Remember before when Jack said that the group couldn't get any bigger?
Well, it did.
It got bigger. By thirty-thousand-plus people. Curiosity buzzed around and asked people questions. Craig stated incorrect facts and Knowledge corrected him. Spacey was annoying people, Chell and Caroline tended to wounds, Rick explained the plan, Anger growled, and Wheatley was generally irritating.
Somehow, Jack felt confident leading these people to take down Glados, even if they had been asleep for who knew how long. He knew each and every one of them wanted her dead, or at least no longer testing. They had been ripped away from their families, and most likely would never see them again. They all knew exactly who was to blame for that, and it wasn't scientific progress.
They decided to rest up before hunting for her chamber. Rick had lead off a group to take out her neurotoxin emitters and turret production line. Doug, Chell, and Wheatley each took turns on lookout duty (the last thing they wanted was to come this far and get taken out in their sleep).
Jack was half-asleep, when he heard a small metallic clang from around the corner. He immediately grabbed his modified portal gun (Doug had attached a turret's gun to each device, should the need for self-defence arise) and poked his head around.
A small girl, eight or nine, stood in the shadows. "Who's there?" he called. "Show yourself!"
She stepped out into the light of a dim, flickering, florescent bulb. She wore a white hoodie with a red dot in the center, white jeans, and a pair of knee-high boots. She removed her hood, revealing pale, almost white skin, covered in a spray of freckles. Her white hair fell to her jaw, and bangs hung in her face, almost covering her wide, red eyes. In her hand, she held what at first glance would appear to be a portal gun, but upon further inspection was an aperture science machine gun.
"I'm different," she muttered, looking at her feet, and jack shuddered. She had the same voice as a turret, and if she didn't look so frightened and harmless, she would have resembled one.
Stupidly he felt, Jack patted the spot next to him, and the child sat down. "Do you have a name?" she shook her head. "Do you want one?" she nodded. "Ok… what do you want to be called?"
"Prometheus was punished by the gods for giving the gift of knowledge to man. He was cast into the bowels of the earth and pecked by birds."
"Pardon?" the skeleton was thrown for a loop. "Do you want to be called Prometheus?" the girl nodded. "Well, that can't be a proper name for a little girl, can it? Wouldn't you prefer to be called something else?" she shrugged, so Jack started suggesting names that popped into his head.
"Melody?"
She nodded no.
"Joanna?"
Again, no.
Figuring she had seemed to like Greek myths, he tried some of those names. "Helen?" no. "Andromeda?" no. "Medea?" no. "Calypso? Penelope? Hera? Aphrodite?" no, no, no. Jack sighed, and clapped his hands to his head. He had to think outside the box… wait… box?
"How about Pandora?"
After thinking for several long minutes, the girl- Pandora- finally nodded.
"OK, Pandora." He would have asked where she came from, but assumed that he'd get another vague answer buried in a few sentences from another myth. Finally, he decided on asking yes or no questions only.
"Did you come from the surface?"
"Yes."
"Were you brought here with your consent?"
"No."
"Are you one of her turrets?"
She had to think about it. "no."
"What do you mean?"
She shrugged, and curled into Jack's lap. "I think I'm supposed to be. I was some new 'spearament. Daddy brought me here an' they gave me this," she nodded toward the gun. "but I didn't do what they wanted. I really tried. Guess I'm too different. I was gonna be in- incin- inciner-"
"incinerated?" asked Jack, hiding his shock and anger. He immediately remembered the experiment she meant. He had wanted to see if eight-year-olds would make good turrets. Add a sence of innocence to their impending death, you know? But Pandora had refused to kill anyone. So, she hadn't gone on to be downloaded into a turret, and Jack had ordered her incineration- no, Cave had. Cave wouldn't pity this little girl. Jack did.
Her eyelids fluttered shut. "nap time," she crooned.
For the oddest reason, he didn't push her away. Instead, he pulled her into his arms and her head burrowed into his neck. "goodnight, Pandora." He said, then dropped off himself.