Wheatley wasn't sure why he suddenly felt a strange surge coursing through his circuits. All he knew was that danger was coming and that Chell wasn't moving, and his programming reacted accordingly. His chest cavity opened and somehow he swallowed her up into it, protecting her from the yet unknown enemy. Both gun barrels popped out from his arms, and he stood between the door and Mossman.
There was a harsh shriek as a long and sharp claw, about the size of Chell's forearm, tore through the door, ripping upward and slicing the metal like paper. With a final kick, the Hunter burst down the door and trotted into the room.
It almost looked like a Strider in appearance though only as tall as Wheatley, dark-blue with twin blue lights vertically placed at its front. Its three spidery legs almost looked muscular in appearance, and they hastily tapped on the floor as it repositioned itself.
Mossman gave a short scream and huddled in the corner. The small black tubes on either side of the Hunter's squat body snapped to aim in her direction.
"No, ya don't!" Wheatley began firing, diverting the thing's attention. With a bull-like roar, the Hunter charged at him, leaving the doorway wide open.
"Go!" he shouted to Mossman. "Run!"
Without a second thought, she bolted out the door, leaving Wheatley on his own. The Hunter slammed into him hard, knocking him back a few steps and on uneven footing. Once he recovered, Wheatley started firing again only to face another slam from the Combine machine. This time, he hit a raw patch of ice and skidded, struggling to regain his footing and failing.
He crashed to the ground. The Hunter leaped at him, closing the distance and pinning Wheatley's legs under its body. It then fired four blue-fletched darts, none of them directly hitting Wheatley but all of them embedding themselves in the icy floor below.
The Hunter jumped back before Wheatley could kick it, and then the fletchettes went off. Localized explosions jolted Wheatley's massive body back and forth, sending horrible ringing noises and feedback through his aural sensors. Inside of his body, Chell was well-protected though a little disheveled; he could feel her moving around inside of him, trying to get out.
"Ugh, luv, not now. Stop tha'; 'is makin' me sick."
He struggled to his feet as the Hunter let out another bellow. Wheatley barely dodged its charge, stepping to the side as quickly as his ungainly body could allow. He couldn't beat this thing; not now. He ran for the door and into the hallway.
Had he possessed a good, solid processor, Wheatley would've run outside. There was more room to avoid the pursuing Hunter's attacks, more doors that he could smash open and hide inside. He could've also witnessed the approaching helicopter, carrying one young scientist and one scientist's daughter, who had been en route before Mossman's distress call. Mossman herself was already out there, waving wildly to get their attention.
But Wheatley was in the possession of a bad-decision processor, and he instead went down the dark hallway.
The Hunter charged after him, flying through the shattered doorway and slamming into the opposite wall of the hall before righting itself and starting for Wheatley. It roared angrily, as if frustrated that its prey still lived.
Skidding, slipping, and stomping, Wheatley clumsily clomped down the hall. He was barely able to see, and to make matters worse, this hall was especially icy and slick. By pure accident he found a door that didn't seem to be as ice-covered as the others. He broke it open with his shoulder and slipped inside, closing the door as quietly as he could behind him.
He heard the Hunter's galloping trio of footsteps, slowing as it approached the door. It stopped. It was looking around; hopefully it wasn't scanning anything. Wheatley tensed but did not move, intent on keeping quiet. Inside, he felt Chell tense, too. Even heard her draw in a breath.
Footstep by quiet footstep, the Hunter passed by the door. Wheatley waited until the sound had receded far into the hall before he opened his chest cavity and let Chell out.
She gasped a bit, fanning herself for air. Evidently there wasn't much breathing room. After making sure the danger was gone, Chell immediately sunk her arm into the portal device and brought up Orion's map. The yellow light flooded the small room, showing ice-covered countertops, a shelf on the back wall lined with empty glass jars, empty wooden crates, and a disturbingly large pile of human bones in the corner.
Chell let out a noise like a small shriek. Beckoning for Wheatley, she stepped closer to the mass of bones, noticing that the very base of the pile was a whole skeleton, still decked in winter gear. The bones around him were in pieces: ribs, femurs, arm bones, and even the small bones of a hand or foot.
"Cannibalism," Rick said sagely. "Nah, I know my stuff here, sugarpie. I know the signs. See them teethmarks in th' bones? Man, if I had a dollar for every time I came across a cannibal -"
"You'd 'ave zero dollars, mate," Wheatley joked.
"Hey, hey – you think this's funny, China Cabinet? This some game to you?"
Wheatley raised his hands, still chuckling at his own joke. "All right, all right."
"H-hey, Io," Orion said quietly, still a bit timid after his last outburst. "Target acquired!"
Chell glanced at the map, thinking how odd the turret's warning sounded in Orion's voice. Sure enough, there was a large, pulsing spot of yellow some distance away, tucked in the corner of a room... and more than a handful of red dots between her and it. Her lip curled.
"Idea!" Wheatley stated helpfully. "What if I went an' distracted 'em all, like I did with that Mossman gal? I'll bring 'em all topside, and then you can 'ave a clear path to the chassis!"
A second of silence, and then Rick piped up. "Uh, Glitchy? That's kind've a bad idea. Considerin' I don't know what those things do – ya know, cuz ya scooped up Pretty Mama and me like a T-rex gobblin' up a horse-"
Chell glared at the green light on the portal device.
"I mean a very attractive an' efficiently dangerous li'l filly -"
She rolled her eyes. Better. Still lame, but better.
"I didn't get t'see what these Hunter-things were. All's I know is that they explode somethin' and they hit like hammers, an' I dunno how much 'a that kinda damage you can take."
As best he could, Wheatley crossed his arms. "Oh? An' what's your great idea, then?"
"Well, I think first on the agenda would be not gettin' killed!"
"U-um, air v-vents?" Orion chirped.
Chell instinctively glanced around the room and spotted a rather large air vent near the floor. It would be ideal, if the vent tunnels would hold her weight. On her map, a secondary path popped up, dimmer yellow and lined to suggest that it was the ventilation system. From what Chell saw, it led straight to the room holding the chassis.
Yet there were a lot of holes in that plan. If the vents fell or if there were Combine in there, Chell had no hope of escape. Besides, once she got to the chassis, how was she going to carry it without Wheatley? The vents were big, but not big enough to hold him. And certainly not big enough to carry a full-sized chassis.
Quirking a brow, Chell tapped Wheatley then made an "M" with her hands. Wheatley looked from side to side for a second, trying to process the information.
"Oh, the Black Mesa woman!" Chell nodded. "Oh, she left. Topside, I think. Prob'ly waitin' on the 'copter."
"Prob'ly much safer out there, cornflake." Rick teased. "Why didn'tcha go out there?"
"It – it didn' seem like a good idea at the time." There was an edge of shame in Wheatley's voice. Chell patted his arm, sighing. He really couldn't help it sometimes. But it was a good thing that Mossman had gone; for one, Chell could use her portal device again. For anoth-
Chell's eyes widened and she immediately smacked her forehead with her palm. She had a portal device! She could put a portal here, crawl through the vent, pop a portal on the chassis's storeroom, and have Wheatley come through, quick as lighting.
She looked at the confused Wheatley, wondering how to convey exactly how stupid she felt. Instead, she just launched a blue portal on the nearest wall – and thank goodness it stuck – and headed for the vent. Wheatley, still with a puzzled look, popped the vent off for her, and she disappeared inside of it.
The area near the wall could support her weight. The vent was old and somewhat dusty due to the dryness of the environment. Despite being an air duct, it was stifling, and Chell could certainly tell that the air was thinner.
Like being in neurotoxin.
She paused before moving onward, worried that the vents beyond would not hold her until Rick spoke up.
"There's ice on th' loose sides 'a the vents; I can hear it crackin'. Take it slow, take it easy, an' we'll get ya there in no time."
She nodded, taking his advice and starting a slow and determined climb on all fours. It was like in City 04, those dusty and filthy shafts. It was also filled with Combine, only they were looking to kill instead of capture her.
The more she thought about it, the more Chell started to hate the Borealis.
Only Orion's map saved her from being swallowed by the inky blackness. Nearly too late, she saw the vents branching off into other rooms, also engulfed in dark. She followed Orion's map to the last detail; she had to. It was the only thing guiding her now.
After only a few minutes, she was sweating hard and gasping for air. She thought about turning around, going back to where Wheatley was, and starting again with a good lungful, but she had already gone so far. And once she was in the storage room, she could just portal back and breathe easy again.
A few more minutes and she was panting. She had no choice but to crawl down to one of the unoccupied rooms, kick the ice off the vent, stick her head inside, and take a few gulps of air. She laid down in the shaft, still panting, and waited until she had caught her breath again.
It made her think about what Mossman said. The boat teleported first, and the crew followed sometime after? She'd never heard of a time-delay in portals, though it'd be something interesting to ask GLaDOS when they got her back online. If the crew had portaled in after the ice had set, some people may have been trapped in these rooms, destined to die of asphyxiation or starvation.
Well, not that guy sitting in the bone pile, obviously.
Eventually, she caught her wind, backed out, and headed down the shaft again. The open vent balanced the air flow a little, and she found it much easier to breathe, though still a bit constricted. She still moved slowly along the vents, careful of every step.
It took her a little over an hour to reach the chassis's storeroom. After getting Rick's assurance that no Combine waited to ambush her, she kicked the ice off the vent, sending the metal grate flying, and crawled out into the frozen room.
As with nearly every other room, this one was frosted with white ice and contained many crates and boxes. It was also pitch-black. Holding out her portal device as a light, she inspected the crates for any markings. Orion's targeting system didn't exactly specify which box held the chassis.
Then she saw it. They either didn't have the decency to put it in a crate, or something else had happened to it, but there she was. The chassis didn't even look like GLaDOS's old form; it looked more like a full-bodied, upside-down sleeping bag, cocooned in cellophane. The monitor, though still on bottom and angled such as to where it could swivel, was capped with a round, white hood-like dome. The rest of the chassis was merely a stiff block of white, housing all the components that made up GLaDOS. If not for the monitor and the giant block lettering of her name, skewed at an angle, Chell would've never guessed this to be the same notorious AI waiting at home.
"Chell!"
The static-filled buzz from her portal device made her jump. A violent hiss of static erupted from the device before Doug's voice came back.
" *kkkrrrrzzzz* don't need to *ssshhhhhhrrrrrsssss* Black Mesa *kzzzzt* bombing the whole place! Chell, you've got *kkzzzrrrrkkkttt* out of there!"
"Doc, you ain't comin' in clear!" Rick called back. "Dammit! All this ice 'n metal's breakin' up the signal!"
Doug's voice came back, loud and deliberate. "Get out of there, Chell! I just got word from Black Mesa, and whether I want them to or not, they're gonna nuke the place!"
"Hey, whoa, Doc! What about the chassis? Ya know, the whole reason we're in this mess?"
"No, forget it. We've got – we... we can find another solution."
There he was, dodging again, even in the face of danger. Chell narrowed her eyes.
"Gonna take a minute, man. We're stuck in the middle 'a Troubletown, population: Screw You. We're gonna hafta go to th' other end 'a the ship t'even get to the remote portal whatsits."
Doug sighed audibly. "I'll see what I can do about delaying it. But you have to *bbzzzzz* Chell! If you *kkkkrrrkkkkkzt* chassis parts, but..."
"Doc, yer cuttin' out again!"
There was no other reply except static, and the radio then cut out. Chell sighed.
"Welp, we can scrap out whatever parts we can outta th' chassis, but seems we gotta get our tails outta here. An' don't look at me like that, Darlin'. I know it ain't what you wanna do, but once them Black Mesa goons get their hearts set on somethin', ain't nothin' gonna stop 'em from doin' it. How d'you think they stole all'a our inventions?"
Chell shook her head and popped a portal on the nearest, smoothest wall. She was going to need Wheatley's help to take the chassis apart. Even then, it would be blind luck getting the piece that Doug needed to rebuild her.
She greeted Wheatley with a smile that quickly faded. At first, she wondered when Wheatley got a second light put on his body.
Then she realized that this was not Wheatley.
AN: The story is almost done, guys! After its completion, I have a surprise for you all in the form of some bonus chapters... but they'll really spoil the story if i put them here, so i'm waiting until it's all finished.
Remember, you can find me on tumblr under the name 'portalhellorhighwater'!