Chapter One

I Make a Courtesy Call

"You know, when mom said 'spend quality time with your sister,' I'm pretty sure this isn't what she had in mind."

I grinned over at Lauren, untangling the cord of my black Xbox controller. Her head was dipped, nose inches away from the screen of her phone, thumbs tapping madly at the tiny keyboard.

"Quality time comes in many packages," I answered.

Now she looked up, her expression distasteful. "But playing videogames?"

"I thought you liked videogames!" I exclaimed, giving the controller a final shake. The cord untwisted sullenly and I smoothed it out with my hands.

"I do," her tone was dubious, "but just not this kind."

"Yeah, if it were up to you, you would play Candy Crush for hours."

"Mach 3 is my area of expertise."

"You're great at puzzle solving games," I cajoled. "Remember when I was playing Lara Croft and you helped me solve the puzzle to get us out of the room?"

"That's different," she said, but she sounded unsure.

"Now you're just trying to worm your way out of playing. C'mon, it'll be fun!"

Now, I think this is the point that I should introduce myself. Hi, my name is John. I am a six-foot American male, age twenty. Hair color: dark brown. Eye color: dark brown. Wears glasses over same.

Lauren is my sister, and people say that we're a lot alike. I disagree. Sure, we might look alike with dark hair, light complexions, and slim builds, but that's about where the similarity ends. Lauren doesn't wear glasses, and she's been trying to color her hair a different way every week – more or less – and that day her tips were died a rusty red. And even though she knew she wasn't going anywhere, she had splashed on makeup.

Honestly, nobody's going to see her but me.

Girls.

Besides appearances, Lauren and I are so dissimilar you might think we were adopted from different families. She likes loads of friends. I'm more of a loaner. Give me a book or a videogame, I could entertain myself for hours. Not her. She needs her phone next to her constantly. If it gives so much as a chirp, she pounces on it like a cat on a bird.

Again I say, girls.

"Why do I have to be the one to play?" Lauren asked, sitting down in the chair next to me and pulling up her knees to her chest.

"I've already played this game a million times," I said, handing her the controller, booting up Steam, opening a can of soda all at the same time. Prime multitasker, that's me. "It's your turn. You're going to test, and I'm going to watch, and everything's going to be just… fine." I gave an evil snicker.

Lauren shot me a weird look. "Okay…"

I waved a hand in her direction. "You'll get it in an hour or so."

The game began to start up and I turned to look at my sister. "Alright, so this is Portal 2, so there's a game that happens before the story starts. I'm not going to have you play that one because Portal 2 is better."

"Is this like making me watch Alien 2 before watching the first Alien movie?" she asked.

"It's not called Alien 2!" I exclaimed in dismay. "It's called Aliens. Sheesh, Lauren, you're embarrassing me. Anyway, I'll catch you up on the events in the first Portal before you start playing."

"Alright." Lauren's eyes were already fixed to the screen. "What do I need to know?"

I twisted around to get a better look at her, forcing Lauren to look straight at my eyes. "Your name is Chell," I said. "You've been trapped in a science facility called Aperture Science, which is controlled by an AI named GLaDOS."

"AI?" Lauren asked.

"Artificial Intelligence." Lauren prides herself on not being a geek, like me, but just living in the same household as me means that some of my geekiness has rubbed off on her. I'm sure she knows what AI means. She just doesn't like to admit that she knows. She could play dumb as much as she liked. I knew she was a secret geek in training, my young apprentice. "So, anyway, GLaDOS, or the Genetic Life and Disc Operating System, has control over Aperture Science, which is filled with many rooms for testing: testing chambers, if you will. In order to solve these chambers, you need to use the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device, which shoots blue and orange portals you can use to step through or send objects through to solve the puzzles."

Lauren was looking at me, seemingly enraptured. At least, I thought she was enraptured, until she put her hand on my shoulder and gently said, "John, you know you're never getting a girlfriend, right?"

I rolled my eyes. "Just because I know the correct name of a portal gun doesn't mean I'm not getting a girlfriend."

"This is exactly the kind of think that ruined your date with June," said Lauren.

"The date was already going badly by the time I brought up headcrabs," I sighed. "And I couldn't care less if that scared off every girl on college campus. And every girl I know. And the girl next door. What'd she do, get a concussion to get out of going out with me?"

"She's in a coma," Lauren said softly.

"Well, that's original," I nodded, then registered a double take. "Wait, really? She's in a coma?"

Lauren nodded. "Yep."

"How?"

"Nobody knows. Just found her on the floor by her computer. Hannah told me. It's been six months."

Hannah was Lauren's best friend, the girl's sister. "What's coma girl's name, again? I haven't seen her since we were in grade school."

"Jane."

"Yeah. Jane. I always thought that was a girl next door kind of name." Lauren and I shared a thoughtful moment of silence. I clapped my hands. "Anyway, back to Portal."

"Yes, please." Lauren looked at me with an exaggerated expression of attentiveness. "Back to Portal with all speed."

"Be quiet," I suggested. "So, GLaDOS is putting you through testing, but when she's done with you, she tries to dump you in the fire."

"Charming," murmured Lauren.

"You escape and find your way to GLaDOS' central chamber. Using the portals, you are able to knock cores off of her. Cores are round little robots with one eye, programmed with one basic mechanism like curiosity, anger… cake."

"Cake?"

"I'll explain later. Not important right now. So, you knock all the cores off, feed them into the incinerator, and GLaDOS is killed. However, before you can escape, you are dragged back into the facility, and that's where Portal 2 begins. You ready?"

Lauren shrugged. "Sure."

"Then choose 'singleplayer' and let us begin."

"Singleplayer, new game… what is that?" She stopped over 'Chapter One: The Courtesy Call' and stared at Wheatley.

"That's one of the cores. You'll meet him soon enough. Go ahead and press." I settled back into my chair and drank my soda as the load screen ticked forward.

The screen changed to white and the automated voice announced, "Good morning! You have been in suspension for – fifty – days."

"Where am I?" asked Lauren, leaning forward as if she could see the character by changing position.

"It's a first-person game," I explained. "You are the camera."

"But how will I know what I look like?" she asked, fiddling with buttons.

"I'll show you after you stare at the art," I said.

"What?"

"Just keep going."

She completed the tutorial and the announcer intoned, "Please go back to your bed."

"Wait, wait, wait," I said, snatching for the controller and pausing before she could obey. "Before we start, I'll change it to third person so you can see yourself."

I muttered as I typed in the cheat code. "Okay… 'sv_cheats 1', enter. 'Thirdperson', enter."

Chell was displayed and I turned the game back on, wiggling the stick to make her turn. She didn't turn all the way around. For that you needed 'thirdperson_mayamode'.

"What did you do?" asked Lauren. "Can I play the whole game like this?"

"I used cheat codes," I explained. "Every game has them. I just googled these."

"So you basically reprogrammed the game?" Lauren took the remote and took Chell in a trot about the room. "And do you always play games as a girl? I'm sensing a pattern."

"Nnnnn…" I thought through my collection of favorite games. Portal, Lara Croft. Oh, wait, Half Life. "No," I finished confidently. "Not as a girl all the time. And, yes, with cheats you can reprogram the game. For instance," I paused the game again, "you can bind a flashlight to a key by doing this…" My fingers flew. "Or spawn boxes, or practically do anything. Wait, what's this?"

I hovered the mouse over the pop-up below. Under the suggested cheats was a bar that said 'userabsorbance_player'.

"That's weird," I said. "I've never seen that one before."

"Click on it," suggested Lauren. "What's the worst that can happen?"

There were a lot of things that could happen. Fortunately, I wasn't playing on my computer. I clicked on the suggestion to bring it up to the box, but my finger hovered over the 'Enter' key. A cold kind of uncertainty held me in its grasp and unease gnawed at my nerves. Who knew why I was feeling this way?

Lauren, holding the Xbox controller in one hand leaned over and put her finger on top of mine. With exaggerated emphasis, she pressed down my hand, and therefore the button.

Just want to point this out: it wasn't entirely my fault. She pushed the button as well. Just want to make that entirely clear before I continue my narration and say that the entire room went black.

"It feels unpleasantly like being drunk," said Ford Prefect in the wonderful book Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

"What's so unpleasant about that?" asked Arthur.

"You ask a glass of water," said Ford Prefect.

And that's exactly how it felt. Like being a glass of water being stretched thin, losing bits of yourself, and being swallowed down a massive black throat. Being nothing isn't painful. It's just unnerving, in all senses of the word, and an experience I never want to go through again.

I was chewed, swallowed, stripped of everything except raw thought, and just when I thought I couldn't take any more of this ("I have no mouth but I must scream") whatever it was spat me back out again – or maybe I passed completely through – and I found myself conscious again.

Imagine your mind as a bookshelf, all the books in their nice cubbies, perhaps some knick-knacks in jars for decoration, with an action figure or two just to tie the display together. Then an earthquake happens and everything on the bookshelf falls on the floor in a jumble, order into complete chaos, a mess on the floor. That was my mind right now.

As I started picking up books – memories, whatever – I first became aware that my surroundings were not the same as where I left them. I was in a room, rather dank and overgrown, with several computer screens flickering in a semicircle around me. Next thought: I was dangling several feet off the ground.

I stretched my foot downward, but the grimy floor was too far away to connect. Then I ran my hands up my form, trying to figure out what held me in such a predicament. When my fingers finally found the cause, I could hardly believe what I felt.

There was something implanted in my back connecting me to the ceiling.

It didn't feel uncomfortable or hindersome. If anything, it felt incredibly natural to be hanging from the ceiling by my back, but it was the oddest sensation to my probing fingers. Next, my hand came into view, and I sucked in a breath. The veins in my hands glowed. It was a small, almost undetectable glow, and in the light from the computer screens I thought I might be imagining things. But no. It was true. My veins glowed with faint blue luminescence, a warm light inside of my body.

It became stranger, because when I touched my skin it didn't feel like skin at all. It felt synthetic and rubbery, as alike to real flesh as silk is to spandex.

The new realizations came faster, now. My clothes were different. I was wearing a grey vest with a blue shirt underneath, sleeves rolled up, and a blue tie. The shoes on my dangling feet were battered grey sneakers with dirty white laces and dinged soles. My glasses had adhered themselves to my face; I couldn't get them off.

"No," I whispered, and it came out choked. "No, I can't be!"

And that was weird as well, because it was my voice, but I was speaking in a British accent. I cleared my throat and tried again, this time actively trying to sound American, but the letters automatically softened. "No, I can't be. I can't be Wheatley!"

There was a shiny bit by the console and I directed myself toward it, my management rail responding to my every command like a dream. In the light from the monitors I examined myself, hair to shoes. I still looked like myself, mostly, which was a relief, but the body that looked like mine was now an android replica of my human self. My hair had streaks of blue, I was dressed in blue and gray, and…

Wow. I was Wheatley.

I let out a huffed laugh and the management rail took me backwards. I couldn't look at my reflection anymore.

"I'm Wheatley," I said, forcing the words to have an American accent. That sounded horrible! I let it slide.

But if I was Wheatley…

"Lauren," I whispered, and began to search over the monitors. Each displayed a person in cryogenic suspension, their heartbeat (all were flatlined) and some basic information.

How was I supposed to find her? There were ten thousand test subjects, according to the real Wheatley from the game I had somehow sucked myself into. I could scan by name, but would her name come up Lauren or Chell? And what if there were hundreds of girls in the system named Lauren?

"You're the only one left."

"Heartbeat," I muttered. "She's the only one left alive, only one with… a… heartbeat. Computer," I shouted out loud, "scan subjects for heartbeat."

Scanning. The computer spoke into my mind, which was unnerving. One subject found. Subject Redacted. Wake subject? Y/N

"Yes, wake subject. I'm on my way." Spinning around, I took off toward the room.

The relaxation chambers were all stacked like they were in the game, one on top of another like the trailer houses in Ready, Player One. Dim, filtered sunlight shone down from up above and the darkness below made it impossible to gauge the distance to the ground.

The management rail was awkward and I found myself positioning my body like Peter Pan, legs stretched out behind, head forward, trying to achieve highest speeds. There was a helpful little map in my head that I could pull up in front of my vision and I followed it like a GPS toward my sister's room.

My brain was peppered with relentless questions I could not answer. How could that cheat plop me into Portal 2? Was this amazing or terrifying? Why was I Wheatley? Why was I an android and not a core? Was Lauren alright? Was she Chell or herself?

How were we going to get home?

I didn't know, I didn't know anything! It was annoying not having the answers, and I pushed the questions back as far into my mind as strength could allow. They could wait. They had to wait.

Lauren's relaxation chamber was before me and I halted by the door, legs dangling over the vast expanse below. Reaching out, I knocked on the door. "Hello?" I called in my British warped voice. "Lauren? Are you in there? Could you open the door?"

There was no response. Not even a hint of motion from inside the capsule.

"It's me, it's John," I said, doubt beginning to shadow my already cluttered mind. "I know I sound a little weird right now, but it really is me. Could you open the door? Please? I would, but I don't see a handle or anything, so…"

The door began to open and a burst of hope shot through me. Lauren was in there. She was alive.

The door opened fully and I was granted a glimpse of Lauren's frightened face, which changed to absolute terror as she spied me. She stumbled backward, crashing against the mini fridge, and landing sprawled on the ground.

"Oh, God, are you alright?" I asked, holding out a hand toward her. She inched away, eyes filled with panic, hissing in breaths through slightly open mouth.

"Lauren, hey, calm down. It's me." I put my hands on my chest and graced her with a grin. "I'm playing Wheatley, apparently. And that's why I have a British accent, I guess." I began to move forward into the room. Lauren skootched backward to avoid my dangling feet. "I know it's a lot to take in, but we have to stay calm, ok? Just…"

"Please prepare for emergency evacuation," blared the announcer. Lauren jumped.

"Stay calm," I repeated, making gentle gestures with my hands. Despite my soothing words, a notification had just popped into my mind. I had never personally received a notification before, but there was no other way to describe it.

Reactor Core malfunctioning. Leave immediately. If this message is not heeded, death or worse will ensue.

"Prepare," I quoted. "That's all they're saying. Prepare. Don't move, alright? I'm going to get us out of here."

Lauren gave a tight nod. I scanned the ceiling for the sliding panel that admitted Wheatley into the ceiling in the game. There it was. It opened automatically as I came near and the management rail began to retract. I was drawn up into the ceiling, pulling my legs up as the hatch closed again.

It was surprisingly comfortable up there. I could feel the presence of the machinery that controlled the chambers, soft and sleepy and just a bit irritable. It was so strong a presence I felt almost as if I could talk to it.

Hello? I said in my mind, and the Presence listened. Could I get a claw over here, please? I need to move this room.

The claw came down, I could see in my mind, and began to shift the chamber jerkily upwards from its base.

Gently, gently, I thought desperately. The Presence seemed irritated by this and the whirring motor growled. Ok, stop here, I requested. Keep it there, take a rest. I'll be right back.

The Presence retracted and I opened the hatch and descended. Lauren was standing upright again, arms crossed, still looking frightened but looking slightly better than before.

Unlike me, Lauren looked no different. Her clothes had changed, so she was dressed in the orange Aperture Test Subject jumpsuit, unzipped down to the hips, white tank top for a shirt. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and the rust red tips of her hair swung gently against the back of her neck. Long-Fall Boots, I was happy to see, were strapped to her feet. She would need those.

"Ok," I said, "I know you must have a lot of questions. I don't know much of what's going on, but let's start with what I do know. We've been submerged in the game Portal 2. We're both playing characters. You're playing Chell and I'm playing Wheatley. I've been put into an android body, so that's a little weird, but also helpful because Wheatley's sort of your guide in the game, and I can be your guide through this. I can interact with machinery and I have a map in my head that helps me out. I'm also talking with a British accent. Now, just to know if you're alright, can you say something?"

Lauren opened her mouth and seemed to be on the verge of speech, but then gripped her throat, looking startled. She bit her lip.

"Say apple," I urged.

Lauren puffed out air, obviously trying to speak, but eventually gave up, shaking her head.

Warning sirens began to blare and the notification in my head flashed again.

"Ok, you know, never mind," I said, patting her on the shoulder and going back up into the ceiling. "Doesn't matter. Don't worry. Let's get out of here. Ooh, just remembered, this might get a bit bumpy. I'll try to keep it steady, but you might want to get up on the bed… or something. Some place like that."

Machinery, I called internally. I felt it shifting, the Presence turning to focus on me. Could you move the claw again? Up a little and over?

It obeyed, but I could feel the room shaking, jittering. I could almost see pieces of the wall flaking apart, the tiny fridge falling to pieces and being thrown out of the new holes.

"Sorry!" I called down to Lauren.

Do it more gently, I commanded the Presence. The Presence seemed offended and the next lurch was harder than the last. If you're going to be grumpy, give it to me, I told it. Let me have control of the claw.

The Presence did not want to do this, I could tell, but it reluctantly shifted the responsibility to me and withdrew. I was now in control of the room.

In my defense, controlling a claw from a tiny black box in the top of a room suspended from said claw is a lot more difficult than it sounds. I tried to be careful, but the notification in my head kept blaring every five seconds, which was very distracting, and I began to feel the presence of the Reactor Core in the background of my mind. It was angry. It was fuming with compressed energy and I knew any moment it might blow.

This was incentive to go fast, but the faster I went the more whiplash I accumulated when turning corners. When I went slowly, the notification reminded me that I should be going quickly. It was incredibly annoying.

I called down to Lauren, trying to reassure her – and myself, while I was at it – that everything was under control, I was trying my best, and we were going to get out of here.

"I know Portal 2 like the back of my hand," I called down, accidentally smashing one of the relaxation chambers. "There's a place I know should have an escape pod. I'm pretty sure that the way to get out of this game is to escape Aperture. Normally we'd have to go through the whole game, but neither of us would like that, especially me being Wheatley and you being Chell. It wouldn't go well. So, I'll lead you to the escape pod and we'll escape together, back to our old life. That sound good? Can you even hear me, down there? I don't know about down there but it's very loud up here."

She probably could hear me. I was counting on it.

I managed to avoid the final stacks of pods and took it smoothly toward the wall. "I know this sounds bad," I called down to my sister, "but I'm going to need to smash through this wall. It's the fastest way to the testing tracks. Hold on!"

I drove the chamber solidly into the wall, which crumbled a little bit. "I'm going to try again," I informed Lauren, backing the chamber up again for greater momentum. "But remember, this is a Portal game, so you'll need to find a portal gun. It's up ahead… wait a moment, we're going for it again."

SMASH!

Still didn't work. Why did Aperture make its walls so hard?

"Like I said, find the portal gun," I continued. "It should be up ahead, and I'll direct you to it. Ok, seriously hang on this time."

I took a deep breath. I was designed to do that, apparently. I had inflatable lungs that I could suck air into. No inherent purpose for the lungs, as the air couldn't go anywhere except back out, but it was nice to do something familiar as I plunged a suspension chamber holding my sister and myself into a brick wall.

The following jolt was so great that even I felt it. My neck snapped forward as we ground to a halt and I spent the next few seconds heaving unnecessary breaths before lowering myself back through the ceiling.

Lauren stood shakily, the look on her face similar to that of a victim of a plane crash crawling out of the rubble and finding themselves alive. She didn't look grateful. Just stunned.

"Are you alright?" I asked, rubbing my hands together. "That was a bit more jerky than I anticipated." I laughed.

The stunned look left and Lauren began to shout soundlessly at me, waving her hands, her mouth flapping silently.

"Lauren, I can't understand you," I said, feeling really bad about her soundless state. "Oh, wait!" I patted myself down, delving into my pocket (so, this android had pockets) and pulling out a notebook and a pencil. It was a notebook that I always kept with me to jot down favorite lines from books and movies. Who knew why it had been transported with us, but now it might just become useful.

I flipped to an empty page and clicked open the pencil. I handed the notebook to Lauren. "State your thoughts," I suggested.

Lauren scribbled vehemently before handing the notebook back and crossing her arms. The page read: What the (here there were several expletives to choose from) did you think you were doing?

"It was a lot harder than I thought," I defended myself. "Sorry for any injuries you may have sustained. Next question?"

This one came a bit slower.

What are we going to do?

"We need to get to the main breaker room," I said. "I can go the back way, but you need to go through some of the testing chambers to get there. Once you get the portal gun, we'll join up, and we'll go to the breaker room together."

She grabbed my sleeve, her expression alarmed. She snatched the paper back and scribbled: split up?

"Only for a bit," I assured her. "Don't worry, nothing bad'll happen. We won't play the game it's supposed to be played, which would be…"

I stopped, feeling as if there were a lump in my throat, stifling my words. "Once we'd get to the main breaker room," I tried again, "I would…" But there it was again.

"I can't tell you," I said, surprised. "I literally can't say what's going to happen. It won't let the words out."

Lauren's brows creased and her writing was deliberate. Does it matter?

"No, not really," I answered, pushing back my glasses out of habit. "We're not going to be doing it anyway, so there's no problem. Just go through there," I pointed at the room to the side, beneath the glass, "and I'll catch up with you later. Alright?"

Lauren bit her lip.

"Hey," I said gently. "I know this is scary, but we'll get through it together. Ok? We'll be out of here soon. I promise."

I gave her a side hug, made awkward by the fact that I was dangling high above her (I must be about six foot seven! Ha-ha) and gave my most confident grin. She smiled back, shot me a thumbs-up, and climbed through the hole I had made.

"Good luck!" I called as she disappeared.

Hey, it's me: PastSelf. Just a disclaimer: I do not own Portal, Portal 2, Half Life, Headcrabs, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, or anything else John references in any chapter. John's a geek (like me) so there's going to be a lot of those.

This is meant to be a 'fun' story without a whole lot of Portal research going into it, so I'll be updating when I choose to, not necessarily on a certain day.

As always, favorite, follow, comment, and enjoy!