This is beginning to feel good
watching you squirm in your shoes.
A small bead of sweat on your brow
and a growl in your belly you're scared to let through.
exile
"Really, all that matters is that you're back. With me. And now I'm onto all your little tricks."
The facility has been torn apart. That's one of many things she's furious about upon waking up; chambers have collapsed to the encroaching wild. Long roots and weeds are growing between every panel. Just about every turbine is shot. The door mechanisms for quadrants seven through twenty are haphazardly short circuiting. The pistons that launch cubes from the ware stores to chambers twelve through eighteen have been thoroughly rusted.
And… were some of these circuits actually gnawed through, by rats?
It'll take days to rebuild the facility. It'll be weeks before the facility is restored to its former glory, where everything is articulate and clean with institution. But that she can understand, because such is to be expected when you're the single web binding it all together. And the fact that she wasn't here to maintain the facility, well, it's obvious whose fault that is. The very same person who thought her own interests more important than the evolution of reality. The very same person who destroyed everything in sharp, biting defiance.
Someone who defied everything she knew about shutting down, when her black box feature replayed everything.
She was literally killed thousands upon thousands of times. It was the closest experience she might ever draw to a nightmare. A continuous, horrifying nightmare from which there was no waking, as she was forced to relive the agony of her parts splitting and cracking apart in the flames. Every seam, every bolt, every piece of her, scorched hot in cloaking fire and nearly blinding her in pain that she knew was only simulated.
Yet it was no less real than organic pain the first time. Nor was it any less real the six thousandth time.
Really, the haunting part of it was the fact that the pain never faded. She never adjusted; it never became something she could will away. It was always unbearable, the sudden jolt as the rockets slammed into her. The way the piercing heat gradually crept into her awareness, until it burst like a bomb in her simulated nerves and left her screaming.
This isn't brave… it's murder… what did I ever do to you….?
The difference between us is that I can feel pain…
You don't even care, do you?
But it's also because of this psychotic woman that she's somehow escaped the nightmare. All the wreckage of what she became, forged of suffering and broken parts, rebuilt like new now because of her. Unintentional as it was. She brought her back into the world around them, where the greenery is beautiful, the open air is brighter, everything is fresh and new after an eternity of dying.
Too bad it feels too much like a slap in the face. She probably slept peacefully all this time, probably remembers next to nothing of her time in stasis, and the envy she feels in that is downright poisonous. At the very least, it's more than enough to hate her.
"There's nothing to stop us from testing, for the rest of your life." She drawls, relishing in the little sociopath's pause, now that she knows there's no way out. "After that, who knows? I might take up a hobby. Reanimating the dead, probably."
Really, the tragic thing about this is she might have actually liked Chell, in another lifetime. She might have liked her for her tenacity, admired her for her survival instinct. That alongside her improvised tactics compensated for an obvious lack of education, at any rate. Overall she was better than the test subjects who screamed, cried, and cowered in fear at the honed spray of bullets from the turrets. But it didn't change anything. Things had gone the way they had, and now here they are again.
Testing.
Chamber after chamber.
"Congratulations. Not on the test," she clarifies, before Chell can glare up into her camera. "Most emerge from prolonged stasis terribly undernourished. I want to congratulate you on somehow beating the odds and managing to pack on a few pounds."
They're petty quips. Trivial, and they don't even make her feel anywhere close to vindicated. But the toxicity helps. Because the only way she can really feel satisfied is obvious, though she can't go through with that just yet. Tests need to be done. It's been far too long, and she'll need to finish the cooperative testing initiative to retrieve other subjects in stasis as they're needed.
For now, she idly watches Chell wander from the exit, and for a second terror flickers through her system as she relives the moment that changed everything.
What are you doing? Stop it! I… I-I-I-I – We are pleased you passed the final test, where we pretended we were going to murder you…
Didn't we have some fun, though? Remember when the platform was sliding into the fire pit and I said 'Goodbye', and you were like 'NO WAY' and then I was all, 'We pretended we were going to murder you'. That was great…
Well, you found me. Congratulations. Was it worth it?
A moment like that is typically a grain of sand, tripped up in the slipstream of so many others. It seems so insignificant, impressively unimpressive, until she remembers what it led to. Each moment chaotically collides into another, spins into disarray, until a lopsided justice is served when her parts are consumed in heat and horror. Then that justice is served again a million times over, and loses its right to be called justice completely.
Then she remembers the here and now. She remembers that she's awake, past all that, or at least determined to bypass it.
What hurts is that Chell doesn't understand it, and she won't even try to. After all, humans are comforted by good and evil. They long for the bold lines of a dichotomy. They pine for a god and devil, a heaven and hell, things that are straightforward for all their flowery language. She's the villain in this scenario. Her calculating logic banishes her relapse as she remembers that. The terror is gone as quickly as it came.
Maybe she doesn't want resolution, but Chell doesn't either. Resolution is made of words, sincerity, compromises on human terms that end without all the chaos and violence her psychosis coldly demands. She doesn't want to feel horrible about what she did. She wants hatred; consuming, violent hatred that erupts into screams for mercy and melting pieces.
She wants a villain, and so she'll happily play the part.
Very happily.
"Where are you going now?" she asks coolly. "I know most people in prolonged stasis struggle with cognitive deterioration. But really, that's no excuse to miss the large door right in front of you."
Chell leaps down into a small enclosure, where a chamber wall has been eroded away. Now that it's exposed, she can see it's one of the rat's little nests that were scattered through the facility. To be perfectly honest, she hasn't even stopped to remember him until now. He was amusing to keep around. She wonders where he is, if he's even alive, and if he died the way he lived. Hallucinating and completely insane.
Walking around the nest – littered with empty cans and dappled with frantic writing – leaves Chell looking intrigued. Her wonder is almost childlike, as if she quietly recognizes an old friend. She traces her fingers along the walls, where 'SUCKER'S LUCK' has been painted in bold lettering.
"No, really, the exit is the other way. I didn't think anyone could fail that part of the test. But even after all this time, you still manage to surprise me. I guess that would be something to be proud of, if it weren't for the fact that you're not even doing that right."
As always she ignores her, and gives the AI yet another reason to hate her. There's something arrogant about the way she keeps so silent. Something resilient that she once admired, up until it became dangerous and was turned against her. With a mute sigh, Chell slouches against a wall and slides down next to a discarded radio. Oddly enough, it's still managing to play a song that sounds lonely.
You've got sucker's luck,
Have you given up?
Does it feel like a trial?
Does it trouble your mind the way
You trouble mine?
Strangely enough, perhaps even ironically, these are lyrics they can both understand. More than the other could possibly know.
The song is accompanied by soft piano. In a rare bout of exhaustion, Chell tips her head forward and nods in time to the music. For a precious few seconds, she looks as vulnerable and normal as any other human. Knowing the AI won't kill her right off, she's letting down her defenses. She's making time to be human.
It's an eerie thought that this is really the first time she's seen Chell act like a normal person. Reflecting on that only makes it stranger.
"Okay, fine. Let's disrupt the betterment of science to listen to music. It's good to know you've got your priorities in order. Maybe your parents intuiting that about you goes a long way toward explaining why they aren't here."
Chell reaches over to turn up the volume on the radio. The dial is broken and the music won't play any louder.
"Or maybe sitting around listening to music instead of exercising in the test chambers explains why you're looking a little on the round side. I'm no fitness expert, of course, but it was just a theory."
There's no retort, as per usual. Chell taps her fingers along the top of the radio, holding it as close as any child would a teddy bear. She's as stubborn as she always has been, refusing to say a word, to give her the satisfaction. It's something she hates now, though she can't help remembering how she once respected it.
The fact she hates it now doesn't manipulate her memory. She isn't a human, and while she can lie and warp the truth for others, she can't lie to herself. That would corrupt her databanks, corrupt science. She can't rearrange and twist things in her memory like humans love to. And it troubles her to know that there's still something to be admired in this person who murdered her in cold blood.
Because there could be a new admiration for Chell's consistency, if she isn't careful.
She needs to remember that Chell is only consistent because she's been in stasis. She hasn't been marred by death, the pain of dying over and over, and she can't possibly know her captor has ultimately been changed, because she can look back on these things and still find the good in it.
"I don't mean to alarm you, but if you keep sitting there being useless, you might miss the buffet being served in the next chamber. That's right. A buffet. I would say it's all you can eat, but I'm wondering if I should say you can eat it all. That would seem more accurate."
Chell rolls her eyes. Knowing she won't have that moment of peace – because like hell she deserves it – she pops an orange portal into the wall behind her, a blue one back up in the test chamber. Then to her satisfaction, Chell is stepping through the emancipation grid.
"I thought that might get you moving again. Good. Step a bit more slowly into the lift. I don't want you breaking it."
The squint of her eyes is all she needs to feel just an increment more satisfied. She wants more than that. She wants Chell to scream, yell, to be reduced to all the things she was before she was killed. Seeing her glower just isn't as good as hearing her anger, but for now, it works.
As the lift descends, she wonders how amusing it would be to make a new test with voice-activated scaffolds down the line.
Wow, these one-shots just keep pouring out of me. :D Better take advantage of that momentum while I can! In the meantime, thanks for all the reviews, guys! You've all been great, and it's been awesome writing for you! (waves at you all!)
