I return again! Given the benefit of a few day's break from work, I have had the chance to complete this next chapter and begin Part 2 of this story! I hope I haven't taken TOO much time to bring this your way...

DISCLAIMER! I do not own Portal, Portal 2, Half Life, Half Life 2 and any characters/testing materials made by Valve and shown in these games. I DO own my OC's and original designs (e.g. Function Disks), though.

Onward to the Chapter!

The whine of a radio frequency being activated echoed across the walls of the corridor, leading the woman inside to run all the faster as she felt her heartbeat quicken from fear.

"You're not a good person—you know that, right?" The metallic female voice that echoed in the woman's ears had a mix of sarcasm and scolding beyond the mechanical tone, almost as if she were that…THING'S child being told off after doing something bad.

"Good people," the voice continued, "don't end up here." Then, after a pause, "Can you hear me?"

The woman didn't dare respond, not that she COULD in an understandable way. Jumping over a small gap in the catwalk she was on, she held onto her Portal Device all the more, her knuckles almost turning white and her trigger finger on the ready. She had come too far to just give in to what she heard—hell, she had traversed over pools of acid, dodged spheres of volatile energy, knocked down turrets trying to kill her and flew through the air using portals at a speed she never thought she could survive at. She couldn't back down now! Filled with new resolve, she continued her running down the catwalk with a spring in her step

Whipping around a corner, she stumbled in surprise at the edge of a massive chasm she hadn't anticipated being here, the grabbing of a conveniently placed railing with her left hand being the only thing that saved her from falling down an unknown distance. The Portal Device clunked around in her right hand, almost falling from her grip before she could fully regain it. She couldn't see the bottom of the chasm, the dim blue mist blocking her vision from seeing too far down. The hum of the machines was more dominant here than in the passageways she had just been crossed through. However, there was no possible way to get across that she could see—not even a sign drawn on the wall or beside a small vent she could possibly crawl through. Her shoulders sagged heavily as she turned around to try and find another passageway…

And felt a hand forcefully press against her chest, seemingly taking care not to touch her "assets" while doing so. The woman froze instantly—she had nowhere else to go; were she to back up, she would be left with jumping down the chasm, and whatever was in front of her was certainly not going to let her pass without some force.

"You aren't thinking about forgetting what we had together, are you? I had seriously thought you cared more about me, [SUBJECT NAME HERE]."

That voice…the woman drew in a breath as she saw the machine that had tested her to the breaking point in the name of science now stood as a female android right in front of her. A pair of purple eyes lit with knowledge was joined with a small, human-like smirk of amusement on a chromed silver face lined with white hair, lines on the gray/white vest and jumpsuit she wore glowing purple as well. Two small Personality Cores, one purple and the other bright pink flickered on either side of the android's head as it tilted its face slightly to the woman's left while raising its left eyebrow in a questioning expression. The woman didn't know how to respond to this action, her instincts telling her to RUN FOR THE LOVE OF GOD but her emotions saying DON'T QUIT NOW, YOU CAN STILL MAKE IT!

"You don't have to worry about me, you know," the machine before her then spoke, its voice suddenly changing from the harsh tone she had heard in the testing chambers to a more relaxed state, "After all, we still have a LOT of testing to do, and only 50 or so more years to do it."

Wait…where had she heard that phrase before…?

"Also, just to let you know, what I said when you left about you being replaced was more true than I had realized at first," At the woman's confused look, the android flashed a white-toothed smile of joy before resuming its previous expression and leaning in towards her ear as if it were going to tell its deepest secret.

"And now, Chell," the android then whispered with what sounded like seduction, of all things, "My…replacement…is coming for you, and he won't stop searching for you until we get to meet up again, just like old times."

A silent scream came from the woman's lips as the android pushed the both of them into the chasm…

Chell shot upright, her right hand clutching her chest to try and dull her heartbeat. Sweat flowed down her skin and stained her clothes as she breathed heavily to calm herself from the dream. The Portal Device lay next to her on her bed, its blue glow filling the dark room with artificial light. She patted the space underneath her bed and relaxed slightly as she felt the Weighted Companion Cube she had cherished whilst in Aperture exactly where she had left it.

'It's over,' she thought to herself for the umpteenth time since she had left Aperture Laboratories, 'GlaDOS can't test you anymore. She's long gone from your life; get used to it.'

So why COULDN'T she get used to a life without an omnipotent AI watching her every move through countless cameras mounted on stainless white paneled walls in a facility several miles under the Earth's surface? Why couldn't she get used to interacting with other humans after spending an indescribable time without them?

She had seen the humans of today where she lived, but they seemed to be living in constant fear or anger of something. Perhaps it had to do with those masked soldiers she had seen a few days before near her apartment—they stormed a nearby house and forced the humans living in there into a strange vehicle, similar to a jeep but more heavily armored then any vehicle she had ever seen in her life.

Stepping over to the only window in her small one-room apartment, Chell shifted the curtains aside and peeked out into the daylight. Several other apartment blocks surrounded her own, each one reaching about 3-5 stories in height. She didn't know how many people actually lived in them but she estimated to be quite a bit, considering how many of those soldiers patrolled this place. Several windows had their curtains closed completely; the only people looking outside were only doing so for brief moments before returning to the safety of their closed doors.

A flash of light directed her attention to a giant TV screen built on one side of an abandoned complex, the image of a old, white-bearded man showing on the display as the man's voice began speaking a speech Chell had already heard before.

"Welcome," it said as Chell closed her curtains and headed over to a small closet next to her bed, "Welcome to City 17…"

The full moon reflected heavily off the pale grassland below, creating a silver glow that was dazzling to the eye, whether those eyes were human or mechanical.

Carthage certainly thought it amazing.

The male android had been walking now for approximately 46 hours, the heat of the day or the cold of the night not causing major damage to his systems besides mild irritancies when he tried to rest. Not used to sleeping on hard ground, he had laid under a bare tree the previous night, his rucksack loosely on his back and his shotgun clutched to his chest for easy access in case of a threat. He had awoken several hours later with the sun overhead and his body starting to overheat from extended contact with natural sunlight. Interestingly, his body had not exhibited any form of sweat that the human body used to regulate temperature, the nano-system inside his body able to convert some of the solar energy he absorbed into electrical energy for his cybernetic parts.

Or, that's how he remembered it from GlaDOS's memories when she rebuilt him into what he was now—he could be wrong on what he was able to draw out of that scene because his human emotions considered seeing his own rebirth from a third-person view as strange. Then again, if GlaDOS allowed him full access to her memories, then she should have anticipated such a reaction from his half-human brain. Or perhaps this was something she HADN'T predicted, like the notion of a "human soul" existing inside a techno-organic body… Shaking his head in frustration at the countless thoughts the computer part of his brain tried to process, Carthage continued walking through the grass around him, his taloned feet being cushioned by the grass and leaving little of a footprint behind him.

A few hours later, Carthage's visual sensors were at 60% maximum efficiency. His oxygen intake was ragged at best, his hearing was slightly dulled, a dry taste filled his mouth and the edges of his vision were blurring. He also felt the human emotion of lethargy resonating through his organic muscles, but his artificial wiring was undamaged despite the long hours spent walking. Part of him wanted to just sit down and rest under the moonlight again, but another part of him wanted to keep walking for as long as possible so that his mission could be completed quicker.

'I really don't know how much time Chell has left,' Carthage thought to himself as he reached the top of a small hill, 'Maybe she's dead already…no, that can't be—GlaDOS would have noticed it by now and informed me, right?'

Carthage's thoughts suddenly stopped as he saw what was over the hill. A large, dry lakebed was before him, the moonlight being enough for Carthage's bionic eye to detect a rapid change in the water volume of this lake. Opening up the virtual satellite display on his Multi Purpose Glove, Carthage was surprised to see the display showed this exact lakebed to have water in it just a few days ago. How this was not true in real life and in so short a time span puzzled the android immensely.

Stepping down into the lakebed, Carthage quickly felt a change in the soil texture underneath his taloned feet—the dirt here was more wet and palpable underneath him, his feet sinking slightly into the lakebed the deeper he ventured. Reaching the bottom of the lakebed took exactly 1 minute and 34 seconds from the top, and Carthage's feet were completely covered in wet soil by the time he reached the bottom.

'I don't know too much about the acts of nature,' Carthage thought as he took a small handful of soil and ground it between the fingers on his left hand, 'But something on this scale doesn't look like it happens naturally, no matter how powerful solar energy may be. So, then, what or who wanted to remove so much water from this lake?'

A heavy wave of lethargy struck Carthage at that moment, his human muscles almost giving out and forcing him to stumble to regain his balance. Then, a surge of pain made him clutch his head as his mind was filled with something else…

His hands cradled the mud as if it were a human infant, sculpting the mass into a small ball able to fit in the palm of his hand. Satisfied with the result despite the rain falling around him, he carefully put it in a small pile next to him that already contained several spheres of mud. A childlike glint came into his eyes as he took the pile into his dirty hands, admiring his handiwork as if he were a professional artist creating a masterpiece.

Then he crushed the spheres together into an unrecognizable mass of dirt and water, the mud on his hands mixing with his former creation despite the efforts of the rain washing his hands of some dirt and grime as more of it leaked from the mass in his grip and between his fingers.

"Martin!" a voice suddenly shouted out, making him turn his head, light-blue eyes flashing with surprise and recognition, "What do you think you're doing out here?"

His smile then was almost too big for his face to handle as he raised his hands above his head, ignoring the SPLOSH of mud getting on his face and clothes.

"I'm making mud pies, Mom!" he then said with the joy of the child that he was, "Come and see!"

Carthage's human eye snapped open before his optic reactivated, his body jerking upwards from where he had lain on the lakebed floor. A rumble of thunder filled his audio receptors, causing him to stumble backwards and fall on his rear end against the mud. He stared up at the now dark sky, the moon completely obstructed by large clouds. Sparks of electricity—lightning, he knew before he remembered how he knew—flashed in the clouds with energy readings hotter than any Hard Light Bridge he had ever tested in Aperture, the android's optic allowing him to see the individual sparks and their reverberations through the water vapor around them. Seconds later, waves of sound burst from the clouds and carried across the air, each wave rumbling like the roar of a predator striking down its prey. Carthage didn't move a muscle, staring in awe at this animalistic display of the natural world; it seemed to be created for only his eyes. To tell the truth, he was frightened of this power. How could the human race have survived on the surface knowing nature could do this to them? The largest dwellings he had seen in his human life were simple houses made of wood and some metals, but those had risks of being struck down by the lightning.

And then the rain started coming down.

Carthage was at first confused by the feeling of liquid water running down his techno-organic body before he started screaming at the top of his lungs and trying to brush the substance off of him as fast as possible. The last liquid he had ever seen was the acidic substance in the testing chambers, and he knew from GlaDOS's memories that acidic substances were NOT good for human or metallic objects. The boy's mind started going crazy, projecting the image of his body melting away before his eyes with nothing able to stop it. It soon became clear, though, that the rain was doing nothing to his skin despite his fears of what it COULD do.

Filled with some embarrassment about what he had just done, he looked at his human hand as if he were discovering it for the first time. The mud remaining on it was exactly like the mud he had seen in that vision. But he hadn't had visions like these since he was 'reborn' at Aperture. For a second, Carthage suddenly saw two human hands on his body instead of one human and one mechanical, the unknown limbs looking like the limbs of a human child. Then his hands returned to normal as if nothing had happened.

'What the HELL was that?' was the only thought Carthage could come up with. The rain continued to come down in torrents, making the already wet soil in the lakebed. Not wanting to rest in a pile of wet dirt and possibly get circuit damage from extended water contact, Carthage slowly ambled his way up the other side of the lakebed, the upward passage taking approximately 4 minutes and 12 seconds due to the rain making the edges quite slippery to walk on.

GlaDOS slipped from one data file to another deep inside the digital network, her body just another mass of digital numbers amongst all the OTHER masses of digital numbers. Floating through a small access tunnel into a large file section on Aperture's employees, GlaDOS then opened a small door with the label "LA-LZ" and stepped inside.

Ever since Carthage had mentioned the work of Joshua Lee to her, the ruler of Aperture had wondered who ELSE among the human scientists could have been keeping things from her all-seeing eyes before she killed them all with neurotoxin. She had already examined all the former employees of Aperture with last names up to "JZ", but so far she hadn't found anything of major interest. The only real thing that caught her eye was a theory on rocket science that could allow a small projectile to be fired faster than the air or land speed record, but that theory was several years out of date. She hoped now that this "Joshua Lee" had some other interesting ideas besides the two-way transmission devices he had figured out with the Weighted Storage Cubes—the idea SHE was able to use when she saved the Weighted Companion Cube from the Emergency Intelligence Incinerator so long ago.

The names of the employees ran by GlaDOS's vision faster than a human eye could possibly process in a single second, but GlaDOS was able to read them as if they were being scrolled on one of the oldest human computers ever invented. Even with researching the personalities of the human test subjects she had used Orange and Blue to discover before she had created OlaTOS, she found most of the scientists to be just that—scientists with no outside personalities other than their workload and the goals they were trying to accomplish under the "watchful" eye of Cave Johnson and…the woman she knew she once was.

Stopping suddenly, GlaDOS realized she had almost passed by the name of "Lee, Joshua" without noticing it. Cursing herself inwardly at how easily she was becoming distracted these days, the female android tapped the name on the display in front of her, opening a larger file to her optics which showed a facial shot of the man, DNA sample, blood type, work ethic, personality and testing abilities. The "testing abilities" part would make GlaDOS raise an eyebrow if she had any—she didn't know too much about the reasons why Cave Johnson made mandatory employee testing in the 1980's. What she DID know was that many scientists at the time hated it to a fault. Joshua Lee's file, however, said he worked in the 1950's-60's and his employment was ended by "undermined termination". GlaDOS would have scratched her head at reading this if she weren't currently a digital avatar inside Aperture's network.

'Undermined termination…could this mean there was someone in my facility who didn't want this information to be released to the general public?'

Feeling a new urge to check the rest of the employees for the human emotions of "treachery" and "lying", GlaDOS closed Mr. Lee's data file with a second tap and waved her other hand upward to scroll back up to the top of the list. She now began searching the files with renewed vigor, hoping to discover more of what her creators had kept from her before they perished by her hand.

Chell placed the Portal Device under her bed with the greatest care, not wanting to damage the device in any way despite all the trials it had gone through. As she placed it next to the Weighted Companion Cube, her eyes glazed over as the nightmare she had earlier flashed back into her mind unbidden.

"You don't have to worry about me, you know…my "replacement" is coming to find you…we can be together again, just like old times."

Chell couldn't understand this at all—why would a massive AI with power beyond human comprehension and in control of the largest facilities on the planet want to have an old and human testing subject she knew all too well would eventually try to escape again despite any intentions either of them had of the other. Then again, perhaps GlaDOS had developed a human sense of emotions—she had discovered those feelings when the two of them encountered Old Aperture during the time Wheatley had gained power over the facility's upper levels. Perhaps she had grown on them over the past decade?

'This is GLADOS you are talking about, silly,' Chell thought to herself with a roll of her dark eyes as she stood back up and donned a light blue long-sleeved shirt she had received when she first entered City 17, 'she doesn't think like that. Even when she let you go from Aperture, she still had a tone of sarcasm when she told you never to come back. How could SHE develop human-based emotions?' Chell put on pants with the same color as her shirt, patting the strange logo on her shirt once for good measure. The symbol was quite strange, looking like a ball and two horizontally extended triangles placed on either side of it. The ball itself was positioned to the left of an outer circle that held all three shapes inside of it, the end result looking like a winged ball or a comet frozen in time and turned into a symbol for the "Civil Protection Service" that Chell and the other humans in this city were watched by constantly.

Looking between her room's curtains again, Chell quickly closed them again as a spherical robot flew by her window. She had seen them before—they floated by these houses a lot of the time and seemed to take pictures of the humans inside. Chell had heard from the panicked whispers of other residents that they were also used to help the "Civil Protection" officers find and capture outlaws and criminals. She had never seen them in action, but she did not doubt what so many people were saying.

One other thing confused her though—there had been panicked whispers from women she had seen walking the streets about the loss of their children ever since these "officers" came into service. Something about loosing specific enzymes or proteins required for fetuses to form, she didn't really understand that part of human biology from what she remembered before Aperture. What she DID understand was that, somehow, the human race was unable to breed into the next generation.

'Man,' Chell thought to herself as she stepped out her apartment's door to head to her workspace for the day, 'What's this world coming to…?'

And I feel that is enough for this session. As always, comments, reviews and suggestions are welcome. Negative comments, however, are not recommended (after all, would you REALLY want to anger a dragon?).

Please keep your views coming as well-your continued readings of my stories are still confidence boosters to my writing. I hope I can keep my story as pleasing as it now in the future.

Draconos is taking off!