Chapter 10
"GLaDOS, I need you to open this door for me," Oswald said to the closed, circular door.
There was no reply.
"GLaDOS," he repeated, "open the door leading to the surface access stairwell."
Silence greeted the two once again. "Oswald, GLaDOS might be shut down," stated Sarah.
"Impossible," he argued. "You just can't shut down a supercomputer of that size easily. There's still power in the facility, so I wonder what's up."
Oswald rubbed his eyes, pondering another escape route. "Wait!" Sarah exclaimed, pressing her ear to the door.
"What?" Mr. Colek had no idea where she was going.
"Quiet, just listen," she whispered, motioning him over to the door also. Sure enough, the two heard a soft squeaking of metal, followed by two clicks.
This isn't the door; they're silent until opening, Oswald thought.
The whirr of a motor and another click came after. The two were so silent they could hear each others' heartbeat. "You think—"
Sarah's quiet voice was cut off as the door opened suddenly. Between the two, a thin red laser was spotted by Oswald's keen eyes. He quickly followed it to the source; a three legged egg shaped sentry positioned a few meters from the door. Almost in slow motion, he threw his entire body at Sarah, forcing her out of the doorway.
-I see you-
The sides of the turret came away from the base, revealing a pair of guns, following the laser beam. They tracked the two and fired upon them. Oswald pushed Sarah into a small space away from the doorway, and squeezed in for the same protection.
"Whoa, what is that?" Sarah screamed.
"It's a, ah, turret. It's a bloody sentry gun!"
Oswald clutched his right leg in pain, and blood oozed from the thigh.
-Gotcha- The turret squeaked in a childlike voice.
"You're hit!" Sarah worriedly inspected the wound on his leg. The projectile had pierced his upper thigh muscle, and traveled clean out the other side.
"I'm fine," he grunted.
"What are these turrets doing here anyway?" She eyed the red beam, scanning the doorway for the two. It seemed to give up and snap forward again.
"They're GLaDOS's defense mechanism," Oswald strained. "We use them in case of intruders, in combat simulations, and even in some test chambers."
"Someone could get killed by one of those things," Sarah brushed hair away from her sweating face.
"I'm just here to warn new workers about those things. I didn't put them here, and I don't have the power to take them out." Oswald winced and he tried to move his wounded appendage.
Sarah tried to comfort him. "Okay, we need to find another way around. We can just inch against the wall until—"
"No," he shook his head. "This is the only way to the surface; we have to go through this door."
"But the—"
"I have a plan," he interrupted. "I am going to move to the other side of the door, and you will run to the turret. As soon as you get there, just push it over and then worry about me."
Sarah looked at him blankly. "You'll be fine," he persuaded. "I'm the wounded target; it'll track me, not you."
She chose not to argue, and started to stand. Oswald put a hand out to stop her. "If anything happens to me, you have to get out of this facility as fast as you can."
She nodded and moved into position inches from the door. Mr. Colek grunted, but eventually managed to get into a standing position. "Ready?"
Sarah bit her lip, ready as she would ever be. "GO!" Oswald yelled, stumbling into the hallway.
-Friend- The turret beeped, readying its guns. Sarah ran as fast as she could through the door and at the turret. Like he had said, the turret had its beam fixed on the limping employee; not her. She reached the turret, and shoved at its side with all her might. It was fairly heavy, but tippy.
-Whoa, HELP- It said, as it fell on its side. The next thing Sarah didn't see coming. Its guns spun around, firing in all directions. She kicked it to the wall, as it peppered the concrete surface with bullets. Her mouth hung open as she realized how close it had come to killing her friend.
"Sarah," Oswald softly moaned, lying on the cold, hard floor. Thankfully, he had not been hit again, but his leg still had a hole through it. She ran over to him, and helped him to get on his feet. With their arms locked behind their shoulders, they began moving once again.
"You said that they had turrets in some of the chambers, didn't you?" Sarah asked.
"Yeah, so?"
"Well," she replied, "how do they take them down? You know, how do the test subjects get around them?"
"Oh, it's easy," Oswald slowly explained. "They usually make a portal right under their feet, and the poor turret gets thrown halfway across the chamber," he smiled. "The subjects really dent things up, but I guess I don't blame them."
"It would be easier if we had a portal gun," Sarah said as they approached the stairwell. She used her free hand to open the standard metal door, and started towards the upward flight, winding upward with no end in sight. Such a sight made Sarah doubt her ability to support Oswald the entire way up. However, Oswald abruptly stopped.
"That's a good idea! The portal guns are located on a lower level, come on!" He pulled her away from the flight going up, and started downwards deeper into the facility.
"Ugh, more stairs?" Sarah joked, lightening the mood.
*****
GLaDOS watched in horror from a security camera as the two nearly avoided death.
I didn't deploy that turret, she thought.
The supercomputer opened the log of all the recently deployed turrets. Sure enough, that one had her signature on it. Confused, she tried to connect to her cores, wondering if they were the problem.
They didn't respond, as if they had all been shut down.
GLaDOS attempted to speak to the two employees, but her communication systems had been shut down also. She was a mind, trapped in the shell of a supercomputer.
But then how did the turret deploy if I was disabled?
She tried to connect to an outside source, looking for a hacker of some sort. She instantly found another mind, another computer, fiddling with her inner workings. She attempted to shut it down, but couldn't even breach the first firewall. It sensed that, and proceeded to take control of Aperture Science's supercomputer, without breaching a single firewall or security system. It was as if the hacker was stealing from a safe in Flatland. GLaDOS quickly lost control with all of remaining her systems, ending with her computerized mind itself. In an instant, her entire system went blank.
*****
"Here we go," Sarah carefully set her guide on a chair, trying not to injure him further. Oswald shifted, examining his leg. She looked around, not wanting to think about how far they had gone underground to reach this place. There were numerous computers at desks dotted around the room, and crates packed into storage rooms full of parts and devices for the facility.
Oswald moved the swivel chair over to a desk with a computer, and began logging in. "Is this where the portal guns are located?" Miss Palmer asked.
"And everything else," Mr. Colek replied, not taking his attention off the orange screen. "I only hope there will be one here. We only assemble a portal gun just before it is used, then destroy it afterwards."
"Well, is there one here?" She asked.
"That's what I'm trying to find out," he said, hunched over the keyboard. "And while I'm at it, I'm going to do a maintenance check on GLaDOS. She's been acting awfully strange lately."
"Like deploying a turret behind a door isn't strange?" Sarah opened an ajar door, examining the storage crates behind it.
"Okay, here we go," Oswald gleefully shouted. Sarah walked over to him, and looked at his computer screen.
"Well, GLaDOS was telling the truth about the cores, but I didn't expect all five to be shut down," he worriedly added.
"What about the portal gun that could help us get out of here?"
"I'm looking," he replied, still bothered by his leg. As all the contents of the boxes in the storage room they were currently in flew across the screen, he visually scanned for the portal gun. As he had expected, he saw nothing pertaining to it.
Sarah turned her attention away, and towards the center of the room. Atop a metal podium rested a strange looking device, encased in glass. The soft orange lights reflected off it, drawing her to it. "Hey Oswald?"
"Sorry Sarah, I didn't find it. Looks like we're—"
"What is this?" She pointed to the glistening object.
"Oh that," Oswald briskly wheeled over to the podium, using his good leg. "That's the prototype portal gun; the first one we made."
Sarah chuckled, "Well, can't we use it? I haven't seen anyone around that would complain about it."
"That's the thing, Sarah. Look around! There are supposed to be PEOPLE in this facility," Oswald exclaimed, "and we haven't seen a soul lately! What's going on?"
"I don't know," she massaged her scalp. "But if this thing is to be of any use to us, we had better use it."
Mr. Colek sadly shook his head. "The prototype can't make portals; never could. We keep it for sentimental purposes; a reminder of the old days."
She frowned, and turned away. "So we came down here for nothing?"
"No," he supported, "I initiated a full system scan of GLaDOS. We can get to the bottom of this right now."
Then, something clicked in Sarah's mind. "Wait a minute; you said that there were portal guns down here?"
Oswald innocently shrugged in an attempt to avoid any conflict.
"You knew there wasn't anything of use down here, all you want to do is preserve your precious super computer!"
Mr. Colek started to stand in defense, but had to sit back down in pain. "Come on! Are you still complaining about stairs? I'm the one with a hole in my leg!"
"Listen," Sarah snarled, "I don't care about stairs, and I don't care about GLaDOS. I want to get out of here, now. Who cares what's wrong with a hunk of computer parts that talks?"
"You take that back!" He shouted, surprised at his own connection to a computer that was only 'arguably' alive.
"It tried to kill us, so what? We were almost out of here when you had to drag me down here to check up on it," she made fits with her hands.
Oswald, equally angry at her stupidity yelled, "For one, GLaDOS is not an 'it', but a 'she'. Second of all, 'she' is the problem here, and if we don't figure out what that problem is, we all will regret it."
She threw her hands above her head. "WHY WE? Why do we have to be the heroes, why do we have to save the day? Why is it our responsibility to try and fix something we didn't break?"
"Because, if we don't fix her, nobody will, and there is a good reason we need to fix her!"
"Why?" She asked, trying to relax.
"BECAUSE," Oswald hastily wheeled over to his computer, and brought up GLaDOS's core status screen, "because if we don't find out what's wrong with her, we all die. You know where this facility is located; right by a major city populace, filled with lots of men and women, and children. And you know what this is?" He pointed to the screen, and glared at Sarah. She rolled her eyes, and looked at the figure.
"This is GLaDOS's sixth core. You're not supposed to know what it is, so I was never planning on telling you."
As realization struck her, Sarah put her hand over her mouth in shock and horror, and schematics of the core appeared on the screen.
"That's right, Miss Palmer," Oswald leaned back in his chair, satisfied with her reaction. "It's a nuclear warhead; big enough to take out this entire facility, and anyone nearby watching."
Her eyes widened, as she agreed with his reasoning. If they didn't figure out what was wrong with GLaDOS quick, they would all soon be in a big crater. "It can't be," she whispered.
"It is," Oswald rubbed her back, trying to soothe her. "But we can stop it. I need you to work with me, and to trust me."
She slowly nodded, and stepped back. "What do I need to do?"
"Go over to the prototype, and on the side of the podium, you'll find a console. The password is—"
"I thought you said it didn't work?" She questioned.
Oswald explained, "I never said it doesn't work, I just said it doesn't make portals. It can still make a hole in the wall, though."
Sarah raised an eyebrow. "It can make a hole in the wall?"
"The literal kind," he smiled. "Now, the password is SKCUSASEMKCALB."
She moved over to the podium, and sure enough, a small console was located on the side. She started to punch in the first few letters, but stopped. "What was it again?"
Oswald slowly told her the letters as she entered them. Upon completing the sequence, she asked, "How do you remember that so easily?"
"You'll figure it out," he said, smiling.
Sarah looked at the string of letters, confused. Then she smiled and let out a chuckle. "Wow," she mumbled, entering the combination. She pressed the enter key, and waited for something to happen.
The glass case surrounding the device rose on thin metal poles, revealing it. The prototype looked nothing like the portal gun she saw; this one had a trigger and handle like it was a weapon, not a tool. "Go ahead," Oswald said from across the room. Sarah picked up the sleek device and inspected it.
Oswald winced, and shakily stood from his chair. "We aren't going to go back up the stairs. We're going straight to GLaDOS's control chamber, and then we're going to pull the plug."
He counted concrete tiles on the wall, and then pointed to one. "There, shoot that one. It'll lead to the adjacent hallway and one step closer to control."
Sarah aimed the gun at the wall, and slowly pulled the trigger. A small, blue and orange orb flew out of the nozzle, sending a small shock of recoil up her arm. The bolt of portal energy impacted the wall. An oval shape was formed, signifying the basis of a portal, but then started to glow unnaturally bright. The pre-portal exploded in a cloud of dust, leaving a perfect hole in the wall – and no debris.
"How did it do that?" Sarah looked at the device in wonder, imagining its capabilities.
"That's what we said when we first tried it out," Oswald looked at the impressive hole left in the wall, and then back at the expression on her face. "The device has way too much power. Instead of creating an interdimensional portal, it tears apart whatever it touches."
"Wow," Sarah commented as she cautiously followed him through the hole.
"We figured that we had better not just hand it out to the military, however," he commented. "I couldn't image what it would do to a human being."
"But we won't be using it on anything living, right?"
"Just be careful with that thing." Oswald limped through the opening, and she followed him.
-There you are- A squeaky voice sounded through the poorly lit hallway.
Sarah turned her attention to another turret, strategically positioned at the end of the corridor they were in. This hallway was nothing like the ones on the upper floors. It was all metal and poorly lit, with pipes and hissing machines behind grills of metal. She aimed the device at the turret, and fired. Another portal bolt struck the turret, and disintegrated it in a flash of light. Just before disappearing completely, the turret made in incomprehensible sputtering noise. "Way cool!"
Oswald smiled, knowing she liked the device she now wielded. "Come on now, this way."
*****
The hacker looked through GLaDOS's security cameras, observing the two employees' progress. He knew they would make perfect subjects for testing, showing the best attributes of both sexes. But before they could come with him, they would have to pass one more test. The male was wounded, but the female could go through the enrichment center's test chambers. Everything was falling in to place so perfectly, he wondered if anyone was actually trying to stop him and his brothers.
*****
A large, alien craft swooped down from the sky into the battle zone surrounding Black Mesa. Friendly ships easily avoided the mammoth ship, while helicopters and other human vehicles were smashed to bits. It hovered a good thirty feet from the ground, and then dropped something very large. This object flipped through the air, and smashed into an unfortunate squad below. Slowly, the object stood, revealing itself to be another alien creature. However, this one was bigger. It stood a good fifteen feet from the ground, with two massive cannons mounted on either arm.
The creature snarled and hissed and the air, ignoring the gunfire it was receiving. With its hard, orange eyes, it spotted a tank rolling across the lot. It aimed its weapon at it, and fired a large metallic slug. The projectile impacted the tank, and tore straight through it. The remaining molten heap ignited, and exploded, sending fragments in all directions. Satisfied with the destruction, the creature cried out with a series of clicks and screams.
"FIRE!"
Coming up from behind, another tank aimed its large cannon at the back of the impressive creature. It blasted a heavy explosive at it, knocking the creature off its feet. It snarled in anger, getting back up.
The driver put the tank in full reverse, but it was too late. The creature ran over to it, being careful to stomp on as many humans as it could. The alien kicked the tank with its large foot, sending it flying into the sky, despite its size versus the alien's. The fifteen foot monstrosity then fired another slug at the tank, hitting it perfectly. The tank melted under the intense heat, and rained down onto the desert.
High above the scene, a fighter pilot circled his jet around the alien monster. Seeing the powerful weapons on its arms, he decided to take them out first. He primed his missiles to lock onto one of the cannons, swooped down, and fired a particularly powerful explosive warhead.
The missile launched from the jet's underbelly, and struck the alien weapon with an impressive blast. This set off a chain reaction inside the complex, fragile device causing it to rupture and break apart. Bits and pieces fell to the ground, smoking and leaking foreign juices. "One of the entity's weapons is down. Repeat, I took down one of—"
He stopped, looking in shock and horror at the beast, now lurching up into the air for his puny fighter. "Oh, no," he whispered, unable to move or control his fighter.
The alien protruded a sharp, grey, bone like appendage out of its now exposed right arm, and split it into 'fingers'. It grabbed the body of the fighter, and brought it down, along with itself, at least forty feet back to the ground. It landed its large toe nail and foot forcefully on the unfortunate vehicle and pilot, cracking right through the glass shield, crushing the human being. It didn't take long for the fuel tanks to combust, submerging the creature into a fireball that nothing should be able to survive. After a moment or two, it slowly walked out of the fireball, cackling a battle cry into the sky. Even through the explosion of the now totaled aircraft, it took no apparent damage itself, and could still easily reign supreme above the pathetic human machines, despite missing one of its arm cannons. The only difference was, now the creature was angry and growing impatient.
*****
Sarah blasted through a thin metal door, allowing herself and her wounded companion access to GLaDOS's section of the complex. The two stepped through, awed by the computers and terminals lining the wall. Strangely enough, nobody was at them.
"Wait a minute, this isn't the supercomputer," Sarah placed the prototype portal gun on a table.
"I know," Oswald replied, taking a seat at a terminal. "This is where we monitor her. She is in a very large chamber down the hallway."
Nodding her head, Sarah slowly moved about the room as he started to work on the computer. Noticing a blank section of wall between two white protruding parts, she asked what it was.
"That's a portal generator," Oswald answered. "We have them installed at the edges of the facility for better transport, and even in the test chambers for emergency entrance or exit, or even a component of the test itself."
"Hmm," she admired the glowing blue stripe running down the center of the left generator. It pulsed slightly, as if overflowing with energy, waiting to create a portal. "Well if GLaDOS isn't here," she said, almost mesmerized by the blue light, "then shouldn't we be heading that way?"
"Too dangerous." Oswald, like Sarah, didn't take his attention away. "We don't know if her defenses are still operational, her turret deployment system sure is, and besides; everything we need is right here."
He looked through the information on the screen a little more. "That's interesting. It turns out," he reported, "that GLaDOS isn't awake. That is, she's completely shut down."
"Good." Sarah Palmer turned her attention away from the wall device, and walked over to Oswald. "That's one less crazy artificial intelligence we have to worry about."
He shook his head. "We still need to disarm the nuke. I'm rebooting her." He began opening the appropriate control screens and entered a password.
"We have no idea what—"
"She's going to be turned on again and that's final," he strictly said. "GLaDOS is a computer, and computers aren't evil. She's only sick; in a state of disrepair, and it is our obligation to fix her."
Oswald finally got to the reboot screen, hovered the mouse pointer above 'CONFIRM', when suddenly, a voice nearly made him bolt out of his chair.
-WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?- an all too familiar computer voice boomed through the room.
"For crying out loud," Oswald grimaced, "you needn't shout so loud."
"GLaDOS?" Awestruck, Sarah looked at a now active security camera. It rotated, and looked back at her. "You're still offline. How is this possible?"
Oswald shushed her, and began the reboot system. "This isn't GLaDOS," he whispered.
-Of course it is, I am the Generic Life and Disc Operation System, proudly representing-
Mr. Colek cut her off. "We know you're shut down. Who is this?"
The computer stopped talking, and was followed by an amazingly clear, average male voice. "Alright, I am not GLaDOS, but she is under our control. I'll make this simple for you two…"
The man's voice faded into the distance as Oswald turned his attention back to the screen. A single line of text appeared, reading 'ACCESSING EMERGENCY MEMORY RESTORATION BANKS'. After a few moments, more text appeared. 'Mr. Colek, are you alright? Something shut me down and took control of all systems, and I am powerless against it.'
Oswald typed back in a response. 'GLaDOS, there is someone controlling you, he is speaking right now. Try to lie low, as you are running on emergency backup systems.'
'Understood,' she replied.
"… and if you do not agree to these conditions, I will dispatch you this instant and move on to new specimens. You have one minute to decide."
Turning around, Oswald looked at Sarah. "Sorry, what does he want?"
Normally, she would roll her eyes at this moment, but was petrified to the point where she couldn't even do that. "He wants me to go through the 'incredibly convenient', as he puts it, test chambers here."
"NO," he yelled, standing up. "I don't want to see you die an agonizing death in one of those nightmare labyrinths."
Trying to calm him down, she replied, "He promises we will leave the facility immediately after our testing is done ALIVE. If we don't, he'll probably activate the nuke."
He sat back down, and rubbed his scalp.
"Alright, time's up. What will it be?"
"Just who are you anyway?" Oswald angrily yelled up at the ceiling.
"I take that as a 'no'?"
"YES," Sarah corrected, "I'll do it. But first we need to know who you are and why you're doing this."
"You'll find out soon enough," the person said, keeping a steady tone. Oswald turned to his computer screen, looking to GLaDOS for help. 'There are screens in each of the test chamber observatory rooms. I can remain in contact with you, but otherwise, there is little I can do.'
Trying not to attract any attention, he furiously typed into the keyboard. 'Our ultimate goal is to disable the nuclear device planted in your core. If we don't, many people will die.'
'I will do what I can.'
Oswald quickly powered down his machine, and looked to Sarah. "You be careful in there." He slowly stood, and hobbled over to the weapon that had gotten them this far. "I'll take the prototype, but you'll be in control of a fully functional portal gun. Be careful with it, and don't look directly into the end."
She gulped and nodded. Then, the portal generators she had been observing started humming, and buzzed into life. A blue disc swirled into existence on the concrete surface, and snapped into the view of another room. In it, there was an operating chair of some sort, inviting her in. She slowly made her way to the portal, and then stepped into it. It tingled a little as she walked through, until she made it onto the other side. Looking behind her, she saw an orange portal, and through it, her friend. She smiled at waved, but before Oswald could respond, the orange portal squeezed shut.
The new employee, soon to be a test subject, cautiously walked over to, and sat in the leather chair. She felt a hard prick on her neck, before everything went black.
Mr. Colek only saw her begin to wave at him, before the portal shifted to the view of a small viewing room. He limped towards it, and entered the portal. Upon reaching his destination, the portal closed, and he found himself in the observatory for test chamber one. Through the glass, completely transparent only on one side, he saw a glass chamber, surrounded by different pieces if test chamber equipment. On a large overhead monitor, a line of text appeared. 'The first chamber only explains the purpose of the test, and the different obstacles the subject may face.'
Oswald curiously typed a response on a nearby keypad. 'I've always wondered; what is the purpose of these experiments?'
The supercomputer replied, 'Testing human behavior, seeing the different uses of the portal gun, a physical and cognitive ability test, and entertainment. Many of the test subjects are volunteers.'
Interesting, he thought. Very interesting.
*****
GLaDOS's new controller swept his gaze over the complex control panels that had taken over the supercomputer's mind. Everything was working out so perfectly for him, as if it had all been arranged just for this moment. The only thing that surprised him was how easily he bypassed the security systems of the supercomputer. Their system was designed to digitally block incoming signals attempting to manipulate the main fame. There was no system installed to keep him from physically changing the interrupts of the computer, flipping very large gates between only two options.
The controller was not stupid, however. He knew of the supercomputer's capabilities, if it was still active. That was why it was the first move he made. After doing a quick scan of the capabilities of the machine, he quickly discovered the overpowered nuclear device, ready to be detonated. Such a device would seriously harm the quality of the surrounding earth, but he was careful not to meddle with such unstable human technology. He left the nuke as is, armed and dangerous, with only the hope that the humans wouldn't do anything stupid with it.