The Co-op Bots
Chapter 3: The First Days of Aperture
ATLAS and P-body finally stopped falling. In relief, they looked around their new surroundings. Their chirps now could be made out as "where are we?".
Unsurprisingly enough, the place was equipped with a pre-recorded message for any future visitors.
I am Cave Johnson. CEO and founder of Aperture Science Innovators.
The bots shrugged. As, for some reason, they knew Aperture's history perfectly, they deducted that this must be the past, just as Cave had founded the facility for doing insane science.
Now don't waste my time, people full of pride, because I'm not letting you out before you finish and I equipped a chip inside your brains that will make you insane, should you escape.
This was a confirmation of the foundation of Aperture Science: pure insanity for the name of science.
The bots looked at the other stuff instead.
P-body found the newspaper clips and diplomas Cave saved to prove that Aperture was at its peak of both pride and insanity. One headline read, "LOCAL ENTREPRENEUR BUYS SALT MINE", and the diplomas were mostly second place for the United States level and first place for the Michigan level. Obviously Black Mesa.
But that was the least of their concerns, because they walked into the test.
The test had these things called "Mobility Gels". There were three kinds of them: the blue Propulsion Gel, which had a perfect bounce factor, the orange Repulsion Gel with the negative friction quotient and the white Conversion Gel, which would allow any surface to support portals. But this time, the robots weren't given portal guns right away.
There must be another way.
Though, ATLAS and P-body weren't really of the testing kind. They just coated themselves in the blue gel, which was the only one in this room, instead, and did the really exciting thing where they got to jump around the chamber like crazy.
It never ended.
They got to fly all around Old Aperture, bouncing off whenever they fell. They just needed not to touch the liquid that all the floors of the enrichment spheres was composed of, and everything would be fine.
They made it to the empty elevator shaft, and before they knew it they were flying up, back into the contemporary Aperture Laboratories.
