Chell's Story: Part B
Chapter Eight

I don't know if I had hurt myself landing on the button in the last chamber, but my feet were giving me a lot of grief when I disembarked from the elevator. The exit was right in front of me, in the middle of a hallway, with a rising platform providing the vital link.

"All subjects intending to handle high-energy gamma-leaking portal technology must be informed that they may be informed of applicable regulatory compliance issues. No further compliance information is required or will be provided, and you are an excellent test subject."

I looked over to my left, and I saw a room tucked away above a wide gap. To my right was a sealed door with a Button near it. I limped over there and stood on the Button, and the door opened to reveal nothing but metal surfaces beyond it.

I headed to the other end of the hall where the gap was, and a staircase rose up out of it as I approached. I was slightly thrown off guard, but I staggered up the stairs, which retracted back into the pit when I reached the top.

In the room, there was a Catcher on the floor right in front of me. To my left was a high ledge with a Cube on it. I put down a portal on the floor next to the ledge, and I went over to the pit, placing a portal on the floor of the pit.

As I prepared to jump, I noticed that the floor of the hall surrounding the platform leading to the exit was cement. I could put a portal there, jump through, and be done with it. But there was a problem: the drop into the pit was at least twice as long as the platform's height. And my feet were still hurting, so I didn't know if I'd be able to withstand a landing as hard as that at that time.

I jumped into the portal, flying up onto the ledge where the Cube was. I threw it down to the floor, and I jumped down after it. The landing was painful, but I didn't break any body parts. But I could no longer exploit the loophole in the chamber, as the stairs emerged from the pit and locked in place.

I walked down the stairs, Cube in tow, and dropped it on the Button. The door opened, and I went through.

At the end of the winding tunnel was a pit of slime, with three platforms protruding from it. The one in the middle was stable, but the other two were rising in and out of the slime in sequence.

All the surfaces around me were cement; I could've just portaled across the pit, but the platform jumping didn't seem too difficult, nor was I under a time constraint to complete the test.

I decided the best way to jump on the moving platforms was to go for them as they were rising from the slime. The slime drained through the holes in the grate platform, but I didn't slide on the slime that was still adhering to it. When the platform reached its peak, I jumped to the stable platform, where I left a visible toe print. The second rising platform was the same deal as the first, and when I reached the other side, I could see a secluded room.

Inside, there was a pellet launcher and a pellet bouncing back and forth between it and the wall. I laid down a portal across the slime pit and the other where the pellet was hitting the wall. When the pellet went through, I followed after it and headed down the tunnel back to the main chamber.

Remembering that I had an orange portal in front of the launcher, I put a blue portal above the catcher in the area I had started at. It was a bit of a wait, but soon enough, the pellet reached the catcher and brought the platform down to meet me.

"Very, very good. A complementary Victory Lift has been activated in the main chamber."

As I rode it up to the elevator, the throbbing sensation in my feet started to dissipate. I had a comfortable few steps into the elevator.