Amelia awoke to Doug gently shaking her awake. "Amelia, wake up," he said. "Your phone's alarm went off."
"I didn't know I'd left it on," she mumbled sleepily.
"Well, even though it's so early in the morning," Doug said, "I thought this would be a good time to get up. The sooner we get going, the sooner we can find your friends."
Amelia grumbled and turned over in the sheets.
"I understand if you want to sleep in," Doug said. "You probably didn't get enough sleep anyway. And three in the morning is a terrible time to get up. You can sleep in while I try to gather supplies."
"No, it's fine." Amelia sat up and rubbed her eyes in the candlelight. "I just need some coffee."
"It's a good thing I have the water boiling then." Doug crawled over to his makeshift stove.
"I'll see what I can find in my backpack for breakfast," Amelia said, reaching for her bag.
"You have food?"
"I was given a food ration for the expedition in here." She hunted for her food ration and pulled out the first thing she could find. "Do you want some Survival Bacon?" She opened the can and the little room filled with the aroma of salty meat. She looked over at Doug who was staring at the can with hungry eyes. She held it out to him. "Here, you can have all of it."
"Are you sure?"
"You're practically drooling."
Doug hesitated before taking the can and stuffing as much bacon into his mouth as he could. He savored the pungent taste on his tongue as he struggled to chew with his mouth stuffed. Amelia had never seen anyone hungrier. He tried to say something but it only came out in mumbles. Amelia giggled a little. "What?" she asked.
"I said I'm sorry for acting like a pig," Doug said after he finally swallowed his mouthful.
"Don't worry about it," Amelia said. "You look really hungry. I can't wait to take you to the cafeteria back at the compound."
"I know already that I'm going to eat myself sick there." Doug turned back to the coffee and poured two cups. He handed one to Amelia. "Cheers."
"Cheers." Amelia raised her tin cup for a moment before taking a sip.
They sipped their coffee in silence for a few minutes, looking down and thinking about everything they would have to do that day. Doug went over all of the possible routes they could take to get to the lobby while Amelia thought about how he would be living in her guest bedroom. Would he care about her long showers? Would he remember to put the toilet seat back down after he goes pee?
"Amelia?" Doug suddenly said.
"Hm?"
Doug stared into his tin of coffee. "Um…I've never really been a social person," he started. "I always tried to keep to myself when I was working here. Am I going to be expected to talk to everyone?"
"Why?" Amelia asked. "You don't seem like you have a problem talking to me."
"Well, you helped me," Doug said. "You were able to pull my mind out of a dark place. But I don't want to be expected to warm up to everyone just because they're with you."
"I promise you won't have to talk to anyone if you don't want to," Amelia said. "I want you to be comfortable at the compound."
After they had gathered everything that they needed, they got back into the air ducts. Doug was using the sheet to drag his Companion Cube behind him and Amelia followed the Cube. She decided that his attachment to the Cube wasn't entirely strange after all. It brought him comfort like a child with a blanket; and Amelia had to admit that she still kept her blankie in the top drawer of her dresser.
As Doug heaved the Cube along, he tried to think of something to say. They had been silent for a long ten minutes and he really wanted to be able to talk to her, but he couldn't think of anything interesting to say. This is your savior, damn it! he thought. You should be able to find something to say to her. He finally decided to talk about something that had been bugging him. "You know, I actually made it to the surface a few years ago."
"You did?" Amelia asked.
"Yeah," he said. "It was raining that day, and the trees and grass had a clean smell."
"What stopped you from leaving?"
Doug thought back to the vivid hallucinations he'd had that day. His friend Henry crumbling in front of him, the trees beckoning him, the blood soaking him, GLaDOS catching him. The panic that had swelled inside him as he thought about leaving had practically choked him.
"Well, there were two reasons why I didn't," he said. "First, I had to fix a friend of mine. And I just chickened out. The thought of leaving the premises freaked me out. I didn't know what was out there. I….I don't think I belong in society anymore."
"None of us belong in society anymore," Amelia said. "That's why we've been living underground."
Doug turned around to smile at her briefly before turning back around.
"Who was the friend that you had to fix?" Amelia asked. She recalled Wheatley mentioning that Doug had repaired him after GLaDOS had tried to kill him.
"She was a personality construct, but she was so kind and sweet that it was really easy to forget that she was an AI. I wish I could find her."
"What happened to her?"
"I don't know. I haven't seen her in a couple of years. I've looked everywhere that I can but this place is too big. Your team hasn't even scratched the surface of the facility."
"I wish we had time to explore the facility more," Amelia said. "Maybe we could find your friend."
"Well, I could at least show you some of the testing tracks," Doug said. "As long as she isn't testing in them we should be safe."
He led her down a dead end and he managed to bust open the grate. He pulled himself out and lowered the Companion Cube to the floor before he gently helped Amelia down. They were in a small office with old computers and a window making up one of the walls. The window looked out into a large chamber with many brown tiles on the walls and floors, and there were dirty white panels lined up on the walls.
"This was used as a momentum test chamber," Doug explained. "The subjects would have to shoot portals and use their momentum from falling into one portal to fling themselves out of the other."
"And this is where the lab boys take notes on how the subject tested?" Amelia asked.
"Until they were all gassed."
"When was the last time this chamber was used?"
Doug was about to say, "Not for years," but he stopped himself as he noticed something. There were no plants growing out of the walls. In fact, there weren't even any panels or tiles missing from the chamber. It looked like it had been cleaned recently.
"Something's not right," Doug murmured.
"What?"
"She shouldn't be using this test chamber," Doug said. "Not for the cooperative testing. This is only used for humans…" He turned and opened the only door in the office. He heaved the Companion Cube up over his shoulder and carried it out into a corridor. Amelia followed him to a door a few yards to the right. Doug stopped and pressed his ear to the door.
"What is it?" Amelia asked, but Doug immediately held up a finger to her and brought it to his lips.
"It sounds like she has multiple people in a single-subject test," he said after half a minute.
"Could it be my teammates?"
"That's a possibility," Doug answered with uncertainty. "I'll peak around the door really quick to check it out." He opened the door and cautiously poked his head into the room to look around. There were three people in the chamber—two men and a young woman—and each had their own portal gun. Doug returned to face Amelia who looked more anxious than ever.
"Well?" she asked.
"She's testing three people in there," Doug said. "There are two men and a young woman."
"Is one of the men slightly bigger than the other?" Amelia asked.
"Uh, yeah, I think so."
Arin, Jon, and Natalie. "We have to help them. I'm pretty sure they're my teammates."
"Well, of course we'll help them," Doug said, smiling. "Be very quiet when we go in, okay? We don't want her to know we're around yet."
He opened the door and silently slipped into the observation station. Amelia tiptoed into the room and peered into the chamber. To her relief, Arin wasn't in the test chamber. Neither were Jon or Natalie. The larger man turned out to be their Southern medic Nate. Alex was the other man and the young woman was a meek girl named Carla. They were all wearing identical orange jumpsuits with the Aperture logo patched on their backs. The chamber they were in had large red buttons and a weird orb of energy bouncing off the walls.
"What should we do?" Amelia whispered.
"Wait!" Doug hissed.
"For this test, I've decided that the last one to get to the lift is the loser and must pay with his life," GLaDOS said. "Do try to understand that this is all in the name of science."
Carla's dark eyes widened at this announcement and she looked to Nate.
"Don't worry, darlin'," Nate said. "I'm not gonna let anything happen to ya."
Doug stayed close to the back wall as he snuck over to the computer. He set down the Cube and pushed the power button on the tower. It took a few minutes to boot up but he managed to get it online to the system. He opened a command console and started to type out a code. When he hit enter, the lights went out in the chamber.
"What's going on?!" GLaDOS shouted. "Is that you again, you little, metal idiot?! How did you get back in here?!"
Doug entered another command and turned to Amelia. "Quick!" he whispered. "Let's get down to the chamber. I've loosened a panel." He hoisted the Cube over his shoulder again and directed Amelia out of the room. There was a flight of stairs nearby in the corridor that they headed toward.