Hey there guys, this is a long one! Sorry about that! XD
Anyway, just another warning, the same as the previous chapter's one: If you have not played Half-Life and its Episodes, some of this chapter might not make sense to you. The story shall return to Portal-only in the next chapter. Also, there's some more trouble planned for Caroline, which I'm quite excited about! :D
Anyway, at some point over the next few days I have a pre-written chapter 11 to post, and then after that you won't hear a peep from me until the 19th as that is the day of my last - EVER - High school exam. Then I'm freeeee! But I wrote this chapter in a moment of procrastination, so I should probably get back to studying.
~Lagiacrus
"Sir, this place gives me the creeps!" One of the soldiers nervously chirped. Frank whisked around and gave the man a rough bump on the head with the hilt of his gun.
"Stay quiet!" The front lobby was not pleasant by any means. With dirty metal shutters down over the entry doors and windows, the lights having broken long ago, what little light that trickled in from outside cast the wide, neglected hall in a baleful glow. Frank supposed that the rumbling they had felt earlier had only added to the daunting atmosphere that this place gave off, fraying the nerves of his men and, regrettably, himself. It had been a while since this place had last seen any form of civilized life, if the layers of dust lining the countertops and the rotting, sodden information leaflets scattering the floor were anything to go on.
"Hell, its cold in here." One of his men mumbled.
"Agreed." was another man's irritated response.
In the center of the room was a doughnut-shaped desk, lined with office chairs, computer monitors and telephones. Frank rushed ahead of his group and ducked behind it, gun poised. He worked his way around the circumference, before making a dash for the wide doorframe that led deeper into the facility. Keeping his gun peering into the hallway, he looked back to his men, all anxiously waiting.
"Area's clear!" He called quietly. Springing to life, his peers edged forward one by one, copying his movements until a majority of them were beside him, under the guise of the ancient doorframe – and a security camera, which observed them silently. The maniac AI on the other end of the camera would have grinned at that moment, if she had been able.
There was a click underneath them. Frank only had enough time to look down and see the floor disappearing underneath his feet, as he and many of his men descended into the same test chamber as Vic and Rosie.
The two girls in question hid behind a nearby raised platform, watching the chaos unfold amongst the intruders. Not all of them had fell into the pit and were standing, gawking at the trap door and shouting encouragement to their fallen comrades. Two of them were unfortunate enough to miss the floor completely and tumble right into the deadly pit of goo that created something of a moat between both sides of the chamber. The girls had propelled themselves over earlier and were on the same side as the exit door, which was good for easy escape, if necessary. The intruders, obviously, were stuck on the same side as the entry door, which would not be granting them freedom any time soon.
One of the intruders, with greying rose gold hair was exceptionally quick to his feet upon hearing the screams of his two companions, burning alive below in the toxic liquid. He reached for his gun, but was shocked to find the floor where it was placed rise up on a mighty robotic arm and then bend in the direction of the moat.
"Shit, no, NO-!" The gun fell into the pool below, as well as the guns of every other man who did not have an iron grip. Those who managed to hold on to their guns unlatched the safety and readied them for battle, but they saw with surprise and dawning confusion that there were no targets to speak of.
As his team recuperated, Frank looked up to his men who had not fallen, still in the main lobby above.
"You need to get out of here!" He called to them.
"Sir, we can't! The doors have all closed behind us! We're trapped in here!"
"In that case, wait for my orders!" He responded gravely, before turning back to those in the same dilemma as him and barking out commands to them as well. The trap door closed above him, sealing him off from the rest of his peers, but he did not notice.
They fell into an uneasy silence as a charming, feminine robotic voice flooded through invisible speakers in the room.
"Hello and welcome to the Aperture Science Computer Aided Enrichment Centre. Thank you for participating in today's testing."
Frank's heart slowly picked up speed as he listened to the voice and realized how much trouble they were in. At the mention of the word 'testing', memories from his childhood of his father telling him of the resonance cascade came flying back. One particular scene was of his father telling him where it happened – in a testing chamber in a scientific research facility, much like this one.
Black Mesa might have created the resonance cascade, but heaven only knows what this one would create.
"Keep your wits about you! Stay low!" He called to the others, who responded with hasty nods. However, fear of the unknown was so deeply rooted into his men already that only a few of them actually managed to perform the action.
Vic and Rosie looked to one another.
"What do we do now?" The younger of them asked. Despite being heavily involved with Aperture, neither of them had any experience in killing people and quite frankly, they didn't even know where to start.
"There's so many of them! We didn't expect that!" was Rosie's hastened reply.
"Uhh, should we hide?" Vic replied.
"We seem to be doing that pretty well already."
"Let's just stay put, then."
"Fine by me."
"What's taking those two so long? Why aren't the intruders dying?" GLaDOS growled, shifting uncomfortably in her chassis. Caroline gave her white surface an affectionate pat.
"Activate the turrets; that will get them moving." She suggested. GLaDOS gave a hesitant nod, before looking back to the screen. Chell shook her head and concentrated on Wheatley. She'd seen enough death in her life without seeing her daughter partake in it too.
"Sleep Mode: Deactivated." Both turrets sang, their red sniper beams hitting the wall, heralding the beginning of the rebels' impending doom. Every single man froze in place, their eyes finally landing on the spherical robots perched on three spidery legs. In turn, they locked on to two of them and their side panels popped open, revealing four guns each.
"I see you." They chirped in unison. Frank's eyes widened. He looked to the raised floor behind him, then to his men.
"Everybody get down!" He made a crazed dive for the shelter of the elevated floor, just as the turrets opened fire. He heard his men drop like flies, their cries of pain filling his mind and draining what was left of his sanity. Only four of his comrades had been quick enough to join him in safety. The rest – he could already see the crimson pools beginning to stain the brilliant white of the chamber.
"We need to shoot them down!" He mouthed to his comrades – only to realize that they were all empty-handed. Luck was not on his side – he really should have guessed.
As silently as possible, he crept to the corner of his barricade and peeped his head out, taking in the sight of the nearest gun – remarkably close, but not close enough to make retrieving it a completely safe venture. Nevertheless, he knew it must be done. Taking a deep breath and steeling his nerves, he rocketed out of his hiding spot and scooped up the weapon, darting back to safety with a speed he didn't know he had. The turrets had barely got a lock on him by the time he was hiding again.
Across the moat, Vic and Rosie had seen the action and knew they had to act as the intruders were armed again. Emerging from hiding, Vic placed a portal on the ceiling above the concealed contenders and then another underneath one of the storage cubes. It teetered over the edge of the portal for a second before falling through and hitting its mark – if the sound of somebody's snapping neck was any indication. Vic gulped, breaking out into a cold sweat as she picked up the noise of the panicked kerfuffle of her adversaries – she had just taken a life.
Frank did his best to remove the hefty iron cube of death from the back of his former comrade, grimacing along the way. The three that were left were shivering with fear, Gordon was even crying. He had been in some sticky situations in his life, hundreds of battles that he wasn't expecting to return from – but this was without a doubt the worst. This one, he was completely sure, would be the one that killed him.
"The Aperture Science Weighted Storage Cube is one of the most important elements of each test. I see that you have already met." The same feminine voice from earlier spoke with what Frank guessed was a hint of amusement. He frowned, cast his eyes to the ceiling and took in the sight of the blue portal. His eyes expanded to the size of dinner plates.
Aperture Science had perfected portal technology! He had thought that was just a rumour, told by his mother to keep him away from the facility in his younger years. "Go near that dark place and you'll end up just like the Borealis – in an ice cold glacier, scared and alone." He had never quite understood what she meant – for one thing, why would a boat have the emotional capacity to be scared and alone? However, now was not the time for thinking of such things. The portal above them had moved a few inches forward and was now hovering directly above him. He saw somebody on the other side, readying another cube.
"Incoming!" He cried, flipping out of the way. Gordon unknowingly followed him, not knowing what exactly his boss was backflipping away from, until the falling cube broke his back and cracked his skull.
"Goddammit Gordon!" One of his remaining men screeched like a foghorn, giving his dead companion a fierce kick.
"Stay down, you idiots! We can still get out of this!" Frank hissed. The two that remained slowly ducked low, never taking their eyes off of him.
"How?" One asked, hopeful.
"I don't know yet. Give me a second to think." He replied, before peering ever so slightly over the top of the barricade. There was no obvious way across the moat without the use of those portals. They really were stuck.
"Waka waka!" A sharp feminine voice yelped and one of his men was thrown to the ground by a swift whack to the face, by a strange gun equipped to the arm of a rather pathetic teenage girl, thin as a stick. He was either knocked out or dead – either wouldn't surprise him, that weapon looked heavy.
"Yaaah!" His one remaining soldier, one of the youngest Bears, barely nineteen, scrambled behind him. Frank held out his arms – one last dire attempt to protect his men, he decided and looked the girl dead in the eyes. She responded with a nervous look of her own, her confidence diminishing.
"VIC, WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU DOING!? THAT GUY HAS A GUN!" A more mature feminine voice squawked from the other side of the moat. He peered over to see a tall, curvy woman, very much the scientist type, standing with one of the black and white weapons in her hands. She looked a cross between terrified and stern.
"I DON'T KNOW WHAT A GUN IS! IS IT DANGEROUS!?" Vic called back, totally disregarding the enemies beside her.
"YES, IT'S VERY DANGEROUS! WHAT, WERE YOU RAISED IN A BARN!?"
"NOPE, BUT I WAS PARTIALLY RAISED IN A HIPPY COMMUNE!"
"THAT EXPLAINS SO MUCH." The scientist-girl sighed, pressing a palm to her clammy forehead.
Frank did not know what a 'Hippy' was and he did not much care. What mattered was getting himself and his surviving men out alive, assuming the ones trapped above him counted as such.
Going against everything he stood for, he pressed his finger against the trigger of his blood-soaked weapon and pointed it directly at the heart of the girl known as Vic. She froze. He slowly rose to his feet, the turrets focused their beams on him but made no move.
"Let us go, or I shoot." He growled. Vic was one step closer to having a nervous breakdown, Rosie knew she would have to intervene. Once she blasted a portal into the wall, he spun around and aimed for Rosie's head.
"Don't you try nothing, either. Or you're both dead," He looked back to his one surviving comrade. "Go and get a gun."
He nodded and grabbed a shotgun from the hands of one of his fallen friends, checking it was loaded and pointing it at Rosie. Then, Frank aimed back at Vic.
"One wrong move and you're both dead." Frank reminded them. Vic cast her terrified eyes to the security camera in the room, praying for any kind of help.
"Oh God, guns!" Caroline exclaimed, causing Chell's heart to leap in fear.
"I knew they were armed, but… I didn't realize they had such deadly weaponry." GLaDOS's constant shifting had increased in speed. Caroline was noticing that the giant robot's metal chassis was beginning to get scalding hot – she was struggling to keep seated on the supercomputer without burning her legs.
"GLaDOS, help!" Vic cried towards the security camera, making the computer freeze in her tracks. She mumbled something in binary, which Caroline remembered seeing in Wheatley's code – it translated to 'moron', but that was the only part of it she understood.
"Who's Glados, huh? Is she your boss?" The man with the machine gun demanded, nudging the gun ever closer to poor little Vic, who could be seen shaking from fear from this distance.
"S-Something like that…" She responded, unable to take her eyes off of the operational end of that dastardly weapon in his hands. She spared a glance at Rosie, who was looking back at her with an intense stare. It was some form of communication that only they understood.
"Tell you what – We'll let you both live, if you can tell us what happened to our helicopter and the men inside it. If you don't know, tell us where your boss is and we'll ask her instead," Frank initiated negotiations. "If you refuse to tell us anything, well…" His gun made a warning click, causing Vic to let out a tiny, terrified wail and shield her eyes with the portal gun.
After a few seconds of silence, he cocked the gun a little higher and peered through its zooming lens – his target was now smack-bang in the middle of Vic's eyes.
"What's it gonna be? I don't want to have to kill you." He told her. She lowered the gun from her eyes as a result, looked once more at Rosie, saw the desperate look on the older girl's face and finally cracked under the strain of the situation.
"Leave the test chamber, turn left, keep going, then turn right, go up two floors in the elevator…" She could already picture her fiery demise by GLaDOS' beloved incinerator. Unfortunately, it simply frightened the poor girl more. "EXITTHEELEVATORGODOWNTHEHALLWAYGOINTOTHEBIGDOORONTHERIGHTANDFOLLOWTHEHALLWAYALONGANDSHE'SRIGHTTHEREOHGODPLEASEDON'TKILLME-!" Rosie portalled in behind her and whacked her on the head with the palm of her hand, afterwards gripping her shoulder tightly.
"You've got your directions to GLaDOS, now let us go." She spat in the direction of the two men, who lowered their guns and enabled their safety latches in response.
"Thank you," Frank bowed his head. "Now, how do we get out of this room?"
Now happy and chipper because she was no longer about to get her brains blown out, Vic walked over to the wall with a smile.
"This way! Eric showed me this!" She knelt down and gave the bottom panel three vicious knocks, causing the panel to eject from the wall at an angle on two small arms.
"A secret escape panel… Now that's clever." Rosie mumbled to herself. The two intruders took one last look at their surprisingly calm adversaries and slipped into the maintenance tunnels behind the panel, taking the stairs back to the hallway above.
When Vic replaced the panel, they directed their attention to the weird static coming through the speakers and the security camera which appeared to be shaking with rage.
"GLaDOS, he was going to kill us!" Rosie whined, predicting the oncoming onslaught with some worry for her and Vic's health.
"YOU SELF-ABSORBED PILES OF MEAT WITH BRAINS! VERY SMALL BRAINS!" GLaDOS' voice erupted through the speakers with an intense volume and surprising anger that left their ears ringing and made all but the most robust speakers in the room short-circuit. Never before had GLaDOS so ungraciously lost her shit.
"We're sorry!" Vic yelled drastically. After a moment of silence, GLaDOS once again spoke.
"It's okay, for now. I'll deal with you two later," the panels at the top of the chamber parted and an elevator descended from somewhere unseen. "Get in. We need to stop them before they reach me."
Vic's directions had been confusing and hard to follow, but luckily as long as they stayed to the main hallways, signs directed them the rest of the way. Why Aperture Science had a sign for "Top Secret Central AI Chamber" he couldn't figure out, but because it seemed to be the heart of the facility, the two of them assumed that was their destination. He soon realized that this Glados woman was tracking where they were, as she was sending all manners of things to stop them – turrets, lasers, bombs, inconveniently placed portal walls, deliberate rubble blockages and even what appeared to be a herd of charging mechanical bulls. However, soon they were standing in a large, windowed hallway which led out over an incredible chasm going straight down, who knew how far. Before them was a mighty black cylinder, with the Aperture logo printed boldly on the side and 'GLaDOS' printed elsewhere in even bolder letters. Why is her name spelled like that? Frank pondered. The two quickened their pace through the hallway upon prompting from a disgruntled turret behind them that they had managed to bypass. Those damn things are creepy, he concluded.
The door opened automatically for them upon their approach. They stood back, suddenly frightened – from this angle they could only see some of the chamber, but one thing they could tell was that it was huge and had a small group of people, including the two girls from earlier standing near the center of the room, looking up at something. It took them a moment to prepare themselves before they walked in – although, nothing could have prepared them for what they saw.
Whatever that strange mechanical creature was, it struck terror right into his heart. Glaring at him with a cold golden eye which shone with the same mischief as the eyes of a Combine Hunter, he unlatched the safety of his gun. The people around this creature were all armed with the strange black and white guns and they looked incredibly pissed off, amazingly protective of this strange monster. It wasn't a Combine synth, he knew that – it wasn't built in the same style.
"Ah, so you made it here. Allow me to welcome you properly." The same womanly voice from the testing chamber rumbled through the spacious room. Frank realized that it was coming from the odd monstrous machine itself. A rush of wind beside him and violent smash caused him to whizz around, only to see that a spiked plate attached to the ceiling had crushed his only comrade, leaving him the sole survivor of his scouting party.
"Oops, sorry. I guess I must have sent the wrong command. I was trying to use the Aperture Science Crusher Panel to kill you first and then the other one. Let me just correct that mistake..." The 'Crusher', as it was called lifted itself up from the ground, revealing the bloody mess that was once a person. "Ah. Now hold still."
He dived out the way as the crusher fell upon him and fired the gun with excellent precision, only some of the rapid-fire bullets missing the machine. Of course a majority of them bounced off but she still felt the impact and flinched.
"Ohh, you're going to pay for that. I've just been painted." She grumbled. He found several of the Crushers hovering tantalizingly close to him from nearly all angles. He checked that his machine gun was loaded with a rocket and took aim – at least, if he was going down, he could take out that white beast at the same time.
"Stop!" Somebody, a female rushed away from her group and stood firm between the warring personalities.
"What? You're defending this human?" The creature sounded a trifle hurt. "…Why?"
"I… know him. From when you sent me away." She turned around to look at him, his jaw nearly dropping ten feet. Dark skin, black hair, brown eyes, that same muscular build that he had once known so well.
"Chell?"
"Yeah, it's me." She gave him a weary smile before looking back to the white creature.
"GLaDOS, this is Frank. He's-!"
"Hold up, I'm back! Sorry I'm late," Suddenly, a girl jumped from a panel above the creature, drew what looked like a bow from her back as she slid down its wires and finally perched on its neck, with an arrow aimed right at Frank. "Those bombs were very carefully placed, Sir. I'm impressed that you dodged them all, you and your stupid friend."
The girl was very close to Chell's double, he noted, but much younger and with a green ribbon tied into a bow tying her waist-long hair up in a high ponytail. Her arms were traced with numerous scars, likely from close encounters with animals (he had some himself). She looked strikingly familiar, but he couldn't place her.
"Oh, that was you? Bravo." GLaDOS said in an almost cheery manner.
"Hell yeah it was me. Who else could be so brilliant?" The girl in question thumped her fist off her chest, before returning to aiming the arrow at him. He looked to Chell, begging silently for further assistance.
"Caroline, stop." She looked up at the girl perched proudly on top of the robotic beast called GLaDOS, who returned the gesture with shock.
"Why? He's an intruder." She went back to aiming immediately, pulling the arrow as far back as she could. He closed his eyes – this was it. He was about to die. It was either death by crusher or death by arrow – he knew which he would prefer.
"He's not just an intruder," Chell continued. What she said next made his eyes snap open and his blood run cold. "He's your father!"
"He's my what?" Caroline took the news surprisingly calmly, only relaxing her grip on the bow slightly.
"And I'll be damned if you are gonna kill your own father, Young Lady! Rabbits, fine. Stags, whatever. Intruders, cool beans. But you do not kill family, understand!?" It was not like Chell to go off on a tangent. In fact, it was very much unlike her to say much at all. Whether or not it was her fear spurring her into speech, Frank couldn't tell.
"Alright, alright. Jeez." Caroline finally lowered the bow and Frank released his held breath in a sigh of relief.
"This male… is Caroline's father." If it was possible for GLaDOS to sink any lower to the floor she would have fallen out of the ceiling. Breathing a shaky sigh, Chell nodded.
"He's ugly. That must be where you get your ugliness from." She looked up at Caroline as she spoke, who merely gave the top of GLaDOS' head a playful slap.
"Well, what do you want to do with him?" She next directed her words to Chell, who looked back to Frank with a small, downtrodden smile.
"Let him return to the surface. He doesn't belong down here."
GLaDOS and Caroline, their eyes expressionless, both regarded Frank for a moment longer as the Crushers around him were withdrawn and pulled out of sight. Caroline dismounted, approaching her mother with increasing nervousness, before gripping Chell's t-shirt and hiding from the older male in the blue fabric.
"The Vortigaunts told me that you both were killed…" Frank's tired voice was barely audible, but it was all the two girls could hear. There was a ping above them, signalling that the Escape Lift had arrived.
"I told them to tell you that. I didn't want you coming back." Chell said apologetically.
"But why?"
"I couldn't leave here. I'm sorry."
Frank nodded, taking a moment to gaze at his family – Caroline especially. Wonderful, he thought to himself. My wife has Stockholm Syndrome and my daughter doesn't like me. Luck really isn't on my side. Nevertheless, he couldn't help but smile.
"Go on, hurry up. Get out of here before I decide I'm not feeling so merciful." GLaDOS hissed.
"Ok, I'm going." He held up his hands in self-defense and gave his family – his daughter – a goodbye wave. Caroline for a moment seemed like she might return the gesture, but instead she only nodded her head in farewell and retreated to GLaDOS' side, where she couldn't see him.
He stepped into the elevator and closed his eyes as the doors shut and carried him upwards. Close to the ceiling, there was a fierce hissing sound and the elevator filled with an odd purple gas – he ducked down as low as he could but soon the gas overwhelmed him. He tried to fight off the dizziness for a second longer but it was too much and he passed out, his back against the smooth glass of the elevator.
"What happened!? GLaDOS, what did you do!?" Chell exclaimed angrily, watching in horror as the elevator faded out of sight and the escape lift rails disappeared along with it.
"I merely whipped something up that would stop him coming back. That gas, certainly, will do just that." The supercomputer responded with a dark chuckle.
"GLaDOS…" Chell seethed, walking right up to the computer and sticking her face into Her optic accusingly for the first time that she had dared. "Tell me what you did."
Frank woke up from what had possibly been the best sleep of his life. Lying on the warm tarmac, he pushed himself to his feet only to discover that he was in the Aperture Science Enrichment Center car park. What am I doing here? He couldn't seem to remember. There would be no reason for him to come here – his wife and child were the only connection he had to this place and they were dead. Yet, for some reason, he was happier than he had ever been in his life. His machine gun had been used recently – it was still warm from the friction of its firing. Clipping the safety back on, he merely shrugged it off and headed back in the direction of his base. Whatever happened here, it couldn't have been too important if he couldn't remember it, right?
And so ends one of my favorite parts of this story! I hope you all enjoyed it too!
However, much the same as the previous chapter, I'd really like to know what you guys think. If you want to see me write some Half-Life, please tell me because I have so many ideas like omigosh.
There were certain things in this chapter that I just couldn't resist adding in. For example, "GODDAMMIT GORDON" seemed like too good a comedic gem to pass up. Same with Vic being half-raised in a Hippy commune, which couldn't make less sense considering her father's job! However, they were funny to me and I hope you all found something amusing about this chapter too, no matter what it was!
Thank you to everyone who is still reading, following, faving and reviewing - it means so much to me!
~ Lagiacrus