"Aperture?" Ryan repeated as he held up the plastic card that bared his information.

"Yep, Aperture Science. I showed them your personal reports, and after much thinking, they've finally agreed to let you in."

Ryan examined the card with greater detail. Sure enough, there was an Aperture Science name & logo imprinted in the top right corner next to his name. The card made it look like Ryan had been an employee for years, when really he was just a college student who had no professional experience with science.

"How long has this been going on? Since when were you looking to…" Ryan gazed outside the car window. "recruit me…"

"Ever since you handed in your first paper…" Professor said with a joyful expression. "Of all the students, you had the most potential from the start, that's where it all began."

Ryan played with the glove compartment for a short amount of time. But when a couple of important looking papers fell out, he decided to leave everything alone for a while. Still, a sense of confusion gripped him as to what the whole situation was about. "Where do I even fit into all this? What makes you think I'll simply accept such an offe-"

Professor Morrison flashed a decent stack of twenty dollar bills right in front of Ryan's eyes. It was worth at least a couple hundred bucks, and the professor was waving it around like it was lunch money. "Oh, and by the way, here's your acceptance bonus."

Ryan took the cluster of bills from the professor's hand. "Fine." He muttered under his breath. "I'll do it… but I still don't know exactly what it is you want me to do. What's it going to be like? Is it some sort of research facility?"

"You can say that... but it's much different than what you're likely to expect." Professor Morrison turned the SUV onto a quiet country road; one where trees and fields lined both sides.

Ryan had clearly never gone this way, since nothing looked familiar. Of course, it all looked the same to him; as one second passed onto another, all that was visible was the endless fields of grain stretching in either direction.

"What… should I expect?"

Professor Morrison paused for a second, shifting his view between Ryan and the road. "At Aperture? Well… I honestly have no idea… just remember to stay quiet, don't speak unless spoken to, and for goodness sakes," He turned back to face Ryan with the 'if you do anything wrong you're screwed' look. "don't say anything about Black Mesa…"

"Black Mesa?"

"Yes! Why do you have to repeating everything I say?" The professor exclaimed as he threw his hands in front of him, inherently letting go of the steering wheel.

The professor's words only escaladed the awkwardness of the conversation. Now none of them wanted to talk, but they both felt like they needed to. The strange feeling between them was oddly enough not caused by the lack of questions, but the lack of answers. Minutes passed, and they both spoke about the proper protocol, procedures, and a lot of other pros. But Ryan was worried about the cons.

"Another cow…" Ryan blandly commented.

"That's eh… seventeen right?"

"Yeah… although I don't think that guy standing outside that chicken-only restaurant counts."

"True…"

Ryan folded his arms and leaned back on the leather seat. He felt like going asleep, but he knew they'd be arriving any minute now. He didn't want to get caught sleeping on arrival, just the thought of what reputation that would give him influenced him to stay awake.

"Potassium, Calcium, Scandium, Titanium… oh would you like sing the rest with me?"

"No thanks…"

"What's wrong? Don't have a genuine respect for Chemistry?"

Ryan rolled his eyes, stopping them once they reached the direction of the strange professor. "No. In fact, I wrote a sixty-three stanza poem on electron shell configurations for my high school science competition." He said, shifting back in his seat as he held his left arm with his right hand. "But I lost to someone built a complete model of stable isotopes using popsicle sticks."

"Interesting, I wonder if Aperture picked him up." Professor Morrison commented, looking as if he were more interested in finding the popsicle stick architect than transporting his current recruit. "Or maybe… maybe Black Mesa found him!" The professor's face grew paranoid.

"What is it with Black Mesa?"

"What is it with them!" Professor Morrison looked at Ryan as if he'd just put his shoes on his hands. "Black Mesa is the reason you've never heard about Aperture Science. Black Mesa is the reason my paycheck's so measly, Black Mesa's the reason I need a second job just so I can find people! Black Mesa is-"

"FINALLY!" Ryan boisterously announced the SUV's arrival to what appeared to be a large fenced off area. The gap in the fence was strategically under watch by security guards and video cameras alike. It was kind of like entering a military base; Professor Morrison showed one of the guards his employment card and they were home free. After getting past the fenced area, they approached a large parking garage. The solid, square, concrete building's only visible entrance was a thin but wide steel door large enough to fit a tank.

Professor Morrison scanned his card into a roadside booth, and the door to the garage opened. "Black Mesa's not important right now." He said, finding a good place to park the vehicle. "What's important is that we get you into action as soon as possible."

"I'm not sure I know what that means… but you've dragged me all the way out here, so I guess I'll have to go along with it."

The scenery changed from the bright and free outdoor road to the cold and hard concrete parking garage. The garage had enough space for a good fifty plus cars; however, the only two vehicles in the garage were two SUV's that looked exactly like Professor Morrison's parked in a little enclosure. The Professor's car was soon parked right next to the duplicates, which it immediately fit in with.

Ryan exited the vehicle. "So the car doesn't belong to you? It's really a company vehicle?" He asked, comprehending the similar features of each car.

"Well in a way yes… it's just that they didn't bother to put a logo on this one, so… I couldn't resist."

Ryan's eyes were drawn towards a fragmented blue circle placed on one of the vehicle's side doors.

"But enough of that, let's get to working. Follow me." Professor Morrison led Ryan to the back end of the empty parking garage. Judging by the two smooth doors and nearby button, Ryan figured Professor Morrison was leading him to an elevator.

The professor neared the door, but instead of pressing the button, he held an employee card over its glow. "Your turn." He said, facing an impressed Ryan.

Ryan took his own card out of his pocket. He neared the supposed button only to figure out that it wasn't anything of the sort. It was instead like one of those laser barcode scanners he'd see at department stores, yet this one was only a circular ret dot. Ryan hesitated to lay his card forward, until a voice prompted him to do otherwise.

"Card please."A feminine robot voice from above emitted the kind request.

"Hey cool, it talks…"

"You haven't seen anything yet." Professor Morrison said, looking as if he were trying to contain a deep seated smile.

The silver door opened, and behind it lied a large, circular, cushion edged man container. Ryan followed the eager professor inside. Little did he know, he was stepping into a realm of insanity.

"I can see you're pretty overwhelmed at the moment." Professor Morrison said, just as the elevator began moving downward. "Figures, newcomers tend to exemplify a little jaw latency the first time they see Aperture and all of its beauty." He said, laying his arms out towards the elevator's ceiling.

"How long do you plan on keeping me?" Ryan curiously asked. "Is there a time schedule or something you've planned for me?"

Professor Morrison laughed, patting Ryan on the back as he nearly fell over. "Haha, once you enter the Aperture, you won't want to leave. I learned that thirty years ago. As long as you listen to your superiors and conduct your work at the best of your ability…" The elevator stopped. A barely audible ambient structure of words could barely be heard behind the thick door, steadily increasing once they casually slid open. The rest of Professor Morrison's words were almost drowned out by the continuous sounds of busy feet shuffling and talkative mouths arguing. "you're gonna love it here."

The two stepped out of the elevator, and into a large black walled area encompassing a great expanse of science. There were at least twenty people standing around yelling at each other. Ryan wondered if this was the spectacular company the professor was speaking of. It was an absolute madhouse of chaos. Everyone had left their professional standings in order to rant about another's failures as a scientist.

"Don't mind these people…" Prof. Morrison said, waving his hand off at the boisterous rabble. "They're just angry that the latest project didn't work out as planned. It's affected the entire company." He said, motioning for Ryan to follow him through a maze of lab coats.

As Ryan passed each individual scientist, he noticed the strange look each of them gave him. Perhaps it was because of a new face they were seeing, or perhaps it was because they were ready to splash boiling plutonium into the face of whoever disagreed with them. He looked up to see a large sign that read 'Enrichment Center Mainframe Entrance', apparently that was where they were headed now…

As they moved further and further, the walls grew whiter, and the setting grew calmer. Instead of a constant array of arguments, the two were met with a continuous array of greetings.

"Hello Dr. Morrison…"

"Hi Dr.!"

"Good evening Morrison."

After each lab coat wearing scientist came up to greet the doctor, they gave a warm smile and a soft wave. Of course, Dr. Morrison was only to happy to return the favor with an equally adorable slide of the hand.

"Dr.? You're a doctor?"

"Yes… well not that kind of doctor…"

"And all this time I thought you were the… nevermind…" Ryan ditched his sentence entirely. "This place sure is strange…" Ryan said, having only seconds to take in the new environment. "I've never been inside a place like this… it's actually pretty amazing! Now where do we go?"

"I knew you'd love it." Dr. Morrison said, taking out what looked like a small radio. "It's not too far from here, only… oh dear." His face grew pale and horrified. his hands shook at the sight of the message on the screen, his breath slowed to the point where it was only a roundabout occurrence, and finally, he held the radio up to his ear.

"The kittens escaped again?"

"I don't know how! I kept an eye on them 24/7!"

"No… this can't go on. We need to find them now or else the experiment is ruined!"

"If you need it so badly, you should get up here and help me find them yourself."

"Fine! I'll be up there in twenty." Dr. Morrison hung up the Walkie-talkie like apparatus. He sighed heavily, and laid his head down low.

"I'm afraid there's been a slight change of plans." He told a confused Ryan. "Unfortunately, duty calls me elsewhere, so I'm afraid I must depart."

Ryan, wanting to cling onto Morrison's leg and be carried along for the ride, threw his hands out on both sides. "I still don't know what I'm supposed to do or where I'm supposed to go! Aren't you supposed to show me where everything is?"

"NO! Sorry gotta go now. The place you're looking for is Room 588, there you'll… see a bunch of people waiting for you I guess." Dr. Morrison spat out the instructions to Ryan as if he were conducting a live auction. And with that, Dr. Morrison left Ryan's sight as he approached another elevator far off into the distance.

"Great… now I'm alone in a company I've never been in before, and I…" Ryan saw a sign with a couple of arrows. The one pointing to the left had the words 650-879 under it, meanwhile the one over to the right had a 390-649.

"At least they make it easy for you…" Ryan said to himself after choosing the singular direction.

The arrow led him to a secluded door, which opened once he got near it. He looked around to see if anybody severely objected to his actions.

Good, nobody looking.

With that, Ryan stealthily leapt onwards, closer to his destination.

Being alone in Aperture had its upsides, as well as downsides. Even though Ryan had absolutely no idea what he was getting into, he trusted his professor enough to follow through with his vague commands.

The numbers grew increasingly smaller, as Ryan neared the 500s.

603…602…601….

Closer and closer he went, further and further into the hallway. He was surprised the entire area was empty, without a scientist in sight. Perhaps they were all where they needed to be.

He reached the end of the hallway, but somehow the doors ended at 590. Did he go down the wrong way? Or did Dr. Morrison give him the wrong information?

'Maybe if I bother someone inside here, they'll know where I'm supposed to go.' Ryan thought to himself. He looked around once more to see if there were any scientists observing him enter, and once he made sure the coast was clear, he knocked on the wooden door. He wasn't afraid of someone catching him, instead he just felt weird being around people he'd never seen before.

No answer.

He knocked once more.

Still no answer.

His hands slid onto the doorknob, and finding that it wasn't locked, began to open it.

He peered to see what was behind it; a normal looking control room.

"Hello? Is anyone in here?" he moved past the door to examine the room. The door closed shut behind him.

A glass window at the end of the room demanded for his curiosity to be satisfied. With its dark blue background drawing him in, Ryan couldn't refuse to follow to see what lied behind. A big surprise came to him once he realized that the room he was standing in was merely a small trailer-like structure that was dwarfed by the true immensity of the massive circular territory he was now standing in!

To make it even more interesting, Ryan was standing in the room completely alone, when it looked like it could accommodate many people at a time.

Even though the room was surely impressive, Ryan figured it was time to head back, since it was clearly not what he was looking for. He turned around and made his way back towards the temporary control structure, but before he entered it, he heard something coming up from above.

He looked up to see the true enormity of the chamber. He didn't even bother to look up before, but now he knew the room had much more to it than what it drew in at first sight.

He stepped back into the enclosure, only to now notice the massive metal structure hanging down above the center of the ceiling. Large metal tentacles connected to a superstructure to large for even the room, and finally, a large white ring encompassed the underscoring metal arm with all of its components. It looked like something straight out of a science fiction novel, something that highly advanced aliens would make.

Ryan drew closer and closer to the giant machine, even moving up a circular walkway to get closer. If only he could touch this strange machine, if only he could figure out what its purpose is.

Ryan heard a door at the opposite end of the room slide open, with someone running out to catch his attention.

"Hey You!"

~X~X~X~X~X~

Author's notes: OUWW MY GAWSH I'm such a terrible writer aren't I? I don't know, it kinda feels a bit strange to me… do you guys not like it? No? I'm a horrible failure to the creative world and my work should never have been brought upon unto one of Valve's best ever decisions at game making and my stories are utter and despicable trash that should be cursed from the lands of the internet once they've been properly treated with proper avoidance education in every writing curriculum that decent human beings actually take the time to read with the knowledge that somewhere, somehow, in this cruel, strange world of ours there are still depraved people like me that continue to influence their bland works on the rest of you? NOOOO! I iz failz!

Naa, just kidding… I'm awesome… I think… please tell me, I don't know!