The cold air rushed past Morty's face, contorting it and streaming his eyes with tears as he plunged further and further away from the last test chamber. His ears filled with the constant roaring of momentum, blotting out his own terrified screams which were magnified by the endless descent he now found himself in. The emptiness that he scarcely caught a glimpse of when the chamber moved into place was much clearer to him now that it surrounded his aching, weightless body. Morty managed to break through the force of his fall just enough to move his head, and he peered around in terror to see a plethora of giant metal columns, all made up of various machinations in every direction he looked. Some were huge spires of hollow metal squares on arm-like hinges, all tucked away into the centre – forming an exoskeleton of empty wall panel frames. Others were a conglomeration of wires, pipes, railing tracks and what looked like neatly stacked storage containers of different shapes and sizes, but it was anyone's guess as to what they actually stored. In the distance he could also see the outside of other test chambers like the one he had fallen through, though from the outside the panels did not look conductible, nor did he think his portal gun pellets would reach it. On his downward journey he could also make out miles and miles of glass tubes all senselessly intertwining in a multitude of directions. He could see various items shooting through them, which he guessed was some sort of transporting system, with some even transporting the mobility gels he was introduced to in earlier tests. The tubes would often twist around the columns for no reason, dancing with the railing tracks before nose-diving straight down, or sometimes the opposite. Morty's velocity continued to increase, and after calming down from the initial fall, he decided to try and position himself feet first, not as though he was aiming for anything in particular. If he would ever reach the bottom, the least he could do was put his Long Fall Sneakers to good use, instead of creating a Morty-coloured stain wherever he would land.
As he shifted to his upright position, all he could see was the abyss below, and the test chamber he fell though getting smaller and smaller above him, partially obscured by a Weighted Storage cube gaining on him in his free fall. It was only after he looked away from the cube and turned his attention back south, that he noticed where he could potentially end his fall. One of the glass tubes was getting closer and closer to him, running a straight path right underneath Morty's feet. Realising that any solid surface is better than none, Morty did everything in his power to manoeuvre his way perfectly on top of it, until finally, his struggles paid off. Like a mighty superhero, Morty's feet collided with the solid glass and planted directly in the middle of the tube, sending shockwaves up his knees and shaking the tube like a violent earthquake. Morty instantly fell backwards onto his backside, and noticed that his impact had cracked the tube slightly, and as he watched all manner of junk whizz past his feet at high velocity, he prayed that the tube would not split and break under his feet.
As Morty dusted himself down again and stood up, he could see the full extent to the endless dark that surrounded him. He could scarcely believe how much room was underneath where he and Rick had arrived in the facility, especially after his tremendous fall and since the elevators he had been using seemed to always go down as well. No matter which way he looked, it seemed no different as if he had been floating through space in Rick's car as he had done many times before. That same constant nothing, but instead of distant stars, they were distant ominous lights from all manner of machinery that were blended with the metal spires dotted around. Like robotic eyes blinking and watching. Morty felt overwhelmed. Each slight breeze that brushed past his hair was accompanied by the same noises he heard from the gaps back in the test chambers, but he couldn't even guess as to where the noises originated. Morty's eyes began following the trail of the tube he was standing on to see if he could walk along it to some sort of scaffolding or walkway, and to his surprise it did just that. The tube ran parallel to a metal walkway with a standard looking door leading to hopefully somewhere safe, that was only a short walk away from where he landed, with a few minor dips and humps along the way.
Morty started on his journey, being careful not to step on the crack he created, but as he peered down to aim his foot, he noticed a few cubes being carried through the glass tunnel underneath, and remembered that a similar cube was following him in his descent. By some miracle or curse, the cube had also found itself in the same position as Morty, and as he looked up to see how far away it was, he had to quickly jump backwards before it collided with his head, letting out an echoed yelp as he did. The cube had plummeted straight onto the crack, and as the glass splintered more from the weight and impact, the top of the tube shattered and the shards fell down into the void, shimmering a chinking together. The suction from inside pulled the cube in and off on another journey, making the hole bigger. Big enough for the increased pull to drag Morty closer, his feet squeaking against the smooth glass beneath his shoes, until his feet were lifted off of the tube and he was sucked through, following the cube on its adventure, face-first against the junk that only made his journey more uncomfortable.
The ride was a rough one. Morty's face made an almost rhythmic pattern of slapping against the sides of the tube, the deactivated turret in front of him and a standard Aperture-labelled container box to his rear. His somersaulting and corkscrews made it difficult, but Morty still managed to let out slight yells that were muffled by his glass surroundings and he even managed to keep a grip on his Portal Gun. He rode the transparent rollercoaster almost as long as his previous fall, but without the benefit of being able to right himself, and instead of the wind rushing against his face, it was big metal box. Every time Morty tried to catch a glimpse of where he as, where he was going or where he had just been, he was quickly turned around or upside down losing his bearings once more. He only knew the direction he was travelling, but had no idea where that was going. As he was travelling he kept hearing a tremendous rattling and banging, as the cube that was sucked in before him was thrashing and rolling around. It was unable to keep still, as if it wanted to break free more than Morty did. The foreign item in the tube was so violent, that it caused a knock-on effect to the passengers in front of it, a domino effect of madness that turned the most stationery of items into rage-filled wrecking balls, as each one in front of the cube began ramming the glass tube just like last. The tube itself began to snake and weave around different spires and scaffolding, the surroundings eventually changed to less open space and metal towers to more organised conglomerations of panelled pillars dotted around, which to Morty, brought forth images of catacombs and vast architectural halls that he had seen in history books and fantasy video games.
Further ahead from Morty, the tube was taking a sharp turn above what appeared to be another sort of chamber. Morty could see it approaching but from his many angles, he couldn't quite make out the scale of its enormity. All he knew was that the tube was moving along the top of it, where a few ventilation panels were fitted into the outside chamber walls. The actual scale was much bigger than any chamber Morty had been in yet, almost like a secondary facility built into the abyss, but seemed a lot different in terms of the clinical white style of the facility he'd grown accustomed too.
As the knock-on effect reached the part of the tube next to the structure, the constant rattling began to make chips and cracks along the inside of the tube that was closest to the ventilation grates on the structure's walls. By the time the foreign cube had got to the crack, one mighty thump was enough to break a hole in the tube with a shower of glass. It then carried on, too big to fit through the new hole. Morty was not so lucky, as he came tumbling toward the gap and like a spit ball from a straw he was catapulted out, crashing through the ventilation panels into a darkened room.
Morty lay unconscious for an hour or so, before slowly coming to, rubbing his bruised face to see if any glass had stuck in it. To his surprise it was completely glass-free. Instead, bits of glass surrounded him in the dark room he was now standing up in and the moment he shuffled his feet through the sea of shards, bright luminescent ceiling lights jolted into action, partially blinding the young tester before he regained control of his senses. Morty peered around to find that he had landed in some sort of strange waiting room. As the lights turned on, so too did the strange waiting room music, that reminded him of the smooth jazz you'd hear in some hotel elevators. The room itself appeared different compared to the chambers he had seen so far. The furniture was less modern but still retained its science fiction style, as though it was modelled to look retrofuturistic. The colour scheme of the room also leaned away from the clinical white he was used to, in favour of steel blue, greys and whites mixed together. The carpet he stood on was also a shade of blue, but now twinkled with the glass under the light. Morty turned around to try and find his "entrance", only to find that in a quick glance he could see an automated robotic arm patching up the broken glass tube with black and yellow tape. This was being partially obscured by a new ventilation grate that was being shifted in place of the gap Morty had made and drilled in from the outside by another arm, sealing Morty in. Morty stared for a while at his only known exit being closed in front him and elected to start slowly banging his head against the wall underneath the grate, in frustration more than anything.
Eventually he stopped, noticing that his unconscious state had given him a slight reprieve and he had gained some energy back and he decided to put some of this energy into finding a way out of another predicament. As he peered around the room again, he noticed two other potential exits. To his right, an older looking elevator that was clearly the better way of entering this room (he had deduced that elevators were the preferred method of transport for the insane people of this facility) which didn't appear to open when he walked near it. The other exit was a familiar looking chamber door on the opposite side of where he landed. Above the door, a dishevelled banner was strewn across with the words "Welcome Aperture Assessors" printed on it, but the O in Welcome was replaced with the Aperture logo. As Morty walked over to it, the music had been cut off in favour of a voice coming through another set of hidden speakers. The voice was that of the announcer from Morty's previous nightmarish tests, but seemed much younger (in terms of automated robot voices) and a lot less worn out. As soon as the voice booted up, Morty froze into place and one of his eyes began to twitch.
"Hello, and welcome to Aperture Science's Pre-Test Assessment and Archiving Facility. If you are hearing this recorded message, then you have been carefully selected to take part in Aperture's greatest kept secret, since the discovery and patenting of the taste of victory, back in 1949. By stepping through this next door, you will be ensuring that new, as well as condemned, Aperture inventions are assessed under varying conditions, and the results archived, to determine whether they stay condemned, or proceed to the Enrichment Centre for further testing." The voice announced. Morty, trying to ignore the voice as much as possible, was busy looking at a nearby Employee of the Month wall, which seemed entirely focused on various types of sentry turrets, each with their own unique design. Morty gulped before heading towards the door again, to see if it would open once the voice finally stopped talking. "Before you arrived, you should have already received the inventions required for your specific tests. Please form an orderly line, so that we may scan your equipment, and prep the necessary transport to your assessment chambers." As the voice finished its last sentence, a strange device similar to GLaDOS's eye descended from the ceiling like a small drone, but with a blue-ish LED. Morty froze once more, as a beam of blue light was shot out of the eye and proceeded to scan his body thoroughly, occasionally flashing and beeping when it scanned his Portal device and his shoes. Once it had finished, it quickly shot back up to the ceiling and the voice began again. "From our scans, it has been noted that you have been instructed to use a variance of the Handheld Portal Device, and the Long Fall Boots. Using this data, we will now compile the necessary assessment chambers. Please take a seat." With that, the room began to vibrate and shake for a moment, which seemed to knock Morty off of his balance, before the vibrating slowed down. A strange luminescent Aperture logo, began to light up in a circular motion, almost like a video game loading screen and would beep periodically. Morty sighed in annoyance, as he had to wait even more to be free from yet another prison and spent time pacing the room, sitting in the chairs then standing and pacing again. He had flicked through all of the old science magazines twice over, taking the tests to find out which kind of single-celled organism he was, based on his personality (he was Archaea). He even attempted to eat the dusty candy that had been sitting in the waiting room desk bowl, before throwing it up again in a nearby waste bin.
Not long after that, the door logo began flashing and stopped with a Ping! as the doors slowly opened and a strange flickering pale light crept into the waiting room. Morty picked himself up and slowly shuffled his way into the next room, greeted to a similar styled chamber, but with elevator pods lined up on both left and right sides. Next to each pod was a glass case with a button attached, each containing its own model of the invention that would be tested once the elevator was used. The blue glow came from a large screen at the far end of the wall, which flickered between static and a blank white screen with the Aperture logo. As Morty entered, the door closed behind him and he began to inspect the cases. The first on his left showed a replica blob of gel, similar to the mobility gels he had previously encountered, except this one glowed bright, almost radioactive green and was labelled "Emission Gel". In the case next to that was a model of a glass pyramid with metallic edges, and replicas of coloured beams protruding out of one side, labelled as the "Weighted Spectrum Segregation Pyramid", and the "Thermal Dispersion Beam". As Morty continued down the same side of the room, he came across another case, this one with a model of an empty panel frame, with a glowing blue and orange edge on the inside, labelled "The Quantum Window of Opportunity". Lastly at the end of the room, Morty saw a model of a strange glass light, similar to the beacon of a police car and another smaller device with directional buttons on it, labelled as the "Gravitational Restructuring Adaptor".
Morty paced up and down the side of the room inspecting the cases one by one, briefly glancing at the other side, and noticing the other inventions. One showed purple gel, another with a grey gel, one showed a small paint gun that seemed to fire all of the gels out and one had some sort of strange clip board with a screen on it. Before he could walk over to these displays however, the voice booted up again. "These assessments have been carefully chosen based on your current equipment and your undoubtedly brilliant scientific prowess." Morty's mouth drooped again as he stared around the room, as if to see who the voice was talking about, but knowing full well he was alone. He began scratching head and wondering to himself what the word prowess meant.
"Prowess?" He uttered, before jumping at the sound of the voice again, which would often boot up without warning.
"Before we send you to your first assessment, please take a moment to review what you will be assessing, by activating the instructional videos, on the displays before you." Morty's attention was then shifted back to the first case, to see what the voice was talking about, and noticed the button on the side of the case. He reached his hand out pensively and pressed the button, when suddenly the lights went out. Even Morty's unnatural glow had diminished too much for him to light up around himself, but the large screen in the room did the job for him, as it started flickering and stuttering wilder than it was before and sharp muffled sounds began spluttering from the speaker system periodically. It only took a few moments for the screen to compose itself, as it began to play a strange old video of the Earth slowly becoming the Aperture logo. A new voice started to crackle through the speaker before becoming clear enough to understand. It was the voice of an older gentleman, very much human and his tone suggested he was one of those "businessmen" that sold shower curtain rings door to door.
"So! You've been selected to assess this little doozy huh? Outstanding. You're a credit to this facility, kiddo! Well let's get right to it then. This here glowing glob is what the lab boys have named "Emission Gel", and let me tell ya, if this stuff doesn't earn Aperture a nobel prize, then I'll eat my own hat! And that's a good hat too! Cost me a pretty penny." The video began shifting between images of people in a rudimentary lab, and various shots of the glowing gel in glass vials and splattered over the walls in dark rooms, before changing to clippings of old advertisements for a range of Aperture brand "diegetic gels". "But allow me to give you a little back story. You see back in the 50's, Aperture had their little moment in the press for our range of "diegetic gels" A sort of gloopy pudding-like substance that would help guys and gals fit into their swimwear before beach season. The Repulsion and Propulsion Gels that you've probably heard so much about are the fruits of those labours, so to speak." Morty's face became confused as the video changed to images of the Mobility gels he'd encountered before, intermingled with strange poses of a middle aged man in just swimwear, smiling at the camera in various poses. These quickly changed to basic-looking illustrations of a mouth connected to a stomach, with the gels going in and showing what happens inside the body when they're ingested. "One was designed to coat the inside of your stomach with a bouncy film, which would catapult those unwanted fats and calories straight back out of your pie-hole, while the other was designed to coat your stomach and intestines with a slip-n-slide solution, to get those nutrients in, then shoot the bad stuff right back out in record time." Morty almost gagged with how unexpectedly graphic the little drawings soon became. "Unfortunately these puppies ended up getting canned, and not in the good way! So they were re-purposed for testing and rebranded as Mobility Gel. Not a complete loss, though the shareholders didn't think so. But to hell with them! Anyway that's when we started from scratch, and the lab boys whipped this Emission Gel." Again the pictures changed to videos of giant vats swirling green gloop around, and then switching back to another illustration of the mouth and stomach combo. Morty rolled his eyes at what he was going to see happen next. "We wanted to stay clear of manipulating the food trajectory and instead turned our attention to monitoring food intake instead. The result was this alternative pudding substitute, which had unique glowing properties and a delightfully tangy after-taste. The idea was purely medical: to have a subject on a strict gel pudding diet, then professionals would monitor a person's digestive activity, as you could see the gel's glow from the outside of the subject's body. This would also prevent late night snackers from trying to sneak past their spouses to get to the kitchen pantry at 1 in the morning." Morty planted a hand firmly on his face in embarrassment; as he watched the figure on the screen ingest green slime, then glow like a lava lamp. Even he couldn't believe how stupid these scientists were. But at the same time he sighed, knowing full well how frustrating it was to glow unexpectedly. "Unfortunately a combination of unstable chemical reactions and a recipe with too much tang caused the pudding to melt through the stomach lining of anyone who ingested it, and in some mild cases had the potential to blind anyone who viewed its glow. Which reminds me; always remember to sign your waivers kiddos, or you'll end up like these poor suckers." Morty gagged for real this time, as he saw images of hospital beds, with men in great pain trying to keep their insides from falling out, and others with eyes that looked like they had been caressed by white-hot pokers, all the while glowing like Uranium. "Naturally, this product was pulled from the shelves too, and was re-purposed like it's predecessors into testing with the Quantum Tunnelling device, or as I hear they're renaming it now, to the Handheld Portal device. Hopefully it will provide ample variables in the on-going discussion of how light is affected when travelling with tears in the fabric of space. Because apparently, that's what the lab boys like to discuss on their down time, instead of enjoying the brand new ping pong table I just got them. Most expensive dust collector in the science block. Builds morale my a—" Suddenly, Morty could hear whispers from another more feminine voice, coming through the speakers, as though someone was addressing the man that was speaking and stopping him from trailing off. The man's voice promptly returned, and the new image of a ping pong table faded back into the Aperture Logo again. "-Of course. Anyway! Good luck in your assessments…assessors? Assessees?" The man's voice became a whisper as well, as he began talking to someone else, but still within range of his microphone. "Am I saying that right? Assessors?...well why assessment?...well why can't we just say test?... to hell with alliteration! What has alliteration ever done for me?"
The voice promptly crackled out and the screen went back to its usual flicker, as the lights faded back on, straining Morty's eyes. He took a moment to contemplate what he had just seen, before letting out a large sigh and trying to think of what he needed to do next. His eyes glance over the room to see if there were any other potential exits, but before he could take another step, his feet became locked in a metal brace that sprung up, out of the floor where he was standing.
"What the hell, man!?" Morty's squealed as his as eyes darted down to his now imprisoned feet, and his body began to turn towards the Emission Gel elevator. Morty began tugging at his own feet trying to free them, then started firing Portal pellets in every direction, but found that the portals did not work in the room. The floor then started to automatically move him towards the elevator like a conveyer belt, until the last panel of the floor before the elevator entrance unshackled him and sprung him into the now open capsule. The robotic voice chimed in, as Morty tried to turn and run back out, but was blocked by the automatic closing doors.
"We hope that the instructional video gave you sufficient insight on what you will be assessing from here on out. The elevator will now take you to the first Assessment and Archiving chamber for you to begin your next scientific journey. Please mind the doors." Morty began banging on the elevator doors and yelling for it to let him out, but stopped when he heard the familiar clunk of an elevator that was about to descend. Morty lowered his arms in defeat, and looked up at the top of the elevator door. A flowing LED message strip presented the words Chamber 001. Morty frowned and his face dropped all emotion, except for an acute frustration. He stared blankly at the doors in front of him and uttered the words "oh shit", before the elevator shot downwards towards his next labyrinth of insanity.