I'm sitting underneath the light in the annex. Sitting in my lap is a silver sphere robot...thing with a blue light in its center. The poor guy is in massive disrepair, as his outer shell is corroding and his light bulb is slightly cracked down the center. He's looking up at me, and I'm staring rather confusedly at him.

"Hello!" he greets me.

"Hello?"

"Hooray! You talk!"

"...Why is that such a big deal? You're not the first one to point that out to me."

"Oh, it's because—uh, never mind. I'm Wheatley. Good day!"

That name rings a bell. Where have I heard that name before?

"Are you bipolar or something? You just kinda went from being all 'you should totally go before that robot voice kills you' to 'hi there, friend'!"

"The tests! I almost forgot!" Not very bright, are we? "You need to go."

"But what about you? You just gonna stay in here? You look...well, quite honestly...like shit."

"It's a long story, but I'd rather not be here in the first place. Just—just go on without me. I'd rather stay here where it's safe."

Her voice chimes again. She's furious now. "Come back now, or else you might not live to even see the next chamber!"

I must act fact. Regardless of Wheatley's protesting, I'm taking him with me. (Good thing he comes with a convenient carrying handle.) "What?" he inquires. "What on Earth are you doing?"

"Hey," I reason, "you distracted me for enough time to make that she-beast pissed. You're coming with me, whether you like it or not."

"Oh, no, I'm not!"

"What are you gonna do? Roll away?"

He shuts up, and I escape from the annex.

"Oh, good, you're back...and—never mind. I see you found one of the few places I forgot to fix after...she trashed this place the last time. I'll work on patching that up while you complete this next chamber."

The chamber lock opens, and I'm greeted to another arena to hone my portal gun skills in. The room's a long rectangle. Far to my right is a ledge that's extremely high up. There's a door up there. The wall to my left, which is only a few feet from where I am, is completely white—perfect for shooting portals at. There are a few patches on the wall in front of me with white wall, but, for the most part, the walls are black. I get a better look at the wall I can't see, and I notice this peculiar, electric-blue bridge emanating from a wall tile. I decide to approach the foreign object to get a better look at it. I crouch down and prepare my right index finger to touch the bridge, but Wheatley objects. "STOP!" he warns. "You could get burned! That thing's pure sunlight."

I look up at the ceiling as I hope for some sort of glass window to warm my skin under, but all I see are metal scaffolds suspended in the air. Not a drop of natural light exists here. "Where does she get the sun from, anyways?"

"Not important. Just—just keep testing, and I'll try to figure out how to get us out of here."

Good luck with that, Wheatley.

Let's see. That light bridge ends on one of the white squares on the opposing wall. If I shoot a blue portal there, then shoot an orange portal there...

I perform my experiment, then hop on the bridge to test my hypothesis. I walk down it, then into one portal and out the other. I'm still walking on the same bridge, except now I'm suspended above the floor that my feet were perched upon just seconds ago. I make it to the chamber lock, and I proceed to the elevator.

I look down at Wheatley. He's in decent shape—well, more like he's still in one piece—even though we passed through an Emancipation Grill. He is foreign material, and I'm smuggling him out of the testing chamber, so how did he survive?

-x-

"Hey, look, office space!" points out Wheatley.

"Your point?"

"Maybe there's a computer that I can hack!"

Why does the mere thought of that scare me?

I set Wheatley down on a stack of papers that's located on the desk next to me. I scan up and down the aisle in search of a computer, a PDA, a laptop—something that I can bring to Wheatley for him to hack (though I don't know how he'd pull that off, seeing that he has no arms and all). All I see are empty clip boards, half-bitten pens, and overflowing trash bins. Not even a calculator. Did these people seriously not have any computers on their person?

"Hey, you, check out this!"

"What is it now, Wheatley? I'm trying to find a—"

"No, this is better. Come quick!"

I join him over at his pile of paper. The position of his optical has been reversed to the opposite end of his body so he can read a file. He asks me, "What's your name?"

"That's the problem—I don't remember."

"Well, check this out. It says here on this testing subject profile that your name is Concordia, and—oh, your last name got blotted out with coffee. Blasted office workers and their addiction to coffee."

Concordia? Yes. That does ring a bell, but— "How do you know that's definitely my name?"

"Your photo's right here. You probably were put into suspension right after this photo was taken; you haven't changed a bit!"

"Wait, suspension? You mean—"

"Yes. Test subjects tend to have a bit of minor cognitive deterioration after several months in suspension, but the fact that you couldn't even remember your own name could indicate that you might have a very, very, veeeery minor case of serious brain damage—but you're not the first subject to have this happen to her."

I'm flabbergasted. "Uh, minor serious brain damage? Is that even possible?"

"I just wanted to make light of the situation."

"Just—just give me this."

I rip the file out from under Wheatley's metal body, and he falls on his optic. "OW! As if my optic didn't have enough bloody damage as it is."

I scan the document carefully, focusing on every single detail until I'm convinced that this really is myself. The photo...is that what I really look like? I don't even remember what I look like! Maybe Wheatley's right about the brain damage thing...

I find a shard of broken glass near the door, so I gently pick it up and examine my face. Heart-shaped, pale face. Jade green eyes. Hair that's not quite ginger, yet not quite brown. As I take another glance at the photo in my profile, I realize that this file is most definitely mine.

Concordia.

It's nice to see myself again.