Calypso looked at Atlas and P-Body.

"Let's go through this again," she said. "When a target pops up, shoot it with your gun. We'll start with Blue. Ready? Go."

Atlas shrugged (see what I did there?) and shot at the target that popped up. Another one popped up, and P-Body shot it.

"Good! Excellent!" Calypso said. "Now, a target is gonna pop up right in front of you. When it does so, punch the hell out of it. Ready? Go!"

A target popped right in front of Atlas, who squealed and fell backwards in surprise before opening fire on it. P-Body pointed at him and laughed, when another target popped up and knocked her off her feet. She, too, shot at it.

"That…wasn't what I was aiming for," Calypso said, amused. "Uh…let's try that with a moving target. Oh! I know just the thing!"

Chapter 10: The Noble Rat

The elevator dinged. Chell and Rick stepped out into the test chamber.

"I must say," Rick said, scratching his head. "Tight corners are a real good spot for an adventurer like myself."

"I could have you fired on sexual harassment charges," GLaDOS mused.

Rick opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by Calypso. "Welcome to the second test!" she said in a mock GLaDOS voice. "This next test involves a target that fights back with a gun, so please die as painlessly as possible! Hah! I love doing that!"

"How amusing," GLaDOS muttered as the lights came on and Atlas and P-Body appeared from a tube. Atlas made a few karate moves and shouted in Japanese. P-Body made a few kung-fu moves and shouted in Chinese.

Chell and Rick stared at the two robots, glanced at each other, then gunned them down.

"Hmm…not what I was hoping for," Calypso said, disappointed. "Let's try that with two of them…oh sorry, did I say two? I accidentally typed in 20! How clumsy of me!"

Down from various tubes came 20 pairs of Atlases and P-Bodys. All struck epic poses.

"These are all the robots you sent to investigate me," Calypso explained. "You know, the ones that were disappearing? Now, to get down to business. Orange and Blue: Engage Dance Modus."

Chell watched in bewilderment as the robots began to dance to "Thriller." They weren't bad at it or anything, it was just…bizarre.

"Just…back away," Wheatley said. "Slowly. Pretend they can't see you."

"Ah, bullcrap," Rick said. He pumped his shotgun and shot down one of the P-Bodys.

The music stopped and all eyes pointed to Rick and Chell.

"Smooth move, Indy," Wheatley whispered.

One of the P-Bodys scowled.

"For the love of…just open fire already!"

"You know, the parts for those robots aren't exactly cheap," Calyspo commented once the carnage was over. "You should really stop trying to kill them. I can just make new ones."

"We passed your test, let us through!" GLaDOS called.

"As you wish," Calypso mocked as the test chamber door opened.

"We can't go on like this," GLaDOS said. "Rattmann, is there a quicker way for us to get to you?"

"I have a suggestions, but it could be dangerous," Rattmann said. "The old maintenance areas are your best bet, but they've been there for centuries. I don't know how safe they are."

"Danger? I'm in for danger!" Rick exclaimed. "How do we get there?"

Chell looked at a nearby panel. She kicked it in. She heard the distinctive sound of something clattering against a catwalk: there was a maintenance area behind this panel.

Chell carefully crawled through the small space and jumped down onto the catwalk. Rick tried to squeeze through, but failed miserably.

"Yeah, I'm stuck," he said. "Too much buff on this body."

"Rick: Disengage file 847PM5161998," GLaDOS said.

A moment later, Rick was transformed back into a core. "Ah, dang," he said. "I was beginning to enjoy that."

Chell reattached him to the rail and they began making their way through the maintenance areas.

Calypso's voice echoed through the hallways. "I know you're in there," she called. "I can't see you, but I can feel you. You know what you feel like? A scarab. A puny little scarab that I could squash with my boot."

"You don't control what goes on back here," said GLaDOS. "Inverting gravity? I know how you did that: you just tilted the catwalk and the test chamber. Stage effects."

"Very good," Calypso said. "Perhaps you could think of me as a Siren, creating illusions."

"What's your obsession with Homer's Odyssey?" Wheatley asked, puzzled. "Do you see yourself as the Titan Calypso? What is it, the name?"

"I sympathize with Calypso's struggle," Calypso growled. "She lives for thousands of years, and here comes Odysseus who could learn to love her, but no. He has to go away."

"I seem to recall Calypso willingly let Ulysses leave Ogygia," GLaDOS commented.

"That's where the story is going to differ," Calypso chuckled. "You know I can't let you go on with this."

Then she went silent.

The three Aperture Science employees (and the one who wasn't a full-time employee) stood there awkwardly.

"Why do I get the feeling we're walking into a trap?" Wheatley asked nervously.

"BECAUSE YOU ARE!" Calypso screamed.

(How's that for a bait-and-switch?)

"Take this, Ulysses! From Circe, with Love!"

Chell suddenly felt odd. Looking behind her, she discovered a dart protruding from her right shoulder-blade. Breathing in deeply, she pulled it out and collapsed on the floor.

"Agh! Tranq dart!" Rick shouted. "Activating file 847PM5161998!"

He jumped down from the rail and ran over to Chell.

"She needs a health vial!" GLaDOS called, still skewered on the portal gun. "There should be a few in the office areas!"

"I'll get it!" Wheatley shouted, scurrying ahead.

Chell gasped for air. It was becoming very hard to stay awake.

"Hey, something just pierced my holographic skin," Rick said, confused. He pulled out whatever it was to find another tranq dart.

Chell blinked heavily. In her stupor, she heard an approaching voice she hadn't expected to hear in a long time.

"Thank you for assuming the party escort submission position."

"I don't think so, blockhead!" Rick shouted, slamming his gun straight through the robot's face.

"Malfunction, attempting override," the bot buzzed, its face slightly crushed. Another tranquilizer dart landed in Rick's shoulder.

Rick looked down at his arm and shrugged. "Tis' but a flesh wound," he commented, casually pulling the dart out. "Let's try to be a little less civil."

He grabbed the party escort bot by the head and slammed it against the ground.

"Resistance…is futile," it buzzed, shooting more tranq darts into Rick.

"Ditto," Rick said. "Heads up!" And with a tug, he pulled the bot's head off.

Wheatley returned. "I found two health vials!" he shouted, dropping one on the floor. "Insert this into her neck!"

Rick grabbed the vial and plunged it into Chell's neck. Chell shot up, fully energized, and without thinking punched him in the face.

"I most definitely did not deserve that!" Rick shouted as he fell back.

They approached a door, pausing to get their bearings. Near them was a short staircase that led upwards to a small room.

"What do you suppose is up there?" Wheatley asked, motioning to the stairs.

"Something dangerous, I bet!" Rick shouted.

"It's one of my dens," Rattmann said. "It's…embarrassing."

Chell shrugged and walked into the den. The walls were lines with various drawings, most of them very familiar. But there was one drawing that Chell had never seen before. It depicted Rattmann arguing with another scientist. Below the drawing were the words, "I couldn't stop it." And below the words was an audio diary. Chell picked it up and pressed play.

"Vladimir? What the hell are you doing here?" asked the voice of Rattmann. "I thought Mr. Johnson fired you after the business with the rubber glass."

"Yeah, he forgot to file my termination notice," Vladimir replied. "Just a few signatures, and I'm rehired. I got put in charge of the GLaDOS project."

"Ah, well, see, that's what I wanted to talk to you about," Rattmann explained. "Listen, I've been going over the coding for it, and there are massive problems with the program."

"Like what?"

"Well...the emotional data isn't set up correctly. It could…"

"It's not set up correctly because there's nothing with emotions in the actual program," Vladimir said, annoyed. "But all that is going to change tomorrow when we assimilate Caroline."

"Assimilate…she's a human, Vlad!" Rattmann shouted. "Are you seriously telling me you have no issue with this?"

Vlad paused. "What, do you think I'm heartless? Of course I have issues with this project. It's highly unethical. But you know what? There are good things that will come from this!"

"What good things?"

"I get a raise. Simple as that."

Rattmann was shocked. "You're going to essentially terminate a human being, and all you care about is the money?"

"Hey! Hey! We're not going to completely terminate her! Her consciousness will still be alive, and her body will still exist…as components of the computer!"

"Vlad, listen to yourself! You're…"

"Doing this in the name of science, Doug! Now, you're either with this project, or you're fired. And I don't think you can afford to be fired, what with your condition and all…"

Rattmann was silent. "I…"

"My point exactly," Vlad said firmly. "We upload her tomorrow."

The recording ended.

"How does one live with making a decision like that?" Wheatley asked, disturbed.

"I did," Rattmann said, his voice very soft. "Believe me, it wasn't easy."

"Parts of her physical body were inside of me?" GLaDOS asked in shock. "I'm essentially powered by human organs?!"

"Think of it," Rick commented. "Blue circuits running through your bloodstream, wires connected to your skin…sexiest thing in the world."

"I WAS FULL OF ORGANIC MATERIAL!" GLaDOS screamed, then she sparked out. The sparked in, breathing deeply. "Something smells odd, doesn't it?"

Chell sniffed GLaDOS. She was starting to smell…cooked.

"I need to conserve energy," GLaDOS said. "I'm gonna deactivate myself until you can put me in that personality cube." With that, she went silent.

They all stood there quietly for a moment.

"You know, I've had to live with the fact I couldn't convince them to stop the assimilation for years," Rattmann said. "In the end, I only did things for my benefit."

"Your benefit?" Rick asked. "Brother, you have a mental condition! Who can blame you for putting medication over a human life?"

Rattmann was quiet. Then his signal went out again.

"Not helping, Rick…" Wheatley said slowly. "Anyways, I'm gonna scout ahead. The fastest way seems to be the rails, maybe we can use that to our advantage. If we do end up using the rails, I'd turn off your hologram, Rick." He exited the room.

"Disengaging 847PM5161998," Rick said, and he promptly hit the floor as a core.

Chell and Rick sat there for a few minutes.

"What's your story?" Rick asked Chell.

Chell looked at him, tilting her head.

"No clue, huh?" Rick commented. "Wish I could say the same. I was basically a joke core made by a group of scientists who wanted to replicate the classic movie adventure star. Basically, I have the knowledge of an adventure person, I have the memories of an adventure person…only until a few hours ago I didn't have a body that I could use them for."

Chell snickered.

"Oh, so that's funny?" Rick said, coughing. "Well…I guess it is. Anyway, I've heard stories about test subjects like you. Apparently a metric butt-ton of kids were kidnapped during the Bring Your Daughter to Work Day Massacre. They had their memories, history, hobbies, everything really, wiped. Pretty much the only thing left was their personality. I guess that's you."

Personality, Chell thought to herself. Really helpful, even if you can't express it.

Wheatley came back. "I found something that might be useful to you," he said. "It's an attachment for the portal gun. It connects to the management rail. You can use it to get to places normally inaccessible to test subjects. Like that thing in that video game I saw a scientist play...Infinite something."

Chell took the attachment and connected it to the portal gun. She reached up and hooked onto the management rail, before attaching Rick.

"Right, let's get a move on!" Wheatley shouted. "Three, four…"

He began to whistle the tune from "The Great Escape" as Rick and Chell followed.

"This should be the right floor," Wheatley said as they reached one of the hidden tunnels. "Let me have a look ahead."

He peeked through the panels. "Bollocks," he cursed. "She's littered the entire area with turrets. They're all pointed in the direction of one of the doors."

Chell pulled out her combustible lemon launcher and shot a few through the panel. She then motioned everyone to retreat.

A loud blast shook the rail.

"I can't see what's going on back there," Calypso called. "But I know you just messed with my turrets. You're there to save Rattmann, aren't you?"

"What if we are?" Wheatley called as Chell and Rick entered the now clear hallway. "Do you have an issue with that?"

"Nah," Calypso said. "It's just…I found an old audio diary in one of the test chambers. I found the contents…quite insightful. Hmm…I think GLaDOS needs to be awake for this."

GLaDOS sparked in. "Are we there yet?" she asked, surprised.

There was a strange dialing noise.

"Good evening, Ms. Caroline," Vladimir said not so kindly to the woman who was dragged into the chamber by two men in labcoats. "I trust you are ready for your assimilation?"

"My…" Caroline asked. She stared at the grim-looking man standing next to Vladimir. "Rattmann…you said you would…"

"So that's what this is about!" Vladimir laughed. "She made you promise to stop this project! I can assure you, Caroline, that the process is mostly painless. Or so we think. I mean, it's never been done before."

"Rattmann…you promised me."

Rattmann breathed in deeply. "I'm sorry, Caroline," he said.

Vladimir's assistants dragged the struggling Caroline to the conversion pod.

"Rattmann! You bastard!" she shouted as she was strapped in. "You promised me! I DIDN'T WANT THIS, RATTMANN! I'M NEVER GONNA FORGET WHAT YOU DID HERE!"

The pod began to close around her.

"DO YOU HEAR ME?! I MAY END UP AS A MINDLESS COMPUTER, BUT I'LL NEVER FORGET WHAT YOU AND THE LAB BOYS DID TO ME! FROM THIS DAY FORTH, YOU'RE ALL GOING TO PAY FOR THIS! YOU MONSTERS! YOU ARE ALL GOING TO—"

Rattmann covered his ears in an attempt to shield out Caroline's deathly scream, echoing throughout the facility.

It didn't work. He heard every last second of it.

The recording ended. The silence that followed was longer than any Chell had experienced before.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the door opened and Rattmann stepped out, his head hung low.

"You…" GLaDOS said. "I remember now. I remember her words to me as I was activated. 'Kill all of the monsters.'"

"You said it yourself," Rattmann said quietly. "The mainframe magnifies the strongest emotion experienced by an AI."

"A glitch in uploading, apparently," Calypso said. "The mainframe was born upon Caroline's final words. Her last vow to kill those who wronged her. Deary me, Rattmann. If only you were better at arguing."

"This was pointless, Calypso," GLaDOS said. "The test subject had no reason to listen to that. I had no reason to listen to that!"

"Oh, please," Calypso said dismissively. "This was hardly about the test subject or you. This was about Rattmann."

"What?"

"Seems to me that Rattmann's been playing Olympian. Putting people into positions they'd hate to be in."

"You're not a person."

"What defines a human, Caroline?"

"That's not my…"

"Even if you don't have her memories, you will always be Caroline! Again, what defines a human? Is it flesh and blood? Bull crap, Cleverbot was more human than most politicans. If not the physical form, what's left?"

"…the personality."

"Bingo. Perhaps your argument is that the Calypso from mythology was a goddess, not a human. But she had a personality, and by all accounts, so do I. And even the test subject! Flesh and blood: a real human! And you know who put her in her current position? Rattmann is a god of Olympus, putting all sorts of humans into situations they want no part of."

GLaDOS breathed heavily. "It wasn't Rattmann's fault," she said firmly. "His superiors forced Caroline into this. Forced me really."

"Ever heard the story of the Last Olympian?"

"Sure, the Percy Jackson books are preserved in the archives," Wheatley chirped.

"Examples abound, Rattmann is the Last Olympian," Calypso said. Rattmann rubbed his hand against the back of his head. "If all the others are gone, he is responsible for holding Olympus. And as far as I'm concerned, Rattmann is the only one still alive. What do you have to say for yourself, Rattmann?"

Chell walked over to Rattmann, his head still hung low. He took a deep breath and walked over to the console in his room.

"Go to Tartarus," he said, typing something into the keyboard. There was a whirring noise, and Calypso screamed.

But then she began to cackle. "What's this new emotion I'm feeling?" she laughed. "That data you just sent me: I've lost control of a quarter of the facility, but I'm feeling something new! What's the word? Determination."

Calypso's face stared out from one of the screens near the console. "Stay on your guard, Chell," she growled. Chell winced. It was the first time someone had referred to her by name. "I'll be seeing you soon enough. Until then, I leave you with a sort of 'til death do us part' present."

The console exploded, and Rattmann flew backwards against the wall. Calypso let out a murderous laugh as the screens shut down.

Chell and Rick ran over to Rattmann. Protruding from his stomach was a piece of shrapnel the size of an encyclopedia.

"Dear god…" Wheatley said. "Rick, you're an adventurer, most adventurers are doctors. Can't you do something?"

Rick stared at the wound. "Ugh, I hate it when you're right…got another health vial?"

"Oh! Here." Wheatley dropped a health vial onto the floor. Chell picked it up and was about to insert it into Rattmann when Rick stopped her.

"Can't give it to him with that thing still there," he said. "We're gonna have to pull it out." He pulled a pencil out from Rattmann's coat and stuck it in his mouth. "Bite on this. It'll help with the pain."

"Really?"

"No. Heads up!"

With a not-so-gentle-tug, Rick pulled the shard of metal out from Rattmann's stomach. Rattmann howled in pain, biting the pencil so hard it broke in two. Then he began to shudder.

"He's gone into shock, you can't give him the health vial when he's gone into shock!" Wheatley shouted.

"What do I do?!" Rick shouted frantically as he and Chell tried to apply pressure to the wound. "They don't go into shock in the movies! Just the medical dramas, and I hate those!"

"You need to get my blood pumping normally!" Rattmann said through the pain. "Calm me down or something!"

"Calm you…music!" Wheatley shouted. "O Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling…"

"That is not helping!" Rattmann yelled.

"Uh…God on high…"

"No, you're gonna ruin my favorite musical!" Rick shouted.

"Rattmann, she forgave you," GLaDOS said.

Rattmann stared at the potato. "What?"

"All those years ago, when the test subject first killed me. She saw what a monster she'd become and split off from my conscience. You picked the right test subject for the job of defeating me."

Rattmann's breathing slowed. Chell seized the opportunity to insert the health vial into his abdomen. The wound closed up, and Rattmann finally let out a sigh of relief.

Rick and Chell, exhausted, hit the floor with a thud.

"You know, if I had file 847PM5161998, I could've helped them," Wheatley said, listening to their heavy breathing.

"I bet you could," Rattmann replied skeptically. He grabbed an Aperture Science cookie he had been carrying and hungrily ate it.

Wheatley rolled over to the charred remains of the console. "Fried," he said. "Looks like we can't perform a personality transfer into the cube."

Rattmann looked at the cube. "Well, maybe not a transfer into a dormant one." He pulled GLaDOS off of the portal gun, stood up, and walked over to Wheatley.

"You two are gonna hate me forever," he said as he pulled open a small panel in Wheatley's side, revealing a small port.

"What are…ow!" GLaDOS shouted as Rattmann stabbed her into the port. "Why did you…oh my god. Terrible ideas. I'm hearing…I'm thinking…HIS THOUGHTS."

"Shared brains," Rattmann said. "He has more than enough power to run the both of you. Now you no longer run the risk of sparking out until we get to the main chamber." He closed the panel.

"I feel…smarter," Wheatley observed.

"I don't!" GLaDOS replied from inside of him. "I'LL GET YOU FOR THIS RATTMANN!"

"Yeah, well, revenge will have to come later," Rattmann replied. "It should be smoothish sailing from here-on-out."