"No?! What do you mean no?!"
Back at Pluot headquarters, Johnathan Coulton was not happy.
"My parents found out about you, there's no way I'll be able to sneak out now. I'm sorry."
Johnathan forced himself to remain calm. "That's alright Miss Newell, we'll think of something else. I'm sorry you couldn't make it."
As soon as Sophie hung up, Johnathan paged Erik. "Where does she live?"
"What does it matter sir?" Erick asked. "She said she couldn't come-"
"Because of her parents." Johnathan cut in, his unsettling voice glitching on the pager's small speaker. "So we get them out of the way. Now where does she live?"
"I'm sending the coordinates now." The whole kidnapping idea didn't sit right with Erik, but neither did sending a teenager down There in the first place. Besides, he needed to get his hands on Aperture's legendary tech.
Erik took a deep breath before sending his boss the map, he would do whatever it took…
For Science.
—
It was the middle of the night, but Sophie couldn't sleep.
She had been thinking for a while, and had decided her parents deserved an apology. They were probably right about the dangerous equipment in that lab, and she had accidentally insulted her father's intelligence, the one thing she had always defended before. Besides, they still owed her an explanation.
As Sophie got out of bed, she realized something was very wrong: the walls were scratched, the bedroom door was open, and her parents were nowhere to be found.
Panicking, Sophie ran through the house. She found no sign of her parents, but plenty of signs that a struggle had taken place. There was only one conclusion, her parents had been kidnapped.
*Ring* *Ring*, Sophie jumped 2 inches into the air before turning around and shakily picking up the phone. "Hello?"
"Hello Miss Newell."
"Advisor!" Sophie gasped as his modulated voice came through the speaker. So this was the "something else" he had come up with! "What have you done with my parents?"
"Oh, they're safe. But if you ever want to see them again, you'll follow my instructions exactly."
"W-what do you want?"
"In the cookie jar in your kitchen, there is a flash drive and a map to Aperture Laboratories. Go to that location, and use the virus on the flash drive to shut down the Central AI. Tell no one what happened, or your parents will die."
With that, he hung up. Sophie had no idea what a "Central AI" was, or how she would get to Aperture, but it didn't matter. All that mattered was that her parents were in danger, and it was all her fault.