Impetuous Acumen
A Penguins of Madagascar/Portal Crossover

Part II

KOWALSKI'S BUNK FELT STRAGELY SOFT.

He never really minded the cold concrete of the headquarters, but it felt like he was laying on a cloud. He wriggled around slightly in his early morning stupor and felt a blanket at least an inch thick nearby. A pillow, far softer than the rugged one he was used to, was behind his head. It didn't make any sense; more comfortable beds had been the number one request by him, Private, and Rico for years and Skipper had never fulfilled it, so why now?

He sat up slowly, feeling a dull pain in his head and rubbing his temples. His ears were ringing but his hearing slowly returned, greeting his ears with a foreign, happy tune that must have been coming through a radio. Sipper usually denounced music in the HQ, especially in the early morning hours, and Kowalski normally didn't mind that fact. Today was no exception. His head throbbed dully with every little tick and beat of the music. He hadn't bothered to open his eyes yet, but it was maddening.

"Can you please turn off that music, Skipper?" he requested. There was no response and the music continued playing. Maybe they're outside training, thought Kowalski, and perhaps I've been left inside to recuperate after my fall.

Rubbing his eyes, he finally opened them and became aware of the fact that he wasn't in the HQ at all. With the memories of the previous night flooding back to him, he looked at his surroundings. The room he was in was bright and he shielded his eyes, unable to make out much around him. Immediately, however, he became aware that he wasn't in the comfort of the headquarters after all. He hadn't been sleeping in his bunk; rather a human-sized bed with a bedspread white enough to satisfy a hospital's requirements.

He lifted his flippers and inspected them. His angel wings were gone and his body looked in top shape. What exactly happened after he lost consciousness?

He hopped out of the strange bed, his heart skipping a beat. Where was he? The last thing he remembered was the dread of realizing he was about to die and seeing that huge mechanical claw emerge from the wall. Was he dead? That can't be true. I must still be dreaming.

Glancing around he saw he was in what looked like fairly large box made of fogged glass. He immediately made his way for the door and was disappointed to see that it didn't have a handle. He searched for some other way to open it and was astonished to see that it didn't have a single crevice or crack where it would slide or bend to open. Perhaps it is a wall and not a door, he realized.

Behind him was a table with a human-sized clipboard and a coffee mug not unlike one Skipper would use. If it had a fish tail in it, maybe he would have believed for a minute that this was all some ploy by leader bird himself. The only other thing in the room was a human-sized toilet. Upon seeing that there was no water in it Kowalski realized it was one of the vacuum toilets the humans used on their airplanes and would be useless as an escape route.

One quick spin on the spot and Kowalski realized that there was going to be no easy way out of his current predicament. He would need to wait and figure out exactly why he was in such a strange place, and more importantly, how he got into a room of solid glass with no door. Was the room built around him? He thought it might be.

He peered around once more and managed to catch sight of a timer that was just outside the glass. He was never able to read human writing but their system of numbers was second nature to him. He saw that it was counting down from about a minute, but for what? Was it linked to a bomb? The millions of questions and uncertainties swirling in his head caused him to mindlessly begin scribbling down notes with the attached pencil.

"Hello," began a computerized female voice from seemingly nowhere, making Kowalski jump halfway out of his skin, "and welcome to the Aperture... oh, right. You're a penguin. You won't understand I word I say anyway. Regardless, I should inform you that in light of recent events we have suspended our stasis wing and have instead began storing subjects in appointed cells. If you found your cell to be at all uncomfortable, please leave your feedback now."

A tiny pause, just enough for Kowalski to tap his beak and try to process where the voice was coming from.

"As expected, all facilities are acceptable. Now, please stand back as the portal will open in three, two, one..."

Kowalski had to rub his eyes to make sure he was really seeing what happened next. An orange elliptical opening formed on the wall he inspected earlier, emitting an eerie glow. Moments later the cloudy center of the portal disappeared and it was as though he was looking straight through the wall and into the room beyond his cell.

He waddled slowly up to the portal and inspected its edges. At first the scientist bird thought it was just some well-disguised, mechanical device on the wall from with the opening had appeared, but now he saw it was far more advanced. It was as though the light around the portal itself was bending and emerging on the other side. Carefully he stuck his flipper through and was amazed to feel that it met no resistance. He pushed his flipper near the wispy orange edges of the portal and, though it was a little warm, he felt the smooth edge of the wall there like it was a clean cut. It's like its a tear in space and time itself... but how is it stable? he wondered.

The voice sounded again, making him jump once more. "Aperture science policy states the subject does not show the capacity to complete tests, they will be released immediately. I don't follow Aperture science policy much anymore, so I'll just dispose of you in five, four..."

Kowalski looked up as a grinding sound came from above him. There he saw that the ceiling was being lowered, and at an alarming rate. Horrified, he looked around for somewhere that he might be safe from it. Under the bed? In a corner the descending platform didn't cover?

"three, two..."

The portal, of course! Kowalski lunged forward with all of his weight, expecting to hit a solid wall just beyond the mysterious energy. Instead he flew right through the opening and hit a hard floor on the other side, sliding a bit. He got up and spun his head around just in time to see an identical portal, this one blue, closing on the wall he had just jumped through.

"Congratulations. You have shown the ample capacity to flee in a time of flight. You coward. Please proceed to the docking and staging area to receive your long-fall boots and then we can begin testing."

Kowalski was still staring wide-eyed at the portal that just closed before him. He couldn't even begin to imagine what kind of technology was behind it. In front of him was the cell he was just in, and he realized that he just didn't go through the wall he jumped through, he emerged from a different wall entirely. It was like his molecular reatomization teleporter, but the transition had been far less turbulent. There had been that shimmer in the light, too. Just like the time machine, he realized.

The penguin looked at his surroundings a bit and realized he was in a short hallway with what looked like sliding doors at the end. There were no other entrances or exits, not even a window. The bright, white light came from overhead and the concrete walls and floor looked impenetrable.

Is this some kind of ploy by Blowhole to extract information from me or learn more about us penguins? Kowalski pondered. With the idea that he might be a prisoner on his mind, he looked at the situation differently. Skipper would tell him that any tool is invaluable as a prisoner of war, and as such he grabbed the clipboard he had jumped through the portal with. Using the stretchy string the pen was attached to it with he put it over his back and proceeded to the doorway with caution.

There's nothing to do but play along for now, he thought.

When he approached the door it slid open as he expected. A motion detector and a few well-greased motors would make that happen, though. What he was really concerned with was that portal. He could still see the orange reflection in his eyes. So surreal, filling him with curiosity. That curiosity was pushing him forward now as he entered an almost pitch-black room.

"Please attach one Aperture Science long-fall boot firmly to each foot, and ensure that there are no weak points in its fabrication," the female voice instructed.

The lights switched on at that moment, revealing a tiny room. From the ground came a platform with two human-sized boots standing on it, stabilized by a little holder. Kowalski immediately realized that just one of them was nearly as big of his entire being. He waddled up to it and hit it with his flipper, knocking it over.

Wondering what he was supposed to do with the overly-large boots, he looked around the room. Surprisingly he located a camera near one of the top corners. It looked just like the kind of surveillance camera that could be found at any grocery store, but it seemed to follow his every movement.

Am I being watched? He pondered.

Maybe if he was, whoever was on the other end of the camera could send him some properly-sized boots, since it didn't seem like he was getting out of the room until he put them on. That could rule out Blowhole as the one who trapped him there, since he'd know that Kowalski would need boots his size, but it didn't mean the dolphin didn't hire an inexperienced bounty hunter or something.

Suddenly a little fearful, Kowalski waved his flippers over his head and nearly shouted, "I need smaller boots!"

There was a slight pause before the monotonic female voice returned, "Even though the animal testing initiative of 1975 was the whole reason I was programmed to rescue you in the first place, that doesn't mean that I was given penguin-to-human speech capabilities. I speak 6,234 of the 6,683 modern languages, however penguin is not one of them."

Kowalski tapped his beak, wondering how he could overcome the ability to communicate with the mysterious computerized voice. Realizing he had brought the clipboard and pen from the first chamber he was in, he slid it off of his back and began to draw.

A few seconds later he held up a drawing of a penguin and a boot with arrows to show that the boot was bigger than the penguin so that the camera could see it. After a moment the ground opened near the human-sized boots again and they disappeared into the dark abyss below. Then two new boots appeared, this time small enough and formed right to fit over Kowalski's webbed feet.

"Good thing Cave Johnson was such a smooth talker, otherwise we'd never have gotten the investment money to develop these. Go ahead, try them on. They've never been tested yet but I'm sure you'll make a good blind trial."

Kowalski nodded to the camera and slid the clipboard back over his back. Cave Johnson? He was pretty sure he had heard that name before, but he couldn't remember where. He was definitely beginning to grow doubtful that Blowhole had anything to do with where he was currently stuck, however. Until more things become clear, I should make sure to keep following whatever that voice is telling me, he realized.

The boots slid on surprisingly easy for their complicated design. They were sleek and white and barely covered the heel of Kowalski's foot, making them look more like futuristic sandals than boots. A metal tongue ran up the side of the boot ending just before the penguin's plumage began. When it was on snug it snapped shut, making the scientist jump. It didn't feel uncomfortable but definitely wasn't going anywhere. He hopped up and put some weight on the boots; it really didn't feel any different than without.

The robot voice sounded again. "Good, you've got the boots on. You've already progressed further than ninety-nine percent of other animal test subjects. Congratulations. Now, remember what I said about that blind trial? Make sure you land on your feet."

Before Kowalski could contemplate what it was referencing to the floor instantly dropped out from below him and he was launched into his third free fall of only a short time. He let out a cry of surprise as he saw lights and moving panels whiz by. He managed to catch a glimpse of the ground growing quickly below him.

Make sure you land on your feet. Kowalski did as he was told by using his flippers to gently upright himself. By the time he was prepared to impact with the ground he was seconds from it, making his heart skip a beat. He closed his eyes, wondering what it was going to be like to have his spinal column pierce his brain...

And apparently, it wasn't painful. A shock wave rocked his form and the sound of his feet colliding with the tiles below him sounded powerful enough, but there was no pain. He opened his eyes again and realized he was standing just fine in another small room with only one door. Above him a roof had already retracted, hiding the length of his fall.

He glanced down at his boots in amazement as the door slid open in front of him. "There is only one more piece of equipment you need," the female voice instructed, "an Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device. One of proper size has been pried from the squirrel who attempted to use it last and was seared by its static discharge. Of course, this problem has been corrected and now the device is once more safe to use."

The door led to the next room which was as dark and small as the one before it. This time, however, in the middle of the room there was a little pillar with a strange looking device hovering just over it. Kowalski inspected it closely, realizing it didn't look that much unlike an ant or a similar insect. The large back of the device looked like an abdomen and the claw on the front looked like feelers.

"Go on, take it," the voice prompted. "You animals are always so much slower than humans. It's like you aren't as trusting as them."

Kowalski stretched out his flipper slowly, concerned about the static discharge that was mentioned before. His boots didn't insulate him from the floor in any way, so anything over a few amps of current flowing through his body would surely result in his demise. He glanced around the dark room again, looking for any possible alternative. Of course, there was none. So instead he gently grabbed the portal gun by its handle, realizing that it was surprisingly light. He held it securely as he looked it over, feeling the trigger on the inside of the handle.

"Good. Now to make sure you are physically and mentally capable of completing the upcoming tests, please use the portal gun to cross this moat of electrified hydrochloric acid. And, though you are a penguin and your primal instincts may tell you do such things, please do not swim in the electrified hydrochloric acid."

Suddenly the lights throughout the room turned out, showing Kowalski that it was considerably larger than he previously assumed. A few panels of the walls were finishing moving into place, showing him a few patches of smooth, white concrete. In front of him was the aforementioned pool of acid, probably twenty feet long with the surface of the acid a solid ten feet below Kowalski's platform. On the other side of the moat was the door, presumably the exit.

Kowalski looked down at the portal device again. Can this device really make the portals I saw in the holding cell? He wondered. He gingerly toyed with the trigger, sizing up the strange device in his hand. It was smooth and sleek, looking far too simple to be able to generate the energies that would be required to allow for intradementional teleportation. It took a thousand kilowatts just to transport that apple...

The intellectual accidentally depressed the trigger too far during his mechanical pondering, and the portal device activated. It shot a blue beam of light from its tip, the feeler-like appendages bent back to absorb some form of recoil that Kowalski didn't even feel. He gasped from surprise as a blue portal opened on the white concrete wall in front of him, identical to the one he had seen in his holding cell. He approached it gently ran his flipper along its edge.

It's like it's bending time and space, but without a container to hold its immense energy, Kowalski realized. He then looked across the moat, understanding what he needed to do. He carefully aimed the portal device at a wall on the other side of the acid, and pressed the trigger. Again, the blue stream of light emerged from the device's tip. This time, however, it merely produced a poof of blue sparks when it hit the wall on the other side.

Kowalski tapped his beak thoughtfully before aiming another shot at the wall, this time directing the portal device at one of the white concrete spots. As he was expecting, the oval portal appeared on the wall. Looks like not all surfaces conduct the portals, he thought to himself.

He turned to enter the portal he had created on his side of the moat, and realized that it had vanished. He clicked the trigger again and a blue portal emerged in front of him, while the portal on the opposite side of the moat.

There must be a way to construct one of those orange portals I witnessed earlier, the penguin hypothesized. Gently setting the portal device down, he grabbed his clipboard and flipped open to a new page. He sketched two portals quickly, drawing an arrow entering one and a question mark on the other. Then, he held it up for the camera in the room to see.

"Protocol tells me that I'm not supposed to assist the test subjects," the voice sounded. "If I did, it wouldn't be a very good test, would it?"

Kowalski agreed by gently shaking his head. Rubbing the bottom of his beak, he looked over the portal device again. Running his flippers over it, he managed to find a tiny switch near the trigger. He flicked it and a blue light he hadn't noticed before faded to orange. Smiling to himself, he created the secondary portal on the opposite side of the moat and watched as the two became linked, looking as if they were windows into other dimensions.

He put his clipboard back over his shoulders and cautiously stepped through the portal, being careful not to come too close to its edges. He still wasn't sure exactly what kinds of energy he was playing with and wasn't interested in becoming roasted by a megawatt of electricity. When he was safely on the other side of the moat, the door slid open.

"Congratulations," the voice offered with a satirical tone in her voice. "You're the first animal to successfully show the mental capacity to complete tests. Enter the elevator in front of you and we can begin the real testing. Unlike previous models, this one has shown 40% capacity to not plummet you to your doom."

The simple, cylindrical elevator was glass on all sides, and the door was already waiting for Kowalski to enter. A quick glance around the room showed the intellectual that taking the elevator and continuing with the robotic voice's charade was his only option.

As he stepped onto the elevator, he became aware of the fact that he still didn't know exactly where he was, or where his teammates were. He had seen all three of them violently ripped away from him in that storm. They could have been carried miles away... or worse...

A gentle shake shook those thoughts from his head. I can worry about that when I get out of here, he told himself. The real question I should be asking myself is: where in Einstein's trousers am I?

Before he even realized the doors before him had slid closed, the elevator lurched to a start. It began moving upwards and a ludicrous speed, making the tall penguin nearly loose his balance. As quickly as it started, however, it stopped and opened in a nearly identically looking room.

"Welcome to your first test. As per your your earlier request, everything has been properly penguin-sized. However, please be aware that things will be no less deadly," the monotonous voice told him.

Waddling forward, Kowalski came through another sliding door and into his first test chamber. On the wall a panel lit up, revealing a few strange images that Kowalski couldn't immediately recognize. There was an image of some type of a cube hitting a man in the head, and also one of a pool of water with sparks arcing across its surface. That must be the electrified hydrochloric acid, he realized.

The voice spoke again, tearing Kowalski from his thoughts. "Because you've shown sluggish performance throughout so far (probably because you're just a penguin), this test has another factor. The electrified hydrochloric acid in this room will be steadily rising."

On cue, a pipe emerged from behind a moving panel and began pumping more of the deadly liquid into the already half-full trench in the middle of the room. Feeling his heart rate accelerate, Kowalski began to ponder his options. For the most part the room he was in now looked identical to the previous one, except this one had an extra, clear pipe coming from the ceiling and what appeared to be a giant-sized button near the door.

Realizing all he had to do was cross the moat again, Kowalski quickly formed a portal near himself and on the opposite side of the room. Less cautiously than before, partly because he trusted the stability of the portals and mostly because he was terrified of the quickly rising acid level. He waddled up to the door and scowled when it didn't open for him.

He spun around, looking for alternative ways out. Of course, he was sealed in just like the other rooms. This makes no sense! He complained. Why doesn't this door have the same protocol as the previous one? Unless...

The straggly penguin waddled over to the button and jumped onto it, hearing a satisfied click as it was depressed. A green check-mark appeared near the door, and it slid open. He smiled, stepping off of the button to get away from the horrible acid. Unfortunately, the moment he did, the door slammed in his face.

Startled and growing more panicked, he looked around the room one more time. His eyes found the clear tube coming out of the ceiling near the entryway and a little red button he didn't notice before. He hurried back through his portals and towards it, eager to see if it would stop the flow of acid.

The button made a strange tone as though it was acknowledging that it had been pressed, and Kowalski closely watched to see if the deadly liquid would stop pouring into the trench. Instead, he cried out in surprise when he was hit in the head by something fairly heavy, knocking him over.

"There is no previous data on record to show that penguins are prone to letting weighted storage cubes fall on their heads so now you've proven they have a failure rate of one-hundred percent. I would say you've accomplished something significant if you weren't shaming your entire species."

Kowalski rubbed where the box had hit him, scowling at the robotic voice. He looked down at the storage cube which was about half of his size. That must be used to hold the button down so I can get out, he concluded. A quick glance to the acid levels, which had grown dangerously close to the top of the trench, and he acknowledged that he needed to hurry.

He reached for the cube and tried to lift it, along with his portal device, but it was heavy and bulky. In the end he started dragging it towards the portal to the exit when, by chance, he pointed the device at it. As if there was some kind of magnetic attraction between the gun and it, the cube began to levitate in the air just in front of the portal gun. Kowalski noted the fact that it seemed almost weightless. Has this device mastered levitation technology? Kowalski wondered.

"Acid levels have nearly reached peak. You had better hope your feathers are acid-proof, as well as water-proof," the voice said.

Not even bothering to look at how close he was to dissolving into penguin soup, Kowalski ran for the portal. Diving through and not even caring how the portal device was so easily able to keep the box upright even as it hit the edges of the portal itself, Kowalski dashed for the button. The portal device then automatically released the cube as he held it over the button, allowing the door to be opened. The acid was just breaching the edges of the trench it had been filling as they closed behind him.

"Well done," said the voice. "You've successfully doubled the slowest time of any human or robot test subjects. Proceed in the elevator to your next test.

Kowalski scowled, realizing that the tests were going to go on for some time. And, based on the fact that he was both receiving so many insults and was being put in life-threatening situations, he had concluded that Blowhole was for some reason toying with him. Perhaps he's using me to test out his new technologies, Kowalski considered. If so, that's a big mistake on his part.

Immediately he began to formulate an escape plan. He had boots that seemed to let him fall any distance, and a portal gun that let him teleport across impossible gaps. If only he could find a way to break out of one of the sealed rooms he had been traveling between, maybe he'd be able to find a way out. Then he'd be able to meet up with his team once more.

Hopefully they're alright...

He shook his mind again. If Skipper taught him anything, it was that worrying makes a soldier distracted, and thereby weak. Right now he needed his wits about him. A quick mental recap of everything he remembered helped him conclude that he was still some distance underground. That meant his only way out was up, and that was just where the elevators were taking him.

Maybe after I get out of here I'll have Rico destroy it for me, he thought as the sliding glass doors closed before him.