As she progressed down the elevator shaft, Blake eventually encountered a hole in the wall. It wasn't a hole formed by damage; it was too perfectly rectangular for that. She had to conclude that there had been something where the hole in the wall was, something that had been removed. The entry was small; she'd have to be crouching to move around in it. Still, she didn't have an infinite length of ribbon to work with, and so she decided to enter the hole. A quick tug on the ribbon in a precise manner dislodged Gambol Shroud from its perch, and she quickly retrieved and stowed it.

"Crawling through an unknown place, underground, with no real knowledge of what to expect," Blake grumbled as she crawled through the small area she found herself in. "Well, no one said the life of a freedom fighter was glamorous." She sighed. "Hopefully, it won't take too long to find anythiiiIIIIIII - !"

While crawling, her hand had pressed down on a rusted bit of the metal crawlspace, and it had given way under her. Under normal circumstances, Blake would have been able to pull back and avoid falling in. However, having been crawling forward, her weight was pulled forward and down into the new hole.

Blake wasn't exactly unused to falls, however, After the initial surprise, she quickly scanned what was looming out of the darkness. Spotting a catwalk below her, she reoriented herself to land directly on it. She hit feet-first, tucking into a roll as she did so, ending on her knees with one hand for support. The rattling of the catwalk echoed through the area, filled with what looked like large freight cars for trains stacked on top of one another.

"Well, that could have gone better," she mused, looking up. She spotted the hole she'd fallen through, high above her. Unfortunately, she couldn't see an easy way to get back up there; the freight cars, or whatever they were, didn't reach that high, and while she was quite skilled at jumping, even she would need some sort of boost to get from the top of the nearest container to the rusted hole. "Great, just what I needed. To be trapped in an abandoned research facility with no way out. Really good job, Blake."

"Hello? Is anyone there?"

The voice startled Blake, and she whirled around, drawing Gambol Shroud from its sheath and converting it into its compact form, aiming the pistol's barrel at the direction the voice had come from. How is there someone down here?! This place is supposed to be abandoned! she thought. She couldn't see anyone, though the catwalk looped around one of the freight cars out of sight in the voice's direction. Out loud, she said, "Come out, and keep your hands where I can see them."

"Oh, thank God, I finally found someone else!" the voice replied. There was an odd whirring sound as it drew closer. "I've been searching the vault for hours, now, and - " As the speaker rounded the corner, it saw Blake aiming her gun at it. "GAH! Put that thing down! You could hurt someone with that!"

Blake nearly did so, purely out of astonishment. The speaker wasn't humanoid in the least. It was a metal sphere, attached to a rail that she'd just realized was built over the catwalk; a part of her noted she'd been extremely fortunate to have missed hitting it on the way down. A blue light was visible in the center of the sphere, and from the way the metal around it moved, it almost seemed like the light was an eye of sorts. "What… what are you?" Blake asked, keeping her aim on it, just in case it was dangerous.

"Oh, right! Introductions!" the sphere exclaimed. Now that Blake was paying attention, it had a male voice that sounded like it was from the southeastern end of Solitas, the northernmost continent in Remnant. "I'm Wheatley. I'm in charge of the Relaxation Vault here at Aperture Science. Now could you please put that gun down? I'm not going to hurt you, I promise."

Blake hesitated for a moment, then slowly put Gambol Shroud away. It didn't look like this 'Wheatley' had any means of hurting her, anyway. "You didn't answer me. I asked what you were, not who."

The metal around Wheatley's eye clicked shut around it briefly, like a human eye would blink. "Oh, so you did. Um, I'm a Personality Core. An artificial intelligence in a spherical body, essentially."

Blake's mind spun with the implications. AI was just beginning to be seriously researched in the kingdom of Atlas, and from what she'd heard so far, it was fairly rudimentary. Yet here was a facility in Anima, seemingly abandoned since the Great War, and there was a fully functional, self-aware AI! This alone proved that Aperture Science had indeed been ahead of its time. If Blake could get back to the White Fang with Wheatley intact… he alone could be an enormous find.

Wheatley continued talking while she pondered this. "Now that I look at you, you don't look like one of the test subjects. Come to think of it, no subjects are allowed weapons of any type. Plus, that doesn't look remotely like a standard security weapon. So you're not a subject, and you're not a security officer… who are you?"

Blake collected herself. "I'm Blake Belladonna. I came here from outside."

"Wait, what?!" The blue part of Wheatley's eye shrank to a pinprick, much like a pupil on a mammal's eye. "You mean, you purposely came in here? What's the matter with you?! This place is a death trap!"

Blake raised an eyebrow. "I was told that this place had technology far ahead of its time. I was trying to get some of that tech to bring back with me to the White Fang." She glanced up at the hole she'd fallen through. "Unfortunately, my way out isn't going to be easy to get to, especially if I'm carrying unknown tech."

Wheatley looked up as well, spotting the hole. "Oooh, yeah, that's not happening," he muttered. Then he brightened. "But hey! This actually works out perfect for us! We can work together to get out of here!"

Blake blinked. "You mean, you want to leave?" She'd thought that she would have to do some talking to convince Wheatley to come with her.

Before Wheatley could respond, another voice sounded from speakers nearby. "Prepare for emergency evacuation."

"Yeah, not much point in sticking around," Wheatley said, looking at the speaker. "This place is a wreck, so if we can get out of here, I'm taking that opportunity. And I'll sweeten the deal for you; you get me out of here, you can keep any Aperture tech we come across in the process. Win for both of us!"

Blake was wondering about the 'emergency evacuation' but decided it wasn't too important, especially with the deal Wheatley had offered. "So, where do we start?"

"Well, first off, you're going to need some Longfall Boots," Wheatley said. "I passed a locker on the way here, there should be some in there." He began traveling along the rail, back in the direction he'd come from. After a moment, Blake followed.

They reached the locker after a couple of minutes. It was a locked door that Wheatley, thankfully, had the ability to hack, though he asked Blake to turn around while he did so, claiming it would be a bit 'technical'. Despite rolling her eyes, Blake did so. The locker opened, revealing a pair of white, knee-high boots with an odd metal brace on the rear. "So, what exactly are these?"

"Basically, they allow you to survive falls of pretty much infinite height," Wheatley replied. "I don't think they've tested just how much height is too much, but for what we're doing, it'll be more than enough. Won't even damage your Aura."

Blake thought about that. Her fall earlier had taken a chunk out of her Aura, according to her scroll's reading. As Aura, the power of the soul, was the main method by which humanity protected themselves from harm, anything that could keep it from being damaged was a blessing. Nodding, Blake pulled off her own shoes, and pulled the Longfall Boots on, testing their comfort. To her surprise, they fit well, and didn't seem to require breaking in. "Huh. These are actually pretty nice," she noted.

"And now that you've got them, we can really get to work getting out of here," Wheatley noted happily. He nodded to one of the freight cars, which Blake noticed had a door leading to the catwalk. "Go ahead and enter that Relaxation Unit there, and we'll get started."

Blake frowned. "'Relaxation Unit'?" she parroted. "What does…" She trailed off as she opened the door into what could have been a generic single-person hotel room, complete with minibar, old paintings, and even an archaic non-holographic television. The disparity between the cozy room and the open catwalk outside made her blink. "What… is this?"

"This, is one of the ten thousand Relaxation Units here in the Relaxation Vault, which I happen to be in charge of," Wheatley replied, moving in via his rail, which terminated in the middle of the ceiling. "Between tests, subjects spend their time in these units, which also acts as a cryosleep chamber."

Cryosleep…? Blake wondered, then her eyes widened at the implications of everything she'd heard. "Wait! This facility conducted scientific tests on people?!"

"Well, yes, if you need to be blunt about it," Wheatley admitted. "Been doing things that way since… oh, I forget how long it's been. Longer than I've been functional, I can tell you that."

Before Blake could respond to that, the voice she'd heard on the catwalk sounded again. "Reactor core meltdown imminent." An alarm starting going off as well.

"Okay, y'know what? We can talk after we get out of here," Wheatley said, as part of the ceiling above him retracted and drew him and the bit of rail he was on into it. "Oh! Word of advice, you may want to hold onto something. Just a suggestion, up to you."

Blake, deciding questions about the facility's morality could wait, went over to the closet and grabbed onto the coat rack rail, just as the room shook. Whatever the Relaxation Unit's outer shell was made out of, it clearly wasn't that durable, as parts of the wall fell away, revealing a hole through which she could view their movement through the Vault.

"Okay, so, I wasn't going to say anything, but I'm in pretty hot water here!" Wheatley spoke up as he piloted the Unit from wherever he was above the ceiling. "The reserve power ran out, so naturally, the Relaxation Vault stops waking up the bloody test subjects!"

As he spoke, the Unit swayed as he changed directions on whatever track it was being pulled on. A collision with something else, probably another Unit, caused more of the wall to fall away, giving Blake a better view. The Vault, she could see, was huge, with dozens, if not hundreds, of Units. And the fact that the reserve power had run out… Blake felt sick. "So, all these people… they're all dead?"

"Brain-dead, at the very least, now hold on, I need to concentrate!" Wheatley replied, as he narrowly wove the Unit through two others that had a sizeable gap between them. "And of course, nobody tells me anything! Noooo, why should they tell me anything?" There was a squeal of metal-on-metal as he scraped past another one of the large Units. "Why should I be kept informed, y'know, of the vital signs of the ten thousand test subjects I'm supposed to be in charge of?!"

"Ten thousand?!" Blake was horrified. That was almost as much as the population of the Faunus homeland of Menagerie in its entirety. The idea that there were that many people down in this facility, who'd all died due to power failure…

A jolt ran through her as Wheatley collided with another Unit, sending it crashing down into the depths. "Argh, hit that one, I hit that one," he said unnecessarily. "And whose fault do you think it'll be, when management comes along, and finds ten thousand flipping vegetables?"

Blake didn't trust herself to speak. She was seriously regretting her decision to come here. The moral and ethical implications of what Aperture had done were beyond the pale.

"Okay, I guess that's probably not the brightest thing to ask, since, y'know, we're going to be leaving," Wheatley noted, as they rounded a corner between two Units, approaching a solid wall. "Now, we're near one of the old testing tracks! You'll find a piece of equipment in there we're going to need to get out of here. I think this is a docking station right here, get ready!"

As they approached the wall, the Unit paused in its flight, then backed up. Blake, still slightly sickened by what she'd heard, spotted writing on the wall: 'Docking Station - 500 Feet Down', complete with arrows that marked the way. Her eyes widened. "Wheatley, wait - "

There was a tremendous clang as the Unit impacted the wall. The wall seemed to be sturdier than the walls of the Unit, but not by much; the impact had clearly done some damage. "Good news, that is not a docking station! I'm going to attempt a manual override on this wall! Could get a bit technical, hold on!" The Unit backed up, and then lurched forward again.

Blake held onto the coat rack for dear life as another jolt ran through her with the impact. Great, of all the ways I could possibly die, death by insane AI crashing me into a wall was not one I expected. Would make a decent epitaph, though. Why am I thinking about this?!

As the Unit backed up again, Wheatley spoke up. "Nearly there! Remember, you're looking for a gun that shoots holes! Not bullet holes, but… well, you'll see! Really do hold on this time!"

This time, the crash was hard enough to cause Blake to lose her grip on the coat rack. Thankfully, the bed was right in front of her, and so she was merely sprawled across its width. As she lay there, breathing hard, she heard the motors that propelled the room disengage, and Wheatley came back in. She glared balefully up at him. "You maniac. You could have gotten me killed." She was too busy focusing on getting her breathing back to normal to put much venom into her reproach.

"Possibly, but I doubt that would have happened. Although, if you had died, I'd be up the creek, now wouldn't I?" Wheatley noted. "Anyway." He motioned to where the wall he'd rammed had been, revealing an open area, with part of the floor made of glass. "In there's the old testing track. You seem like a smart girl, and you've got the boots, so this should be a piece of cake for you. So, you just scurry along, and I'll meet you up ahead."

Blake stood up and dusted herself off. After giving Wheatley one last glare, she stepped through the ruined wall. Looking around, she noticed that the glass part of the floor was heavily cracked; she honestly doubted it would support her weight. Rather than find out, she pulled out Gambol Shroud and fired a couple of rounds, shattering the glass and earning a startled yelp from Wheatley.

Leaping down, she found herself in a cubicle. Three of the walls were glass, while the fourth was solid. One part of the solid wall had odd protrusions poking out from it. Within the cubicle, there was a small stand with an empty clipboard, a mug, and some sort of radio on it, though the radio was off, and Blake couldn't see a means to turn it on. In addition, there was a toilet in the cubicle, as well as a large hollow pod of some kind. It looked to be big enough for a human to fit in…

Blake was spared the opportunity to wonder more about the morality of Aperture Science when the voice - she mentally dubbed it the 'Announcer' - spoke up. "Hello, and again, welcome to the Aperture Science Enrichment Center. We are currently experiencing technical difficulties due to circumstances of potentially apocalyptic significance beyond our control. However, thanks to Emergency Testing Protocols, testing can continue. These pre-recorded messages will provide instructional and motivational support, so that science can still be done, even in the event of environmental, social, economic, or structural collapse. The portal will open, and emergency testing will begin in three. Two. One."

Before Blake could wonder what was meant by 'portal', the protrusions on the one part of the solid wall lit up, with an orange-rimmed hole appearing between them. Simultaneously, a section of wall outside the glass cubicle lit up with a blue-rimmed hole appearing. When Blake looked out through the orange hole, she was startled to see herself inside the cubicle. Doing some mental calculations, she realized that she was seeing herself from the perspective of the blue hole. Hesitantly, she poked a hand through the hole, then cautiously stepped through, emerging from the blue-rimmed hole… or portal, as she now realized.

"Point-to-point wormhole technology… that's absolutely incredible," she breathed in wonder. "Oh, if I could get ahold of this, it would revolutionize our efforts. We could sneak into places, rob them blind, and sneak out without anyone being the wiser." Already she was picturing using the portals to deal major damage to the Schnee Dust Company, the largest producer of Dust-powered products in the world… and a company known for questionable business practices and labor laws.

Still, at the moment, she couldn't see a means to remove the portal generators, so she maneuvered around the cubicle to a circular door in the wall. It opened up as she approached, revealing a rectangular chamber. It was mostly bare, with a large red button on the floor, and an equally large cube some distance away. Another circular door was set in the rightmost wall from where she'd entered.

"Cube-and-button-based testing remains an important part of science, even in a dire emergency," the Announcer intoned. "If cube-and-button-based testing caused this emergency, don't worry. The odds of this happening twice are very slim."

"That's reassuring," Blake deadpanned. "So the 'tests' here were just critical thinking puzzles? That's better than I was expecting." She went over to the cube, and tested its weight. For its size, it was surprisingly light, so she picked it up, and set it on the button, lighting it up. The circular door on the far wall opened partially, but a shower of sparks erupted, causing it to remain only partly open. Still, that was enough for her to slip through, so she did, though she paused at the sight of the odd translucent field in front of her.

"Please note the incandescent particle field across the exit. This Aperture Science Emancipation Grill will vaporize any unauthorized equipment that passes through it," the Announcer noted.

Blake tensed. This could be bad, she thought. If it vaporizes Gambol Shroud, I'll have to make my way back through the badlands without a weapon. If it vaporizes my Scroll, I won't be able to contact Adam or anyone else once I get out of here. Either is bad. She sighed. Still, I don't have much choice. I'll just have to pass through and hope this field is faulty.

She took a breath, and stepped through the field. After a moment, she relaxed as she still felt Gambol Shroud's weight on her back, and her Scroll in her pocket. Moving onward, she found a circular area with a small elevator waiting for her. Stepping inside, the elevator door closed, and it descended, taking her deeper into the facility.

"Critical thinking and problem solving. These kinds of tests, I can do," Blake mused. "If this is all the facility has to offer, what's the worst that could happen?"