metal door open, and stepped inside without hesitation. I followed, closing the door as softly as I could behind us.

"Can I turn it on now?" I begged. My thumb trembled on the flashlight's switch.

"Yep."

I clicked on the flashlight, running the beam around the hallway, and took a deep breath. Then another. The smothering pressure around my throat and chest slowly eased at the illumination, but my heart continued to race.

The décor of this place wasn't helping my anxiety at all. It was all straight lines and monochrome contrast, brutally minimalistic; white wall panels edged in black and polished gray linoleum tiles underfoot. There were a few doors at uneven intervals, a single intersection with a cross hallway halfway further down, and at the very end of the hall, a pair of tall lift doors. The hallway was strict, authoritarian; I felt intimidated just looking down it.

Root, of course, walked forward with her obnoxious air of confidence.

"What are we even looking for, anyway?" I asked as I trailed behind Root. The hallway echoed our voices and footsteps. "If I'd known you were going to drag me on a treasure hunt, I would've stayed home with my books. You made it sound like we had a case."

"But if you'd stayed home, you would've missed out on the fun," Root said. I couldn't see her face, but the annoying sing-song quality in her voice told me she was grinning.

"Does this look like my 'having fun' face to you?"

Root didn't bother turning around. "Sybil's, ah, not being very specific about our target," she said, scratching the back of her head. For a brief moment, metal glinted beneath her hair and fingers. I shivered. Root's cranial implant was a little more subtle than the tiny earpiece she'd used to use to talk to Sybil, but at the same time, it was infinitely more creepy. Sybil had told me (with a certain amount of digital pride) that she had designed the system herself from the logic gates up, everything from the implant itself, to the encryption algorithms protecting the wireless connections, to the robotic surgery unit she'd used to install everything in Root's head, neck, and spine. From a technological standpoint, the system was a marvel.

But how crazy did you have to be to get a gigabit Ethernet port embedded right in your skull?

"Okay, look," I said. "If I'm going to spend my night playing Detective with you in the fucking dark , Sybil needs to start being specific. Like, right now ."

"'Anomalous intelligence', she says."

"What does that even mean ?"

"I don't know. She won't elaborate. But she says it's below us. We'll take the elevator."

I nervously pointed my flashlight beam down one of the side halls as we walked. It was much the same as the one we were walking down. We continued on, passing doors on the left and right. Root ignored them; apparently Sybil was being "specific" enough to direct her towards the end of the hallway.

I jumped in surprise when I felt my phone buzz in my pocket. Sybil had sent me a text message:

Please continue. Priority. Low risk. No further information available.

I grumbled. I really hated being kept in the dark like this, both figuratively and literally. But that was just part of working with Root and Sybil. And it seemed that, in this case, Sybil didn't know much more than we did.

We stopped at the double metal doors and Root pressed the call button. The lifts, unlike the rest of the building, were brightly lit. I squinted as we stepped inside. Root selected a floor—basement—and the lift wheezed into motion. When it arrived, we disembarked into a darkened hallway that was almost exactly like the previous one but for a globular white security camera peering down at us from the ceiling.

"You sure she killed all the cameras?" I asked, eying it with caution. The camera looked much different than the utilitarian rectangular cameras on the ground floor; it had a sort of futuristic look to it, all smooth curves and few hard edges.

"Yeah. She's already in most of their systems. Terrible firewall."

A moment later, a red LED light blinked twice on the rim of the camera. Reassured, I allowed myself to relax a little. With Sybil controlling the cameras and feeding Security false information, we were free to do whatever it was we were supposed to be doing down here.

In the fucking dark .

"Can we switch on some lights or something?" I asked as Root stopped in front of a door that looked suspiciously like all the other doors down here: plain gray metal, indistinguishable. Root pulled out her phone again and held it near the lock—this one, it appeared, used a RFID fob.

"I thought you were doing better with the darkness thing," she said. "You're being kinda wimpy. What happened to the hotheaded schoolgirl that punched somebody in the face yesterday?"

"Fuck you," I said. Sometimes I wondered why I put up with Root at all.

"Maybe this weekend, if you ask nicely."

Well. There was one of the reasons.

"Look," I sighed, flicking the beam down the hallway in both directions, "I just—something is freaking me out about this place. I can handle darkness, but not darkness plus freaky."

For a second, I thought Root was going to make another snarky, borderline snide remark—her face had that mischievous look to it—but instead she nodded and said, "I don't like this place much either. If we don't find anything in ten minutes, we'll jet and go get dinner someplace with Shaw. Sound good?"

"Sounds great."

The lock clicked, and we were in. The room beyond was massive and dark. Shadowy shapes loomed out of the darkness. I swept my flashlight across the room. It had the look of a science lab: hard gray floors, tall swivel chairs, and long desks covered in electrical equipment. There were several aging desktop computers connected to tall racks of mysterious devices festooned with gauges, readouts, knobs, and switches. A massive set of transformers hummed ominously over on one side of the room.

Across the back wall, revealed in my flashlight beam, the company name was emblazoned in foot-tall, crisp black letters: Aperture Laboratories.

"Watch your eyes," Root said. I closed them and a second later Root hit the lights. It took some squinting and blinking to get used to the sudden brightness, but it was worth it. The room was far less ominous when the lights were on.

Root wandered into the lab, stepping carefully to avoid brushing any of the controls on the devices around us. She moved purposefully, as if she was searching for something. I didn't even know where to start looking.

Eventually, Root pointed at a large wireless router mounted to the ceiling and said, "She says somebody's using that access point."

I froze.

"Wait," I said, "somebody's here?"

"That's the thing. She says there's no one around except for you, me, and the guards outside. Everybody else is gone for the weekend."

"Maybe somebody left a laptop or something. Does she know what's being transmitted?"

She tilted her head as she listened to whatever information Sybil was downloading into her brain.

"They keep trying to open connections to machines on an IP range registered to a Black Mesa corporation in Arizona. Some kind of...rival physics lab. She tried identifying the sender's OS from the traffic but she's not getting any matches."

"An OS Sybil doesn't recognize? They've got to be spoofing."

"Yeah. She tried port-scanning the client, and it stopped— then it started up a few milliseconds later and tried connecting to her."

"That's really odd. Some kind of reactive IDS?"

"Might be. She wants us to figure out what it is."

I chewed the inside of my cheek.

"Okay," I said, "I admit, I'm curious now."

"I told you it'd be fun."

"I'm not going that far."

Root smirked but said nothing. Instead, she sat down at one of the desks and powered on its desktop computer. While Root busied herself with hacking the login screen, I wandered towards the back of the room. I was very careful not to touch anything—most of the equipment had "high voltage" warnings printed on them, especially the ones with the fat cables coming straight off the transformers. I avoided that side of the room.

I made my way along the back wall, following the company logo, when I came across a door that had been propped open with a doorstop. The lights were off in the room beyond, but it was not dark; there was some sort of light source up ahead. The room looked like another lab, this one L-shaped but filled with just as much equipment as the first one.

I peered over my shoulder to see Root thoroughly absorbed in her hacking. She really didn't like being interrupted when she was trying to break into a new system, so I gulped, pulled out the flashlight again, and stepped inside.

At first, there was nothing too unusual. I made my way carefully into the lab towards the light, which came from around the corner. Something about the color made me shiver. The lab florescent were a neutral white with a touch of warmth; this light was cold, tinged blue.

At the corner, I paused, my back against a metal equipment cabinet, and listened. There were no unusual sounds, so I peeked around the corner.

The source of the light was immediately obvious: at the far end of the room, in an otherwise blank wall, was a large circular doorway onto another hallway, long and featureless. The doorway didn't look like anything I'd seen in this building. Or any building. Certainly it looked nothing like the plain rectangle of an exit door over to the side. The doorway didn't fit with its surroundings, and that set me on edge.

My curiosity piqued, I took a cautious step out from around the corner, then another. My uneasiness grew as I approached. There was something just not right here. The wall seemed to flicker and shimmer as I approached—but surely that was a trick of the lighting, or my nerves? I blinked, and the effect vanished, but the feeling of wrongness just wouldn't leave me.

I paused just in front of the door. A cold breeze flowed from the doorway, carrying with it a strange, antiseptic smell. Wrinkling my nose, I examined the circular doorframe. It protruded from the wall about an inch and was perfectly black. There wasn't a single speck of white paint from the wall, nor dust. The junction between the wall and the doorframe was incredibly precise; an exact, unnatural, razor-sharp 90 degree angle.

I peered closer to see if I could spot any sort of gap between the doorframe and the wall, but something about the perfectly straight line made my stomach churn, and I couldn't bear to look at it for long. It was like staring into a void, or maybe trying to make sense of one of those "impossible shape" brain teasers.

Gulping, I peered over the my shoulder again, wondering if I should get Root. If I listened closely, I could hear her still typing away on the keyboard. Still working on the computer, then. I turned back to face the doorway.

Come on, it's just nerves , I thought to myself. You've done way scarier stuff like this . With that in mind, I took a deep breath and walked through the doorway.

And immediately sank to my knees.

The shimmering was back, and no matter how many times I blinked, the floor refused to stay still. Bile rose in my throat and I lost my balance, slumping against the wall. There was a loud hiss and a clunk, and then, silence. A few miserable seconds later, the nausea and dizziness passed, and I could see again.

What the hell was that ? I wondered. Cautiously, I rose to my feet again.

The door was closed.

Dread trickled down my spine. I yelped and rushed to the door, trying to pry it open with my fingers, but it was no use—the panels were fitted together too tightly for me to work even a fingernail between them, and when I gave the door a good, solid thump , it didn't even rattle in its tracks.

Trembling, I backed away from the door and tapped my Bluetooth earpiece.

"Root," I said, glancing over my shoulder at the long stretch of hallway, "This door closed behind me and I can't get it open. Can you open it from your side?"

But there was no response—not even a hiss of static. With a growing sense of horror, I checked my cell phone.

No signal. Of course there was no signal.

I waited. I banged on the door again, although it accomplished nothing more than making my fist smart. I yelled. I rebooted my cell phone and called Root. Called Shaw. John. Carter. Nothing—there was no signal, period. I paced back and forth in front of the door on shaking legs. But no matter what I did, there was no reaction from the other side of the door.

It was almost as if Root had left me here.

The thought gave me pause. Would she be callous enough to do that? I mean, sure, Root was unpredictable as hell, and if I got in the way between her and Sybil, I wasn't entirely sure my place in her wonky social hierarchy (which, in terms of flesh-and-blood people, was pretty much just me, Shaw, and herself) would be enough to keep me in one piece. On the other hand, we worked well together, we fucked well together, and we'd saved each other's asses more than enough times to form a strange bond. And this didn't feel like something Root would do.

If nothing else, she would've had some way to brag before leaving me to rot.

Fighting back panic, I slumped against the door and waited. I resolved to try and find another way back outside if I didn't hear from Root in ten minutes.

It was an interminable wait. I divided my attention between my cell phone, literally counting the seconds, and studying the hall. It was perfectly square and seemed to be formed of light gray cement panels. Long embedded light fixtures shone from behind frosted glass every half-dozen feet or so, casting their cold glow into the hallway. A single air conditioning grate was set into the ceiling. And that was it in terms of features. There was no variation until the hallway turned a corner about thirty feet down. Nothing moved. Nothing made a sound. I could hear my own heart thudding in my chest, the rustle of fabric as I shifted my legs and nervously fingered the hem of my skirt. I felt nauseous.

But at least it wasn't dark.

Finally, the ten minutes were up. Then eleven. After twelve, I figured that Root probably wasn't coming for me, so I stood up. I hitched up my skirt and reached for the little pistol tucked into the thigh holster. Its weight in my hand was reassuring—about the only comfort I had right now. I chambered a round but left the safety on, keeping my finger well away from the trigger. Keeping the gun pointed downward, I began walking. My flat Mary Janes made soft little taps against the cement. I got to the end of the hallway and turned to find another strange round door. This one had a life-sized pictogram of a running man set in the right panel. It glowed teal and it appeared to depict a person frozen mid-motion while fleeing, like an exit sign. Encouraged, I walked towards the door, looking for any type of switch or lock. But once I got close enough, the door suddenly slid open by itself with a startlingly loud hiss of pneumatics.

Holy cow, I thought, pausing just shy of the threshold. I examined the inside of the door panels. They were a good six inches thick, with a complicated latching mechanism on each panel. I wondered if Root had even been able to hear me pounding.

But my attention was quickly drawn to something more interesting: the noise. Now that the door was open, I could hear the rush of air moving. I moved forward, down a series of steps, and stopped.

The barren, circular room held only one thing of interest: a sleek cylindrical lift in a clear tube about five feet across. The lift cab was made of glass, silver metal, and white plastic; it was stark and stripped of all superfluous details, just like the hallways. A light fixture embedded in the cab ceiling cast a warm glow from the lift, its light spilling out into the surrounding room and casting long, razor-sharp shadows from the narrow support rails.

Movement caught my eye and I looked up. An absolutely massive turbine dominated the ceiling. It had dozens of blades and rotated lazily around the lift tube itself; it was clearly the source of the noise. Looking closer at the lift, I realized that it had no cables. Was the thing driven by air pressure?

Somehow, the thought didn't bother me as much as it should have.

The floor turned from cement to glass underfoot as I approached the lift; beneath me were cables and pipes suspended above metal plates. I paused at the open doors to the lift cab and looked back over my shoulder, wondering if it would be better to wait for Root at the door. But the second door had closed behind me—there was no way to go back. Only forward.

I hope this thing actually works, I thought to myself. I really want out of here. Gulping, I took a deep breath, smoothed my skirt, and stepped into the lift cab. I didn't see any buttons. No sooner had I started to examine the back wall of the lift for some sort of control did the semicircular glass door slid shut behind me with a whoosh. There was a clunk and my stomach leapt into my throat—I was headed downward, precisely the opposite direction I was hoping to go.

"God dammit," I sighed, thumping the glass wall with my fist. The shaft outside was very dark, lit only incidentally by the lift; I saw the indistinct silhouettes of girders and support columns in the distance, black on black. Terror bubbled up in my stomach. I crossed my arms, cradling myself, and stared down at the floor, taking deep breaths. For the first time, I noticed the circular motif etched in the floor panel. It looked like a camera shutter halfway open.

Like an aperture.

Aperture Laboratories.

Cute, I thought.

The lift plunged downward. After about a minute of standing, I sat down, huddling on the cold floor. There was nothing else I could do but wait.

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In the lab, Root suddenly looked up from her computer.

"What do you mean, gone?" she asked.

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