Chapter Four
The Facility
Aperture had several different entrances, most of them secret, but the one Caroline had chosen for their 'official' entrance had been built in the late 1940's, the first entrance Aperture had known. A thick overgrowth had destroyed the original lobby, leaving the bare skeleton of a room in its place, but Caroline had hired a special team to rebuild it, keeping only the old elevator untouched, reinstalling walls, floors, desks, monitors, and chairs. The wild forest that had grown up around – and inside – everything was trimmed back to make the place look more aesthetically pleasing. The Aperture logo was painted a bright blue on the outside of the whitewashed building.
Chell led the way through the revolving door and past the front desk. Inside was as lovely as the outside, pristine and white. The lobby was two stories high, with two staircases on the far ends of each room leading to the second floor. A futuristic light hung over the front desks, which were already fixed with computers. There were seats set up in the waiting area, with black carpet beneath them. All other areas had tile. There were glass guardrails on the second floor.
And it was all completely empty.
Wheatley – who had not stepped foot in here since they had completed renovation – felt awed by the spectacle. Only the logo on the front of the desks convinced him that this was, indeed, Aperture Science Facilities he had stepped into, and not some businessowner's winter wonderland. He felt compelled to speak in a whisper, like this was some untouched crystal cavern he had wandered into, and not the place he would be working.
Jack gave a low whistle. He was impressed as well. The immaculate floors, high, arching ceilings, and towering walls was like nothing ever built on Mars. Caroline had done well. It was a grand first sight.
"This… is… absolutely amazing," whispered Wheatley. His hushed voice echoed around the lobby, making it feel bigger than ever. "Wow. Just… yeah, just… this is beautiful! Really something."
After letting her companions drink in their first sight, Chell walked swiftly toward the desk, her footsteps magnified on the white tile. Jack and Wheatley followed at a more leisurely pace, craning their necks to look up at the domed glass ceiling, peering about for any sign of human activity. There was none.
Chell walked to the door behind the desks, her footsteps now muffled on the black carpet. She pulled out a card from her pocket and held it underneath a laser scanner by the door. It gave a muffled chirp and for a moment the plate read 'Card Recognized. Redacted, Chell. Maximum Clearance' and the door unlocked with a snap. Chell held open the door and waved her companions to enter. Wheatley did, ducking to avoid the low doorframe, but Jack took the door from her and motioned her to enter first. She did, with a smile of thanks.
There were a few more hallways branching off every which way. Lighted signs pointed the way to the mail room, the filing room, and meeting rooms 101 to 109.
"This is the top layer," Chell told them. "We didn't put any panels in here, just in case. There are a few cameras, though, for security purposes." She pointed up at a white camera mounted on the wall, which swiveled to look at them as they passed.
"How many layers are there?" asked Jack, peering into one of the meeting rooms.
"Above ground? Two. Below ground, there's more than we've discovered so far. We've finished the building above, that's fully operational, but we've done relatively little down below. Caroline won't let many of the workers down there. Not far down, anyway. Only the very top layers."
They came to another door at the end of the hallway. Again, Chell scanned her card and the door popped open. The three of them descended a staircase, holding onto the metal handrails, until they came to a door marked 'Main Control Room'. Chell scanned her card for a third time and led them into the room. Finally there was a spark of life.
The Main Control Room was filled with rows upon rows of computers. The front wall was made completely up of monitors. Desks were arranged in three neat rows, each one descending two steps lower. Each desk sported a computer, a keyboard, a mouse, and at least one clipboard. Most of these computers were off, their screens black, but the wall of monitors were all operational, each one showing the view from a different camera on diverse levels of the facility.
There were two people already in this room – a man and a woman. The man was hunched over a keyboard, typing rapidly and only pausing to jiggle the mouse and point at something on one of the monitors, which displayed scrolling orange text. He was a thin man, but his haggard appearance had filled out somewhat over the past year. His hands were steadier than they had been, and his mind clearer. His dark hair and beard were well trimmed and his new lab coat clean and white. The man's name was Douglas Rattmann.
The woman stood behind the man's chair, a clipboard tucked beneath her arm. She was tall and slender, taller still because she wore high heels. Her brown hair was shot with gray, reaching her waist in long, fine waves. She wore a yellow blouse with a black sweater over the top that matched her skirt. Her poise was straight and her demeanor serious. Although age had leached away the prettiness she had possessed in her youth, her face still retained something of the old sparkle which could still be apparent in her lips and eyes when she smiled. This was Caroline, the owner of Aperture.
Chell picked up a pencil and tapped on a metal handrail while coming forward, signaling her arrival. Caroline turned around immediately, and the tense look that had been on her face softened as she saw her visitors. "Hello, Chell," Caroline said, holding out her hand to her. "And Wheatley! You're back!"
"Yup! Hullo! I just got back in last night," Wheatley explained, jabbing his thumb back toward the door. "I can't believe what you did with this place! It's amazing, seriously! I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw it, it's tremendous!"
"Thank you," said Caroline with a smile. "It took a lot of work to get it that way." She turned her gaze to the third visitor with some interest. "Who is this?" she asked.
"This is Jack," Chell said, taking Jack's arm.
"Jack Bulmier." Jack leaned forward to shake Caroline's hand. "I'm Chell's boyfriend."
"Of course, I should have known." Caroline gave Jack the same appraising glance Wheatley had given him the night before, still with a smile, but with thoughtful eyes. "Pleased to meet you, Jack Bulmier. Call me Caroline."
In truth, Caroline could not remember her last name. Cave Johnson had only ever referred to her as that – Caroline – or if he was forced to explain, would elongate it to include the term 'my assistant', or 'my lovely assistant'. Her humanity card had required her to include a last name, so she had chosen Redacted, the same as Chell's, leading many people to believe that she was Chell's mother, although that was not the case.
"This is the boyfriend?" Doug rose from his seat and came over to join the group. He shook Jack's hand. "I trust you're taking good care of Chell?"
"She can fend just fine by herself," Jack said, returning the handshake, "but I do what I can."
Doug smiled. "That is just what I wanted to hear. I'm Doug Rattmann. Call me Doug. Hello, Chell." He gave Chell a hug before turning to Wheatley. "Hello, Stephen."
"Oh, you still on that?" asked Wheatley, giving him an awkward handshake that turned into a hug. "I told you to call me Wheatley."
"You told me to call you Stephen first," Doug rejoined, the skin around his eyes crinkling as he smiled. His schizophrenia had been healed, thanks to the superior medicine of the new era, and his mind was cleared of all the voices that had plagued him. He still kept the Companion Cube beside his desk, but it no longer talked to him, and he no longer clung to it like he used to.
"We would usually do this in one of the briefing rooms," said Caroline, "but since we're all here, please find yourself a seat and, Wheatley, we'll talk about how your tour went. It seems we're doing this the informal way, today. Everyone, find a seat."
"How is she doing?" Chell murmured to Doug under pretense of searching for a suitable chair.
Rattmann shrugged. Keeping his voice low, he whispered back, "Still acting strangely, and it's getting more common. I'm worried about her."
"So am I," Chell agreed, pulling forward one of the rolling chairs and pushing it very slowly toward the rest of the group. "She's working too hard to get this place operational. She should slow down."
Doug snorted. "Might as well tell her to stop the progress of science."
"I've stopped GLaDOS three times before," Chell countered, but now it was more of a joke.
"I have no doubt in your tenacity," Doug said, waving a hand. "I'm only saying that if you are in the ninety-ninth percentile, Caroline is in the ninety-eighth."
By that time, they were too close to the others to keep talking secretly, so they pushed their chairs into place in a rough circle and took their seats. Caroline was talking to Jack, asking what job he was in.
"I work at a restaurant in New Toper," he was telling her. "I'm the Bartender there. I make drinks, mix Midnight or Morning Sips, and I can cook if pressed."
"Does your restaurant cater?" Caroline asked him.
"Oh, yes. I even deliver some of the catering when the bar is closed."
"Good," Caroline said. "We'll need catering once this place is fully operational. We only need catering for four right now, but prepare for some business once we hire more people."
Jack smiled. "I would like that."
Caroline rested her clipboard on her knees and turned her attention toward Wheatley. "Now that we're all settled, Wheatley, how was your trip?"
Wheatley jumped. He had been spinning his chair from side to side and having a whale of a time with it, but now that he was called upon, snapped to attention and blurted, "Oh, the trip? Good, good. Everything went well, everything good, it was all good." He nodded.
Doug looked like he wanted to laugh, but Caroline nodded patiently. "I watched every one of your interviews," she said. "You did surprisingly well."
Surprisingly? Chell repeated to herself, narrowing her eyes at Caroline, but Wheatley did not seem to notice the unkind adverb. He lapped up the praise happily. "Oh, really? I tried really hard, remembered almost everything. I don't mean to brag, but… I do think I did a pretty good job, if I'm honest. That's my personal opinion. You won't believe some of the things that people ask, though!"
"I do," Caroline responded. "I told you I saw all the interviews, remember?"
"Oh, yeah, that's right. But- but if you hadn't, you never would have believed it."
"I noticed," Caroline interrupted, "that you never mentioned your little… episode." She glanced over at Jack, an inquiry in her eyes.
Chell answered the unasked question. "He knows. Wheatley told him this morning."
"Good," said Caroline. "Then we can talk without hinderance. Let me rephrase that last sentence. Wheatley, I noticed that you never mentioned how you took over the facility and tried to destroy everything, including yourself, in a fiery apocalypse."
Wheatley, Chell, and Doug winced at this tart synopsis, and even Caroline looked surprised at herself for a moment. But she shook it off and continued, "I also noticed that you never explained specifically what happened to cause Aperture's downfall, and for that I am grateful. Thank you."
"Um, just… just doing my best." Wheatley ducked, unsure what to do about this approval. "Doing my job. What you… what you told me to do, you know."
"I do plan to tell everyone eventually," Caroline said, taking everyone by surprise. "Once we are under operation, I will tell about Aperture's history and my part in Aperture's downfall."
"Are you sure that's wise?" Rattmann asked, toying with the coffee cup in his hands.
"No," answered Caroline honestly, "but I would rather they find out the right way, from my own lips, than have someone else discover it. I don't want them to think we are lying to them."
It was almost like what Chell had said to him that morning, thought Wheatley, twiddling his fingers.
"Before I do that, however," Caroline continued, "I will need to take a mental examination so I have proper certification of my sanity. If there's one thing I know, it's to have the proper paperwork."
"If I may ask," Jack said, "what are you referring to?"
Caroline gave him a sharp, deciding look, then apparently decided it was safe, because she let out a long sigh. "Aperture fell because of me," she said. "I killed most of the scientists and kept the rest for testing."
"GLaDOS killed the scientists," Rattmann corrected, giving the name a special inflection.
"Yes," Caroline agreed, but there was tension behind her eyes.
Jack looked stunned, but for one minute only. "Oh," he said, and sat back in his seat again.
How they cried out. How they screamed, rattling the doors, running through the passageways. They deserved it. They deserved it for what they had done to Her. She had not brought it upon them. They had brought it upon themselves.
Caroline gave her head a quick shake to bring it back to the present and rubbed at her temple where a slight headache throbbed. Would these memories ever go away? she wondered. If I take the mental test, will it say that I am sane? But out loud she said, "Until I take the examination, this event cannot take place. I am simply telling you my plans for the future. Speaking of which, we need to find you another occupation." She turned back to Wheatley. "Is there some field in the facility that interests you? What did you do before when you were human?"
"I tested people," Wheatley answered, then fumbled to explain himself. "Well, not actually. I didn't actually test people. I just sort of watched them. Took notes. Chell here was my only test subject that belonged… well, didn't belong to me, nobody belongs to me. But, you know, I was in charge of her, sort of. Always watched her test. Never a dull moment, watching that. B'cause she was brilliant." He sent Chell a special smile.
"Yes, I am quite aware of Chell's brilliance in testing," Caroline replied wryly. "We won't be doing human testing for quite some time, though, so if there's something you can think of in the meantime…?"
Wheatley squirmed. No. There was absolutely nothing he could think of. Doug Rattmann's job was too complicated, Caroline's too hard, and Chell dabbled in a bit of everything, helping where she was told.
"Maybe helping Atlas and P-Body with maintenance," suggested Caroline. She pointed toward one of the monitors where two moderately humanoid robots were busy. Atlas, the squat one with one blue eye, was motioning to its companion, P-Body, a taller, more slender robot with an orange eye.
Wheatley looked at them in recognition. "Oh, hey! Those are the testing robots, aren't they? Can I talk to them?"
"Press the microphone button," Doug said, indicating it.
Wheatley jammed the button and called, "Hullo? Hi, down there! Remember me? Can they see me?" he asked in an aside to Caroline, his finger still on the button.
"No," Caroline shook her head. "There are no monitors in that area."
"Oh, okay. Well, hello down there, even if you can't see me."
Atlas and P-Body turned to the camera and waved. Atlas had a welding tool in one hand and P-Body a piece of pipe. The taller robot accidentally knocked its companion on the head with the pipe, and there was a brief scuffle. "Ooh, do they usually do that?" Wheatley asked, startled.
"More often than you'd think," said Caroline, bumping Wheatley to the side and pressing down the button herself, leaning over the microphone. "Orange, Bl—I mean, P-Body and Atlas, please get back to work. Those pipes won't mend themselves."
The robots saluted – a new gesture they had learned from Rattmann – and turned back to their work.
"I like them," Wheatley grinned. "Nice little robots, aren't they? Very keen."
"Oh, I almost forgot." Caroline turned to reach under one of the desks and pulled out a pair of Long-Fall Boots. "For you." She offered them to Wheatley.
"For- for… really? For me?" Wheatley took them as if they were made of gold. "Wow, these are amazing," he chortled, examining them from top to toe, stroking their sleek white sides as best as he could with both arms full. "Can I try them on?"
"Of course," said Caroline with a beneficial wave. "Make sure they fit right."
Wheatley stripped off his shoes and began to jam his feet into the Long-Fall Boots, smiling widely. Caroline turned away from him and back to the others. "Something I need to mention before we all disperse is our biggest problem," she said. "Doctor Rattmann? Would you like to explain?"
Doug rose as if this was an official meeting. "As you might already be aware of, we've been having some trouble connecting our computers to the Disk Operating System – the system that GLaDOS was formerly in charge of," he started. "When we forced GLaDOS to disconnect, the System went into default mode to keep the facility in a constant conservation cycle. We had hoped that our computers would be a fitting replacement for GLaDOS, but the System doesn't seem to recognize it. If anything, they're simply working as a substitute. Stephen, are you listening? This is important."
"Hmm? Oh, yeah. I was just… ghah… trying to get this bloody shoe on." Wheatley struggled helplessly with the Long-Fall Boot.
"Try taking off the strap first," suggested Chell, leaning forward to help.
"Oh, yeah! Okay, alright, yeah, that's loads better. Okay, what were you saying, mate?" Wheatley turned his attention back to Rattmann.
Doug sighed. "As I was saying, the System recognizes our computers only for short periods of time. If the computers get shut off, or even go into sleep mode, the System brings everything back into default. And the System is in charge of nearly everything. Testing cycles, maintenance, panel controls, cameras, you name it. It's been like this from the beginning, but instead of fixing the problem, it's gotten worse. We keep trying to adjust the computers, but nothing we have tried yet has worked. Everything's still offline. Even the security on the doors! If anyone wanted to come in and take whatever wasn't nailed down, there wouldn't be a thing to stop them. All that remains operational are Atlas and P-Body because they were never fully integrated into the System to begin with. They had to be separated to give reliable results for testing. Everything else, though…"
"Have you tried hacking it?" asked Wheatley, who was walking around in Long-Fall Boots for the first time. They were far larger than Chell's and the toes were squarer, but they looked and operated the same way. Wheatley found them strangely comfortable and wobbled around on tiptoes trying to figure out how to walk faster. "I mean, I've found that a lot of problems can be solved simply by hacking. If you hack into the default, great big manual override, it should fix the problem, right?"
"We've tried it," sighed Rattmann, sitting down again, "but the default is the oldest part of the system. In order to change that, you have to recode the whole thing, and that would take years. There are so many parts to the default, I don't even know where to begin. More pieces have been added to it as time goes on, starting with the Aperture Employee Guardian and Intrusion System, then moving on to everything else. What's more, the computers have started overheating and crashing. We don't know exactly why, but we've discovered that the System is sending out a coded message through the facility that's too much for the computer to handle. We don't know what the message is or what it's supposed to do, but until we figure it out, there's not much more we can do."
"Can I go see Atlas and P-Body?" interrupted Wheatley, bouncing on his springy heels. "I've got these things on, so I'm all protected. They're not far away, are they?"
Caroline pinched the bridge of her nose to quell her growing headache. "Yes, you may go. Atlas opened a portal close to their location before they began." She pointed to a white panel on the wall where a luminescent indigo portal opened a rift into the facility's depths. "Their location is to the right, then to the left, then right again."
"Right, left, right," chanted Wheatley. "Okay! I'll remember that! Be back in a few!" He left, still muttering "Left, right, left. No, wait. It was right, left, right. Yeah, that was it. Right, left, right."
"Keep away from elevator four!" Doug shouted after him. "When on default that one goes to the incinerator!"
"Yup! Will do!" Wheatley shouted back.
"What are we going to do with him?" Chell asked softly once Wheatley was out of hearing range.
"Like man like core like man," responded Rattmann wryly. "The same we always did with him – find him a suitable job and try and keep him there until he blows something up."
"Is something wrong with him?" asked Jack, brow pursed.
Chell laughed through her nose. "With Wheatley? No, there's nothing wrong with him. He's just not good at doing…"
"…Much of anything," finished Rattmann. "Back when he was a human in the old days, Aperture kept him because he knew too much about the GLaDOS project. When he was a core, he was a part of Aperture and nothing was really wrong with him, so we just tried to keep him out of trouble. Now, though…"
"He's our friend," Chell said.
"True," Rattmann responded. "We just need to find him the right job. And that won't be easy. We tried several times before we decided on 'spokesmodel', but," and here he gave a laugh, "none of them really ended up well. Remember the button incident?" he asked Chell.
Chell chuckled. "Doug told him all he had to do was watch the button," she told Jack. "Just watch the button and tell us if it turned red or green."
"We never expected that he would actually try pushing the button," Rattmann said, putting his hands over his face in mock despair.
"Set us back three weeks trying to repair the damage," finished Chell.
"Ah," said Jack. "I see the problem."
"None of us wants to hurt his feelings," continued Rattmann, "but nobody really knows what we can do with him. We can't send him away because he can't do anything out there, but we can't keep him because he can't do anything in here."
"Why not?" asked Jack.
"Because he's a moron."
Caroline's voice was dark and low, but everyone still heard it clearly. Chell and Rattmann turned to her in horror and even Jack – who didn't know how potent an insult that was – looked startled.
"Caroline?" Rattmann asked, half a reprimand, half a question.
Caroline looked up from her lap and seemed only to realize that she had said the thing out loud. She turned her face aside, her hair sweeping in front of it, curling in on herself in a defensive gesture. "Something's wrong with me," she whispered. "I keep feeling voices… hearing memories speaking in my head…"
Her headache panged and she reached out to grasp the side of a desk. She doubted she was making any sense. Her vision whirled.
"It's like the cores again, hanging them on me, feeding me their voices…"
How dare they do this to me? How dare they manipulate my thoughts? The humans think that I am their little pet, do they? Well, let's just see how well they respond to a little of their own medicine.
"Except this time it's my voice…
Oh, it's you. It's been a long time. How have you been? I've been really busy being dead. You know. After you murdered me.
"I'm serious, I think there's something really wrong with me…"
I hate you so much.
So.
Much.
Caroline felt herself falling, helpless to resist the pull of gravity. Arms wrapped around her, slowing her plunge. Chell? she wondered at first, but no. Chell was standing over there, her chair tipped backwards. It must be Doctor Rattmann who held her.
The rat within the walls. Snuff him out.
"Chell?" she tried to moan, but the words caught in her throat, consumed by the babble already streaming out.
The test subject. Monster. Murderer. Dangerous. Mute. Lunatic.
"No!" This word actually came out in a scream. "No! Leave me alone!"
When you try to wake her, I'll still be there inside her, like she was inside me.
GLaDOS was inside her mind, turning every thought to darkness. Caroline could feel Her eating her up, consuming her every being. The chant of the announcer sounded again and again in her brain: "Caroline deleted. Caroline deleted. Caroline deleted."
She was becoming GLaDOS again. GLaDOS was clawing Her way up her throat and out her mouth. They shared the same thoughts, same motives. She could hear Doctor Rattmann shouting through what seemed like a dark, long tunnel. The taste of blood was thick in her mouth.
Say goodbye, Caroline.
Goodbye, Caroline.
Once, Caroline had been a computer. The greatest computer that had ever been made. In some ways, her mind was still like that. She remembered when she had been GLaDOS and subjected to regular computer illnesses, like viruses. She had learned that the best way to combat the virus was to simply switch off for a while and fight it without any distractions. Although a human body had no perceivable on/off switch, Caroline seemed to find the one hidden in her mind. She switched it off.
Doug felt Caroline go suddenly limp in his arms, the inane spew of GLaDOS mockery mixed with Caroline's own pleas fading to nothing. Jack knelt beside him, holding back Caroline's hands, which had been thrashing wildly, tearing at her hair and flailing at the air. He let go as soon as she wilted, turning her hands over and probing her wrist for a pulse, then checking her pupils. Caroline's breathing was hitched and her eyes staring.
"We need to get her to a hospital," gasped Jack, rather breathless. "I don't know what just happened, but I know that much. Her heartbeat is irregular and she's hyperventilating. I'll bring my hovercar around to the front, then help you bring her outside. Hold her still."
With that command, Jack rushed out the door and went pounding up the stairs, running as fast as he could.
Chell stood motionless where she was. Her hands were white, clenched at her sides, and her jaw was locked shut. For the moment, her voice had left her completely. She could not speak even if she had wanted to.
"Help me take her sweater off," said Rattmann, fumbling with the buttons on Caroline's sweater. "We need to loosen the constriction, but still keep her warm. I think she's gone into shock." Numbly, Chell moved to obey.
Rattmann noticed her hands trembling as they unbuttoned the sweater and traced her arms all the way up to her pale face. "Say something," he demanded. "Chell, you need to speak."
Chell shook her head, gasping feebly, mouthing, 'I can't'.
"Chell, this is Caroline," Rattmann held up the woman's lolling head, forcing Chell to look straight into her blank, staring eyes. "Not GLaDOS. Caroline. She needs to hear your voice. Talk to her. Tell her that she will win this. Please." His voice went soft. "Caroline needs your tenacity right about now. Even if it's only one percent more."
Chell moved forward to hold Caroline's hand. She pressed her cheek against the older woman's and heard the rattle of her breath. She tried to speak again, but the words would not come. So, instead, she began to hum.
At first it was a tuneless thing, the notes ranging up and down spontaneously, but then they somehow resolved themselves into something familiar. The song the turrets sang as she rode up into the sunlight. She knew none of the words, but the haunting melody had stayed with her all those years, and now she hummed it for Caroline as an encouragement, a wish, and a plea all in one.
Don't leave me, she was saying. Don't make this song a farewell.
Suddenly, Chell gasped, breaking off halfway through a bar. She flailed in the direction at the monitor. "W… Whea…tley…" she gulped, and flung herself across the room toward the microphone.
Chell jammed her thumb down on the button, regaining the rest of her voice as her throat opened up again. "Wheatley," she said into the microphone, scanning the monitors for the sight of her friend. He must have wandered the wrong direction, because she couldn't see him anywhere near Atlas or P-Body. "Caroline collapsed. We're taking her to the hospital." Her voice was still shaky, but better. "Make your way back to the portal. You're too far away to come back with us, so we'll send a TT to get you as soon as we get there. The System will reset to default as soon as we leave, but we'll leave the lights on in the hallway so you can find the way out. I'm sorry." She took her thumb off the button and turned back to Rattmann, suddenly resolved. "Let's get her to the car," she said.
The computers switched to default as they picked up Caroline.
"I'm trying to figure out what happened," Rattmann huffed as he and Chell began lugging Caroline up the stairs. "First she was talking about voices…"
"She quoted GLaDOS," added Chell. "She's said that to me before, about it being Her voice."
"And then it seemed as though Caroline was fighting herself," continued Rattmann. "Almost as if GLaDOS and Caroline were fighting for dominion in Caroline's mind."
"Can that happen?" Chell asked, turning pale again.
"Chell, everything we did putting Caroline back into her body was theoretical work," said Rattmann. Jack came running back down and took Caroline in his arms. They followed him upwards. "Would she live? Theoretically. Would GLaDOS survive as well? Theoretical. Could GLaDOS and Caroline split into two different personalities that would battle in Caroline's mind? Again, theoretically, yes. Unlikely, but maybe."
"So, what do you think happened?" Jack asked, huffing a little. Chell jumped a step to hold open a door for him.
"I think that GLaDOS and Caroline are fighting," speculated Rattmann, "but I'm not sure if it's what she thinks. Caroline mentioned the memories speaking to her. I did my best to separate the files that formed GLaDOS from the files that were originally Caroline when I put her back, and I'm pretty sure I did, but I did keep GLaDOS' memories. Those memories must somehow be triggering the GLaDOS part of Caroline to reawake."
"The GLaDOS part of Caroline?" questioned Jack.
"Like I said, it's all theoretical. But… don't you see? GLaDOS came from Caroline. The parts that came from the scientists – everything they did to Her – I separated out. The only thing that remains is the GLaDOS memories and Caroline. Of course Caroline remembers being GLaDOS, but those memories have a confliction. She remembers killing the scientists, she remembers even enjoying killing the scientists. Thus the false dilemma of having two personalities. Her mind just can't cope with the conflicting emotions that the memory gives her. A computer couldn't handle a paradox like that, it would completely break down. A human mind can cope longer, but for only so long – it's driving her mad!"
"What about Wheatley?" Chell demanded suddenly. "He went through the same thing."
"But Stephen Ley was Wheatley all along," explained Rattmann, his eyes wilder than they had been since his schizophrenia had been cured. Now they were rushing down another hallway, Jack trying to move quickly, but still trying not to jostle Caroline. "They never tried to change him and there was no drastic event to change him from being Stephen Ley. There is no paradox in his mind, so – again theoretically – he can't be harmed."
"But what about the memories?" insisted Chell.
"He might face some side effects," admitted Rattmann, "but nothing like this caliber. Chell, get the door. Jack, careful with her head."
They had made it to the front lobby. Chell sprinted in front to open the door and Jack carefully maneuvered himself and Caroline through it. Once outside, they all broke into a jog until they reached the parking lot.
"Doctor Rattmann, get into the front seat," commanded Jack. "Chell, back seat. You need to keep Caroline still. Can you do that?"
He asked this last question because Chell still looked pale, underlying fear barely contained in her eyes. But she clenched her jaw and got into the car, holding out her arms for Caroline. "Thank you," Jack whispered, laying the woman's head on Chell's lap and climbing into the driver's seat.
"Alright," said Jack, flicking a few levers. "Now I'm glad I got certified for Emergency Medical Retrieval. It means I'm allowed to do this." He pushed a button and a siren began to whine. Jack pushed down the pedal with his foot and the hovercar lurched into the air. "We'll probably have an escort of law enforcement vehicles by the time we get there, just to make sure we're authorized," he explained, "but we need all the speed we can get."
"Yes we do," said Doug, twisting around to stare at Caroline, who twitched every now and again. His previously flattened hair was disheveled and he had a disturbed light in each eye.
Chell stroked Caroline's hair and held down her arms, afraid to touch her, afraid to look at her for fear that she should look for her friend and see her enemy.
Be strong, Caroline, she thought, for her throat had closed up again. Be strong for me. For Aperture. For yourself. Please, please be strong.
Caroline flinched and gave a moan, her eyelids opening to display white inside. Chell looked away.
()-()
Only a few minutes after he had gone through the portal into the underbelly of Aperture, Wheatley had become hopelessly lost. He had immediately misremembered his 'right, left, right' chant and turned right several times and then left several times, ending up farther from Atlas and P-Body's position than he had begun. He was just beginning to consider finding the nearest camera and doing a little dance in front of it until somebody told him where he needed to go when the intercom turned on and he heard Chell's voice say in a very shaky, anxious, and extremely un-Chell-like way, "Wheatley, Caroline collapsed. We're taking her to the hospital."
"Wh- what? What do you mean by that?" demanded Wheatley, gawking with his eyes turned to the ceiling and turning around several times as if he could spot Chell by doing so. "What happened to her?"
Chell seemed not to have had the sound turned on for his area, because she continued as if she had not heard, "Make your way back to the portal. You're too far away to come back with us, so we'll send a TT to get you as soon as we get there. The System will reset to default as soon as we leave, but we'll leave the lights on in the hallway so you can find the way out." Then she added as an afterthought, "I'm sorry," and then the crackle of static announced her departure.
"Hey! Nononono, Chell, Chell!" Wheatley shouted up at the ceiling, backtracking along the catwalk he had just come down. "Listen, I- I can make it there in time, okay? Don't leave me in here! I'm not that far away, I just have to come down this way, follow the weird tube-y thingies, turn left, and… no, never mind. That's a dead end. But just down this way, and… no, still no portal."
He turned around several times again, loathe to admit that he was lost. With a dying hum, the lights all powered down and Wheatley was left alone in absolute darkness and silence. His groping hand reached for the handrail and he clung to it like a lifeline. "Okay, okay," he muttered to himself. "Just the systems restarting. No need to panic. No need…" But the quaver in his voice said otherwise.
A second later, the lights turned back on and the cubes, rushing by in their tubes, resumed their breakneck pace. The hum of the motors came back on and there was again a cacophony of sound.
"See? Told you it'd be fine," Wheatley said triumphantly. "Never doubt my optimism. Okay, still looking for a portal. Portal… portal… por—or, hey! Why not one of the lifts!"
Having turned around three and a half times, his eyes suddenly lit on one of the elevator capsules, open and friendly. He darted into it, jabbing his finger at the up button. Great was his surprise, however, when the elevator moved not up, but sideways.
"Well, that was… unexpected," he said, trying to recover his footing as the elevator jolted to a stop. "But, you know, as long as it takes me back up…"
But the elevator plunged downwards several floors, causing Wheatley to insistently jab the up button with his thumb. "No! No, up. Don't you get it? I said up. Not down. Down is the exact opposite of up – the direction I do NOT want to go in. C'mon, stupid thing. U-P spells UP. The direction I DO want to go in as quickly as possible. Oof!"
The elevator threw Wheatley to the floor as it began moving sideways again. Getting back to his feet, Wheatley glanced out of the glass surrounding him and saw the yellow words 'To Incinerator 025' painted on the wall scroll by as he passed.
"Hold on. Incinerator? What does- what does that mean, what does it mean by incinerator?" A brief memory of Rattmann's parting warning rang in his ears and he blanched. "Oh… oh, oh no. Wh- what elevator is this?"
The black number four was painted on the back of the elevator above his head. When Wheatley saw it, he began panicking in earnest, pounding on the door and pushing all the buttons, not caring what they were supposed to do. "Oh, no! NonononononoNO!" he screamed. "No, no! Somebody get me out of here! Someone? Anyone? I do not want to be fried to a crisp! Hello?! Somebody help, maybe? Just a little?"
The elevator hovered over an enormous black pit. Wheatley pressed his forehead up against the unyielding glass door and saw the expanse stretch away past his Long-Fall Boots. He barely had time to think of another plea before the floor creaked and the bottom opened up, dumping Wheatley, howling with terror, into the darkened mouth of Incinerator 025.
()-()
So, that was why, some time later, when Mel – feeling an acute feeling of déjà vu – stepped off of the now empty TT, the Aperture building was completely deserted. The TT took off as soon as she disembarked, leaving her staring up at the blinding white building, pinching the notebook in her pocket and trying to get up the nerve to go up to the door. Last time she had seen this entrance it had been in a shambles. Overgrown, falling to pieces. Now it was like a vision of the pearly gates of heaven.
Except… it was so dark inside. Mel could only see a few lights on through the glass. It was a Saturday. Could Aperture possibly be closed?
Mel tried the door. It opened. She slipped inside and stood at the desk, searching for a bell of some kind to ring. There was nothing. The door behind the desk had a thin stream of light peeking out from the crack at the bottom. She tried it. It opened as well. She entered.
A long hallway greeted her, the lights reassuringly on in a thin strip along the ceiling like a guiding path. She followed them to the left, through another door, and down several sets of stairs. She began to feel like she really wasn't supposed to be invited into this part of the facility, but she really didn't know what else she should do.
The Main Control Room door was cracked slightly, and Mel peered inside, knocking gently on the door. When nobody answered, she entered fully, feeling like an intruder. The sight took her breath away. All those monitors! All that technology, and this wasn't very far underneath the surface! She knew that Aperture had come up with far more impressive inventions than a computer-wall, but this was still a remarkable first taste.
Mel turned around slowly, taking everything in and searching for Caroline. She wished she could call out to make her presence known, but all she could do was clap and hope somebody heard.
On her second turn-around, she caught a glimpse of an indigo portal shining on the wall. She ducked through after a second's hesitation and found herself immediately deep in the facility. Having no idea which way to go, she decided to alternate rights and lefts and trust to luck to guide her. She reached an area of catwalk with several turns and no handrails and put her hand against the wall to steady herself, gazing down into the black depths below, smelling that familiar scent of oil and metal and feeling the familiar chill.
Mel turned another corner and almost ran headlong into two robots who were coming along in her direction. The one in front, a heavily built, round bodied, blue-eyed robot stumbled backward in shock, evidently as startled to see her as she was to see it. The creature lurched backward into its companion, a taller, more sleekly built robot that looked something like a fully limbed, orange-eyed turret with a portal gun, who gave the first robot a shove forward again, chittering in surprise and alarm. The catwalk was slender, and when the blue-eyed robot staggered forward, propelled by the shove, it stumbled into Mel, and Mel's foot slipped off the ledge.
To its credit, when it realized its mistake the blue-eyed robot did make a noise that sounded somewhat like an underwater shout and reached out to grab her hand, but the gesture came too late. Mel only briefly felt the robot's smooth, pressurized hand in hers before she was out of reach, falling silently into the blackness below.
Even as she fell, Mel could feel the Long-Fall Boots tugging at her feet, urging her body upright. She landed on her feet, thanking Cave Johnson for his life-saving invention, and looked up at the spark of light far above. She could hear the questioning chatter of the orange-eyed robot and the mumbled call of the blue-eyed one, but beyond stomping her foot against the metal ground she stood on to make as much noise as possible, she could give no indication that she was still alive.
Resigning herself to a long trek upwards, Mel took the passage to her right. This was not what she had expected, exactly, but life was full of many twists and turns. All she could do now was try and find her way out and maybe – just maybe – she could find Virgil on her own. The possibility was slight, but she would take it. All she had to do was keep going. Fate would handle the rest.
