Title: Banging
Summary: Now you're thinking with portals!
Rating: T
Disclaimer: Game, GLaDOS, the cube and Wicked are not mine…Sadly.
Archive: Not anymore.
A.N.: I played this game portal with my boyfriend, and it's the best game ever. The quotes for the computer controlling the facility are in italics. It's about Chell-a test subject-getting through this test facility devoid of human life with only GLaDOS and the weighted companion cube for company (and some suicidal androids). This is the end result.
Chapter Seven
"Please note, we have added a consequence for failure. Any contact with the chamber floor will result in an unsatisfactory mark on your official testing record, followed by death. Good luck."
"What are you doing?"
"Playing a game. Go away."
"Weren't you just bitching about not having enough time for school and writing? What are you doing playing a computer game?"
"It's educational."
"You're firing blue and orange portals at the wall."
"And observe-when I place this blue portal right here and I place this orange portal on the ceiling above it I have an infinite loop. Now, if I through this android through it he continues to fall forever."
"It's an infinite loop."
"But, my dear Elphaba, momentum in conserved between portals. Therefore, when I remove this bottom blue portal the android will hit the ground at terminal velocity." I right clicked away.
"…Wow…"
"And it smashes into the floor at terminal velocity!"
"Well done, android. The Enrichment Center once again reminds you that android hell is a real place where you will be sent at the first sign of defiance."
"What was that?"
"That was GLaDOS, the computer. It runs the test facility."
"Spectacular, you appear to understand how a portal affects forward momentum, or to be more precise, how it does not."
"It is a came called Portal, and the plot is basically you testing a portal gun trying to get out of a human-less test sight run by a computer. You can pass through the portals, but keep in mind that momentum is conserved. Some surfaces will not allow the portal to be created and each level is a puzzle that involves portals." I paused. "Then, of course, there's the elicit romance between you and your weighted companion cube." I sniffed. "You have to sacrifice it all too soon after you meet. So sweet…So helpful…So cubic…"
Elphaba glanced at the screen.
"Minerva, that's a grey box."
"It's a box of love."
"Well, there are hearts on it…"
"There's the spirit!"
I dodged one swirling ball of light as Elphaba leaned in closer.
"What is that?"
"A swirling ball of light."
She sighed.
"If it touches me I'll die."
"Really now?"
"The symptoms most commonly produced by Enrichment Center testing are superstition, perceiving inanimate objects as alive, and hallucinations. The Enrichment Center reminds you that the weighted companion cube will never threaten to stab you and, in fact, cannot speak."
"You know what, Elphaba, GLaDOS kind of reminds me of you."
"The Enrichment Center reminds you that the weighted companion cube cannot speak. In the event that the weighted companion cube does speak, the Enrichment Center urges you to disregard its advice."
"How so?"
"You did it! The weighted companion cube certainly brought you good luck. However, it cannot accompany you for the rest of the test and must, unfortunately, be euthanized."
"Need I say more?" Elphaba shook her head.
"Really, though, shouldn't you be writing or applying or homework…ing?"
"I have none. Well, I could reread my European History notes, but why tamper with what I know?"
"Biology?"
"We had a sub last class."
"Calculus?"
"Finished it."
"Our New Lives Reside in Scotland?"
"Working on it on paper."
"Your haunted house?"
"J-miah hasn't sent me a message back about it."
"Anything?"
"I want to beat Portal."
"Congratulations. The test is now over. All Aperture technologies remain safely operational up to 4000 degrees Kelvin. Rest assured that there is absolutely no chance of a dangerous equipment malfunction prior to your victory candescence. Thank you for participating in this Aperture Science computer-aided enrichment activity. Goodbye."
"Did you beat it?"
"Well, if being incinerated counts as beating the game…Oh noes, GLaDOS! I see that wall over there. I'm about to portal your computer ass!!!"
"Did you just say 'oh noes'?"
"Stop what you are doing and assume the party escort submission position, or you will miss the party."
"Minerva, you're about to miss the party." Elphaba brushed one green finger across her lips before turning back to me. "GLaDOS said there would be delicious cake." Fingers tapping the chair back, she turned towards the door. "Speaking of cake, do we have any?"
"No, I'm dieting. Anyways, the cake is a lie."
"What are you doing?"
"I'm obviously running around this facility trying to find GLaDOS."
"Are those handprints on the wall? And blood?"
"I do believe that is a shrine to the weighted companion cube."
"Is that a pin-up with the cube taped over the face?"
"You're just full of questions, aren't you?"
"It is."
"It is indeed, Greenie."
"Look - we're both stuck in this place. I'll use lasers to inscribe a line down the center of the facility, and one half will be where you live, and I'll live in the other half. We won't have to try to kill each other or even talk if we don't feel like it."
"Screw you GLaDOS!"
Elphaba leaned in.
"Are those giant platforms that can crush you?"
"Uh oh. Somebody cut the cake. I told them to wait for you, but they cut it anyway. There is still some left, though, if you hurry back."
"Yes."
She leaned in closer.
"Portal! Look out!" We let out a breath. "I'm so close to her…" I growled.
"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!"
"There she is."
"Some day we'll remember this and laugh. And laugh, and laugh. Oh boy. Well. You may as well come on back."
"She's a giant…Metal hanging thing of…Metal."
"Elphaba, you're the articulate one today!"
"Did something just fall off of her?"
"I believe so." We leaned in closer and failed to realize that we leaning in would no force the character to do so. "I think I'll incinerate it."
"Did you just…"
"Yep!"
"That thing you burnt up isn't important to me. Not any more. It's the Fluid Catalytic Cracking Unit; it makes shoes for orphans. Nice job breaking it, hero."
"Nice one, Minerva."
"How was I to know?"
"More stuff just fell off of her."
"I know. What the hell?"
"Good news. I figured out what that thing you just incinerated was. It was a morality core they installed after I flooded the enrichment center with a deadly neurotoxin to make me stop flooding the enrichment center with a deadly neurotoxin."
"Oh damn."
"Good luck on this one, Min."
"What do I do now?"
"Keep incinerating her?"
"How?" Another core fell. "Oh. Thanks."
"I'm going to go look for cake."
"Delicious cake?"
"Maybe I'll cut it in a cube…"
"Oh, the cruelness! To tempt me with my lost love!"
"Do you think I'm trying to trick you with reverse psychology? I mean, seriously now... OK fine. DO touch it. Pick it up and just stuff it back into me!"
"Is that computer trying to use reverse psychology?"
"No, she's not trying to trick me at all."
"How long does this take?"
"Awhile."
"You're not smart. You're not a scientist. You're not a doctor. You're not even a full time employee. Where did your life go so wrong? It's a mystery I'll solve later. By myself. Because you'll be dead."
"You know, Elphaba, were you a computer, you would be a psychotic computer flooding the Shiz corridors with a deadly neurotoxin."
"I'm not psychotic."
"You're also not a computer."
"You're strange. You realize this, right?"
"Weren't you getting cake?"
"I would, but the kitchen is across the hall from Nessa's room. If I had a portal gun…"
I smiled.
"Now you're thinking with portals!"
-TBC-
Happy Halloween! Please review! There will be delicious cake!