The interior of the building was painted in a cream color and was rather small. At the other end of the office building was a woman sitting on a desk and seemed to be rather busy on her computer. Besides her was the only other door in the office. Also next to the woman was a single chair. Siegfried took some time to get used to his surrounding before walking up to the woman on the desk. As he came up to her, he noticed a portrait of the woman on the wall behind her, it read: "Aperture Science Employee of the Month, March: Isabella 'Ivy' Valentine". On the portrait she wore a stern expression, her hair was a light purple hue, and wore business suit with the Aperture Science logo on it. However her most noticeable features were her rather large "assets" that seemed to struggle to break free from the suit itself.

Siegfried looked down at the woman herself to see that she was sharply staring at him.

"Yes?" she asked coldly.

"Hello." Siegfried replied.

"Yes, state your business."

"I'm here for my first day of work."

"Name please."

"It's Siegfried Schtauffen."

"Okay, let me just search your name in the computer data base," Ivy replied as she punched in keys on her keyboard. "Ah, here it is, Siegfried Schtauffen."

Ivy then looked under her desk and retrieved a box, a pen, and a clipboard with some paper already on it and dropped them on her desk.

"Excuse me, but what is all this for?" asked Siegfried.

"The box contains your uniform required by Aperture Science for your kind of work. And the clipboard holds the survey all employees must take when they start their first day at Aperture Science." Ivy replied with the same cold tone.

"Okay, thank you." Siegfried said as he took the box and survey and sat down in the only other chair in the office.

The survey itself was simple enough; it had basic questions such as: "Who was your last employer?" and "Are we able to contact your last employer?" Other questions in the survey were odd; such as: "When was the last time you heard a song on the radio?" and "Have you ever drunk milk straight from the carton?" And then there were questions that were weird and downright disturbing, like: "Have you ever have had sexual fantasies about mythological creatures?" and "Have you ever consumed another human being, to discover whether you were a yoma or not?" Either way, Siegfried was glad that he finished the survey sooner than he hoped.

He handed over the survey to Ivy while still holding the box on his arm.

"Humph…" Ivy interjected, "Done so soon..."

She took the survey from him, and opened a drawer on her desk and pulled out a key. She then stood up and used the key to open the door beside her. Siegfried followed Ivy until they reached a metallic colored room, with an aqua colored glass cubical in it. Ivy led him to the door of the cubical which have a keypad. Ivy pressed a combination which opened the door into the cubical and showed Siegfried in.

"This is where you'll be staying until you're called for." Ivy spoke as she left the room.

The door immediately closed afterwards.

The cubical was quite small. It contained an odd spherical shaped bed, a single toilet, and a small table with what looked like a small table on it. Siegfried looked up at the door and found a digital clock on it. It currently read "30:00:00:00" and counted down. He then decided to open the box. In it was an orange jumpsuit. He made no effort in quickly putting on the jumpsuit. Siegfried, seeing as he now had nothing better to do, lay down on the oddly shaped bad and closed his eyes.

"Hey! Hey you! Wake up! Wake up!"

Siegfried bolted out the bed, alarmed by an overly energetic, feminine, somewhat childish voice.

"Oh goodie, you're awake!" spoke the energetic voice.

Siegfried looked up, the clock now read: "00:30:49:21".

"Today will be so much fun!" exclaimed the voice. "We'll be doing some testing today! And best of all cake and grief counseling will be available after the test, Yay!"

Siegfried's stomach rumbled. It has been awhile since he ate. He was puzzled, however as to why he would need grief counseling afterwards.

The clock now read: "00:15:60:22"

"Please…"

A sharp static noise cut the voice off.

"Bitte unterlassen Sie andernfalls den Test nicht bestehen! Vielen Dank!"*

The clock now read: "00:03:00:11"

"The portal will open in three… two… one…"

A small orange hole appeared on the door of the cubical, which grew to the size and height of the door itself.

Siegfried was startled to see the portal appear so suddenly before him.

"Wha… What is this? Who are you?" he asked.

"You mean I haven't introduced myself to you yet? How rude of me!" the voice spoke. "Well I'm TiRA, Technologically intelligent Responsive Automated. I don't know where my creator got "Automated" from; I guess he/she was lazy. Hurry up and enter the portal, the cake is waiting!"

Upon hearing the word "cake", Siegfried jumped into the portal and came out of the other end. He looked at his surrounding and realized he was outside the cubical and in the metallic colored room. He looked behind and saw an identical blue portal which led to the inside of the cubical. He also noticed that there was an entrance to another room different to the one he took to get to the current one. With no other option Siegfried walked into the room.

The test had begun.

A.N: "Bitte unterlassen Sie andernfalls den Test nicht bestehen! Vielen Dank!" means, "Please refrain from failing to fail the test! Thank you!" in German. In Portal, GLaDOS says a line similar to this one in Spanish.