The man darted quickly around the corner, avoiding the spray of bullets. He waited patiently, listening to that little mechanical whirring those things gave out, watching its sighting laser.
"Are you still there?"
He dashed across the hallway again, firing an orange hole behind the thing before it could shoot him, and rolled into the next, carefully placing a blue. Yep, now he was right behind the thing. He stepped through, feeling that disturbing, full-body slip, and kicked the thing over, feeling bad in spite of himself. What kinda sick person makes these sentry-things sound like creepy kids?
"Whyyy?"
"Jus' hold still, ya li'l peashooter." the Sniper grumbled, wedging his funny tech-boot between the body and the gun before it could slide back in, and gritted his teeth as he felt the pressure on his foot.
"I don't hate you."
"Really. Do you actually talk, or are ya programmed t' just say that?" he asked, looking at the connections.
"The turrets do feel pain and humiliation, in their quaint little ways, and that one that you're violating is being incredibly generous when it says it doesn't hate you." that 'Announcer' lady said, and he scowled.
"Because it does hate you." she continued, "It hates to be so violated by an unhygienic crazed gunman who doesn't understand the use of proper washroom facilities. Why are you violating it?"
"Jus' tryin' t' get myself a proper firearm, Your Majesty." he snarled.
"Crazed gunmen do not need guns. Only the turrets do, because they are not crazed gunmen. All that you need is that nice, Aperture-approved handheld portal device. You crazed gunman."
"I am NOT a—!" he stopped himself, shaking his head, "You really like to push a man's buttons, don't ya?"
He grinned, baring his teeth at one of the cameras as it whirred to face him, unable to get anything off the turret this time, "I'm an assassin, ya freaky sadist. And I look forward to teachin' ya the difference."
"Oh..." she laughed, "If it weren't for the fact that you clearly suffer from a mental illness, I might have felt threatened by that. You're more amusing than threatening, Mr. James Mundy. Amusing to Me, anyway. You are threatening to the turrets, however, in ways you shouldn't be. So stop being threatening to the turrets, or I will increase the test's difficulty levels. And I've been making it so easy for you this far, too."
"A little too easy, if ya ask me." he replied, smirking while he was putting a giant heavy crate-thing on the button.
"Nothing good to hunt around here, nothing challenging, same ol' same ol', and these mealy whitewash walls are makin' my eyes bleach from lookin' at 'em, it's so boring. Give a bloke a challenge, lady, or is this all you got?"
"Brain damage is so extensive, isn't it? Like a greasy little tumor in that inefficient lump of gray fat. In fact, analysis shows that your mental illness, manifested as a tumor, takes up more mass and neurons in your cranial cavity than the original inefficient lump of gray fat. I would take care of it for you, but then that would mean that you'd have to—"
"Shut up." the marksman growled, walking into the elevator, and letting it bring him along to the next floor.
The elevators weren't proper, he noted.
The direction was never predictable.
It would go sideways, or horizontal, in any direction of some three-dimensional compass, but almost never down.
It really threw him off.
It nearly threw him literally when it ground to a halt, making him stumble on his foppish metal boots.
"You listen to Me, you insufferable ape." the voice said quietly, "You. Work. For. Me."
The elevator shuddered and continued on, a bit more smoothly, "And the Aperture Science Employee clauses stated in the contract that you wilfully received and signed clearly state that you, as an Aperture Science Employee, must cooperate and defer to the policies listed in the—"
"There was no bloody contract," he snapped, one hand prepared to steady himself.
"No brochure, not even a notice. I'm a mercenary, one who knows who's calling the target and paying the bills, and it's not you. Check your bleeding documents at the desk, missy, 'cause my writing's not in them."
"Oh, on the contrary, Mr. Mundy."
The elevator smoothly changed directions.
"Everything of you is in My files. Down to how you died at your last Respawn before your promotion. Want Me to tell it to you?"
He looked warily around the small enclosure, at the padded walls and cold steel rails.
"It was by a baseball bat from your rival company's Scout. One blow to the back of the skull, preceded by two blows to the kneecaps and one to the hands to disarm you, shattering all middle and proximal phalanges and most of the metacarpals. It would have been such a drawback to your career, had you not been under the Respawn clause. So unprofessional, to be beaten by a loud, blundering Scout from behind. Then again, brain tumors could excuse a lack of professionalism."
He grit his teeth, but she spoke up again, "Everything of you is in My facility. I know everything about you, Mr. Mundy. Regardless of whether you acknowledge your willing and non-negotiable promotion, I am your employer. And as your employer, I expect you to continue testing WITH A PROPER INDICATION OF RESPECT."
The elevator shook with the sheer power put behind her voice, and he leaned into the wall, waiting until the vibrations faded.
He let the silence continue for a few more minutes before he spoke up again, "Know everything about me, eh?"
"I will reiterate Myself for the sake of slow learners: yes."
He grinned, and settled back, cradling the funny gun in the crook of his arm.
"I think I know you too. Or knew you. Anything in your files got somethin' t' say about that?"
The elevator stuttered, almost imperceptibly, and his grin widened.
"No. Because such an event is impossible on any scale of probability. Any interaction between us prior to this arrangement would have been imaginary, fabricated, insignificant, unfortunate. Continue testing."
"Because if I must say, that voice of yours sounds real familiar when I think about it." he continued, striding out into the mealy white chamber, eyeing the tubes, the enemies, the lay of the land, "I've had a long career, Miss, and that career's gotten me to many interesting places. One of them had been in Missouri, United States, at a meeting between a couple of high-powered companies, but the funny rub was no one knew why they were so powerful."
He strode towards a cube dispenser, pleased that she hadn't interrupted him yet.
"Anyway, regardless of background, someone in one of those companies wanted an employee of the other dead. The target was some sort of accountant, probably a two-timer who stuck his thumb into too many pies. So, went in, got the job done, went to collect the reward from the bloke, and had a very interesting chat with his assistant."
He sighed, "The pay was a load of crap, all things considered. But it seemed like the place was on its last legs, anyway. The fellow was rambling about lemons, coughing, hacking, and somethin' about more percentage of bullet per bullet. I mean, it's a bullet, how much more of it are ya gonna expect? Was the customer dissatisfied with how much bullet they got?"
"Stop talking. You're talking about your employer, and not with the required standard of respect."
She sounded nervous. Good.
"Psh, I'm talking to my employer right now," he said, wrassling the cube around the chamber, "And I must say, the management of this place has really gone down." He laughed, "When do the assisstants get assigned the grunt work, hm?"
"I SAID," the voice boomed, and the chamber boomed with her, the floors, walls, and ceiling shook and started to move in.
He dropped the cube.
"DON'T."
They closed in, the room steadily shrinking to twice his size, twitching at the edges.
"YOU."
Once his size.
"TALK TO ME THAT WAAAAY..."
He crouched, curling in until there was no more room to curl.
The walls continued anyway, unimpeded, with a final visceral crunch.
. . .
The panels slowly pulled away, noticeably stickier.
They quietly replaced themselves with clean ones, and the chamber resumed its normal position.
A few more minutes passed, quietly.
He came back into existence with what could only be described as a pop, gun and all, and looked around approvingly.
"Ya clean up well, I'll give you that."
"You've lost Science points, as well as a percentage of your existing brain cells. Though it's not as if you had any to begin with. Continue testing."
"Do as you please," he hummed idly, feeling quite giddy despite having just been effectively crushed with the Aperture equivalent of a train, "But we're gonna have to talk about this at some point.
Maybe over a pint.
Maybe two.
You'll be paying though, seeing as it seems you have my assets."
"Continue. Testing."
He smiled so the cameras couldn't see, and continued testing, humming what sounded like an opera.
