Chell kicked her heels from atop the telescope platform. At one point, she lifted a foot too high; her heel banged against the metal, scattering light-up butterflies on her sneakers.
"Y'think they'll put you in the space ship?" she asked, and turned around to watch him.
Space leaned against the telescope, playing with the holograms in front of him as he spoke to her. "I hope so. I really hope so."
Chell knifed a hand through the holograms. They didn't respond. Blue eyes wide with wonder, she moved both hands through the stream of light from Space's eyes.
"You're the best at this kind of stuff, though. Look at those holograms! They're like out of a movie! And all those pictures you have. Can you take your own pictures?"
"They installed that just last week," Space said. He looked up at her and smiled. "I can actually take pictures, now!"
He put away the holograms and turned to her. "Say 'singularity!'"
"Th-Th-Thingularity!"
Chell beamed, and Space's eyes flashed once. He brought up the holograms; she leaned over his shoulder and peered at them.
Dead in the center of Space's calculations was her smiling face.
"Way cool!" Chell breathed.
He waved his hand, and the picture of Chell disappeared. "I have to get back to this space stuff, but maybe someday I can print it."
"And I can have my own picture!" Chell said.
Space frowned at her. "You've never had a picture taken?"
"Nope! Not once."
"But all the scientists have their pictures. On their ID cards. Don't you have an ID card, Chell?"
"Those are for the grown-ups."Chell shoved him. The hologram equations went flying. Space let them go. "I don't get that until later. Daddy says I can be a test subject one day, and then I get my own file, and my own ID card, and..."
She perked up. "Say, do you wanna see the testing chambers they have so far? I know where they are. I looked."
She prodded Space's chest. "But you have to promise not to tell!"
Space pressed up against the telescope. His eyes, along with the holograms, stayed trained on the finger on his chest. Integrals and supernovas swam around Chell's hand. "I promise! Swear to space I won't tell."
"Good."
Chell punched his arm and jumped off the platform. "Race you there!"
"Hey!"
Before Space could put his holograms away, Chell broke into a run and tore out the door. He could hear her footsteps on the stairs.
He stumbled to his feet. "Chell!"
He ran as fast as he could.
The stairs were slippery, and he nearly lost his balance several times, but he managed to clear several floors before the girl wrenched open the stairwell door and ran onto the catwalks.
The first time they met, he had chased her.
But this time, Chell took a different route.
She wound around catwalks, bolted up stairs, turned into narrower and narrower hallways, squeezed between narrow cracks in walls and fences and doors. Space kept hot on her heels. She didn't have to look behind her to know that Space was following; the hum of his fans and his quick footsteps were evidence enough.
Chell turned left into a conference room, and Space took the corner a little too hard.
His boots squeaked against the tile, and he landed on his left side. Synthetic pain shot through his hip, and his hands scraped the edge of the thin conference room carpet.
"Come back, Chell!" he shouted, but she didn't hear. At the other end of the conference room, there was a door slam, then silence.
Space pushed himself up and stood. He swayed back and forth. Now that he was standing still, he could feel his overheated fans straining to cool him down, and the power they took made his head feel fuzzy.
That little human was fast.
Space took a few minutes to let his fans settle, then crossed the room and opened the door.
Behind its black metal surface was a long concrete hallway, one that branched off into several rooms.
"Hello?" Space said. "Chell?"
His echo answered him.
He gulped.
He crept forward and peered into doorways and windows.
This part of the facility was entirely deserted. There were dark labs that could be looked in on from long windows spanning the hall. Strange machinery sat, lifeless, on clean white tables, along with endless papers and humming computers.
The open doorways led off into tiny office rooms. Every calendar he could see was set to June.
His internal reference computer said it was August.
He wandered into an office and picked up a stress ball shaped like an eagle. He squeezed it repeatedly.
Something did happen in June; he remembered the scientists talking about it. There was a Computer that wasn't working. A few scientists died. It was a critical malfunction that, to Space, too frightening to be called a "malfunction" and not a "catastrophe," seeing as that malfunction cost lives.
But, as the astronomers were quick to point out to him when he asked, a few scientists were nothing in the face of progress, and besides, the Computer was being fixed. They turned It off for now.
He put the eagle down.
Maybe the scientists who had these labs and offices were supposed to be working on the Computer.
Where were they?
He needed to find Chell.
A creeping sense of dread overtook him. He shivered and threw the eagle into an empty trash can.
He left the office and continued down the hallway.
At the end of the hall, a catwalk branched off and led to another building. There was only one way Chell could have gone.
He looked towards the catwalk and paused. He turned and stared at the wall at the end of the hall. A rectangular portion of it was off-grey.
Space pressed his fingers against it. The rectangular portion responded to his touch, and slid out of the way.
A narrow black hallway greeted him, this one half as long as the concrete hall. At the end was another rectangular portion of wall, framed by white light.
Another door.
Space looked towards the catwalk, then back to the dark hallway.
He walked forward. The wall-door slid shut behind him, and he was surrounded by darkness.
Space groped his way along the walls, using the bright orange light from his eyes as a guide, until he reached the door at the end. Before he could think, he pressed his fingers against it.
This wall took its sweet time sliding aside; Space could hear the screech of concrete on concrete before the hall fell silent again, the doorway revealed itself, and Space proceeded forward.
He found himself in a sizeable chamber. Sunlight flooded the room from cracks in the wall panels. The floor was shiny-white and completely clean, a change from the gritty concrete of the halls outside. A gently-sloping set of stairs wound up from the floor to a round platform that was easily a dozen feet off the ground.
Hanging above the platform's center was a Monster.
A tangle of black and orange cords hung from the ceiling, supporting the white body of the creature. Its head, a white, rounded mass with a single dull-yellow eye, hung limp, along with the rest of the Monster's body.
It looked disgustingly similar to a woman in suspension.
The room was deathly quiet.
Space stepped towards it. "Hello?" he asked the Monster.
She didn't reply.
Space hesitated. "Are you working?"
Still no answer.
Space took a wide circle around the room, his footsteps echoing on the white floor. "Chell?" he called, louder now that he wasn't talking to the Monster, but he knew there was no place for the girl to hide here. Chell had probably taken the catwalk, and he was stupid and had gone into the hallway. He wasn't supposed to be here, but his curiosity was killing him. This must have been the computer the scientists were talking about, and since they told him so little, and he was already in Her room, he figured he was allowed to take a look.
There was a set of controls just in front of the Monster's head, underneath Her platform. He approached them.
There were two buttons: a green one (labeled, simply, "GO") and a red one (labeled, simply, "STOP").
Space looked up at the Monster. Chances were, if She was off, it was because of the catastrophe. There had been talk of scientists dying. There was no other explanation for the abandoned labs and the secret hallways and the calendars perpetually set to June.
He brushed a finger against the green button.
Something fell in the distant concrete hallway, and the sudden noise made Space jump. His finger slipped.
The GO button clicked.
There was an enormous whir, and then a mechanical screech.
Space couldn't stumble back fast enough. He hit the ground, flipped onto his belly, and crawled away, boots scrabbling against the smooth floor. When he was away from the platform, he stood and bolted for the door, his breath heavy, his head swimming.
Behind him, the Monster shuddered.
He was inches from the door when he heard a beep. He froze.
A cold, feminine voice filled the air.
"HELLO," She said.