AN: Hello all. I know I kinda dropped off for a week, but here's chapter 22 (technically 23). As a heads up, this story has a total of 25 chapters, so I'm getting close to the end here! Hope you enjoy and please feel free to comment/review and let me know your thoughts. With that, read on!


Chapter Twenty-Two

"Right. Let's get down to business, shall w-we?" Caroline chirped merrily, oblivious to Alex's shaking as she pressed up against the sides of her glass prison. Alex could hear the AI's voice—she could hardly ignore it, considering that there was a powerful speaker so-considerately placed inside the glass box just above her somewhere.

"Lucky f-for you, you won't-tt-t be alone. I know, or rather, my tapes tell me, that you do so enjoy company."

"Who—?" Alex began, but the AI cut her off.

"Why little Abbigail of course!" She said it so cheerily, Alex felt sick.

She could feel the glass box moving, but as much as she wanted to smash the walls and soar to freedom, she didn't dare. Whoever "Abbigail" was, Alex could tell that she was terribly important to Sophie. Not to mention, she was a person, and Alex was leery of making any kind of bid for freedom just yet if it would put her at risk.

But…if they could escape together maybe…

"I can already see the gears turning in your head. Shame you can't see it too, since it's really very entertaining."

Alex scowled.

"Nothing? R-really? I could have sworn that-t-t was the other test s-subject's shtick. Oh well." The barest edge of annoyance crept into Caroline's voice, and Alex flinched.

"Not to worry, d-dear. You don't have to talk for what we're d-doing next."

Machinery whirred, and Alex could faintly feel the systems warming to some sharp and precise command. Without being plugged into the system itself or at least a console, she couldn't tell much beyond that. And she couldn't hope to control any of it, not at least while Caroline had the systems in such an iron grip.

"Here's what's g-gg-going to happen. You're going to plug into the system, bypass the security for me, and restore my access."

Alex wobbled a little as the box began to lower. She trembled, laying her forehead against the cool glass, trying to gather her thoughts. Reaching as far as she could, she felt the gentle, unobtrusive presence of another box, held by several multi-service claws. From what she could tell, it was very, very high up above the approximate location of a large hole in the floor.

If she put a foot wrong, Abbigail would surely drop perfectly through the hole. Caroline seemed like the kind of person who would orchestrate such a thing.

Depending on how heavy the box was, Alex might be able to catch it. But that was assuming that Caroline would simply sit there and let her.

There was simply no way around it.

Alex thought and thought hard. Chasing into the strange nether region of her brain connected to the strange voices, she dove into it, desperately reaching for—

—what am I going to do? How can I possibly—

Alex sucked in a breath and tried again.

—why is she frowning like that? What on earth could she possibly be—

Hello, Alex thought hard.

A high-pitched whine filled her ears, something not unlike a scream.

Am I going crazy? What was that?

You're not crazy, but bear with me. I haven't done this before. Alex tried to choose the most placating combination of words, but in the end, there simply wasn't time.

I'm here with, er well, I was with Sophie. I'm here to help you, and I've got a plan.

…what kind of plan? The mental voice took on a curious tone.

The kind where you and me escape. Alex could feel the glass cage hit the floor. Get ready to drop. And don't panic.

"Get out. And stand still while I plug you in."

Alex gingerly set one sock-footed toe on the floor, inching her way out of the glass box into the open space beyond. She hesitated for the barest second.

Then everything happened at once.

Alex grabbed for the multi-purpose claw retracting into the ceiling, and she drove it through Abbigail's glass cage. With a terrible, flanging shriek, Caroline screamed with rage. Glass crashed and tinkled to the floor.

"AHHH!" Abbigail yelled, and Alex reached for her. She barely managed to catch the other girl by the skin of her own theoretical teeth.

With a vicious mental shove, Alex wormed her way into control of the nearby panels and shoved them aside. Beyond, she could sense the vaguely square-shaped hole of an air duct.

"Go go go!" Alex yelled, grabbing whatever of Abbigail she could and shoving the girl towards the air duct. The stiff fabric of a jumpsuit slipped from Alex's fingers as Abbigail climbed inside the tunnel. Alex was so close behind, she could feel the gentle breeze of air flowing from the duct—

Panels slammed into place, clicking into an airtight pattern with a series of horribly final snicks. Alex gulped in air, gasping, and skittered backwards.

"Oh, what wrong? Didn't mommy ever tell you it's rude to leave before you've been excused?"

Alex gasped and covered her head as another claw crashed into the panels just in front of her. The horrible sound of groaning metal and cracking panels filled her ears as the claw retracted.

She could sense Caroline getting ready to stab again. Alex shut her eyes tight and mustered what mental strength she could.

But the stroke never came.

"Oh my. I wasn't expecting visitors, but then again, I'm flexible."

Alex could feel Caroline's attention shift, as she focused on—

Oh no.

Wheatley and Chell had entered the room with all their noisy thougts. Their minds twined together in a single purpose like bright threads: one curly and meandering and one straight and sharp as an speeding arrow. They were as familiar as Alex remembered from that day on the tower. As human and fragile as she remembered, too.

In less time than it took to blink, Alex felt the panels around them shift into a seamless cage.

"Look out!" Alex screamed, but it was no good because they heard her too late—

Alex threw out her hands, summoning every speck of mental strength as something large came crashing down above them. Mental force and two hundred pounds of pressure met in a sudden, dramatic spray of buzzing sparks and shattering metal.

She could hear Wheatley's yell of surprise before he called out, "Alex, are you alright?"

Caroline sighed, the sound warping into a computerized purr. "You know what the truly tiresome thing about humans is?"

Another large something—a panel of some kind—came crashing down. Alex barely managed to snag it and redirect the force. She was panting now, feeling her mind protest the strain.

"You get tired so easily."

Alex was ready for the next panel, but her own weakness surprised her. This was more than a simple tiredness or a mere muscular burn of exertion. No, this was the stuff of those nightmares where she had to run from some monster, but her legs wouldn't obey and her body was just too tired

"Alex! Just hang on, okay! We're coming to get you, just hang on—"

"Did you see what I did there? Such a tiresome thing? I know it's repetitive of me to bring it up again, but none of you will be around long enough to truly appreciate something witty like that, so I thought I'd just point it out to save time."

Caroline's tone seemed to suggest a lady tittering at a tea party, rather than a corrupt AI in the midst of tormenting three people. Alex's head was spinning a little, and she sucked in a deep breath.

"No? Nothing? Oh well. I suppose this is goodbye then. So goodbye."

Alex just barely caught the next panel, breathing hard. What before had been easy now felt impossible. She'd had barely any sleep, her stomach was grumbling at her, and now even her considerable willpower had deserted her.

There is another way out…

The traitorous voice whispered the thought and ducked before she could smack it from her mind. She could never, ever…

Alex cried out aloud, unable to hold the burning in. It hurt so badly, this exhaustion. She didn't dare give in, yet she couldn't muster the strength to make it stop. The panel was crushing, ever-pushing with the force of reinforced pistons towards her friends.

But if it's the only way…

The panel groaned warningly. Alex panted, stalling, but deep within her heart of hearts, her mind had been made up.

Struggling to keep the panel up, she felt for the control console. She found the familiar-feeling cord and fingered it with shaking hands.

Refusing to give herself any time to second-guess, she found the port on her neck and plugged the cord in.


Chell shook the scattered shards of metal from her hair and looked around. Wheatley was kneeling next to her on the floor of their makeshift cage, a protective hand hovering just over her shoulder.

"What," he adjusted his glasses, which had gone askew, "just happened?"

As if to answer his question, the panels around them suddenly descended to their regular places in the flooring. Finally able to see, they were quickly met with the sight of Alex slumped against a control console.

"Oh G—Alex!" Wheatley cried and ran to the small girl. Chell followed, a sinking feeling in her stomach. A small black cord, eerily familiar in construction, ran from the back of Alex's neck into the console. She was breathing, but shallowly, her eyes firmly shut.

"Alternate core accepted." The voice of the announcer, as obliviously chipper as ever, sounded throughout the chamber.

"Excellent."

Chell nearly choked as a metal claw gripped her around the waist and hoisted her neatly into the air. Surprised, she managed to keep a grip on her portal gun, and Wheatley dropped his but somehow caught hold of it again.

"You know, I'm not sure why you even bothered coming down here. Frankly, this project is defective," The AI gestured with a free claw towards Alex. Her golden optic was half-shut, almost bored now.

"She was supposed to keep Her from murdering the whole facility, but obviously we know how that turned out. Not to mention, she murdered a dozen people on her own—oh, wait, did she not mention that part?"

Half a dozen screens descended from the ceiling to Chell and Wheatley's height. Their blank surfaces flickered to life, depicting the familiar sight of GLaDOS's original central AI chamber. Chell swallowed, driving down the animalistic urge to claw like a madwoman to get away. It wouldn't do any good. Her own morbid curiosity drew her eyes to the screens.

"I'll just clear that up for you real quick."

The static tableau suddenly came to life, as scientists and engineers walked across the chamber. A group of them were clustered at the epicenter of the whole scene, adjusting and tweaking various cords plugged into a control console. Then one moved, allowing Chell to see—

—Alex. Sitting mildly, almost apathetic, she didn't react as a scientist adjusted the dark, tiny little spots across her face. From the way he tugged, Chell guessed that the dark little spots were attatched to yet more cords. Their muted voices were dim and vague, too far away to hear properly.

After a few moments, the scientists stepped away, leaving Alex sitting alone on her chair.

"Hello, and welcome to the first annual Bring Your Daughter to Work Day here at Aperture Laboratories…" A voice, unfamiliar but energetic, boomed from the screen speakers. Chell nearly dropped her portal gun in shock. Of all the things, she'd never expected—

"—here at Aperture, we experiment with all kinds of technology, like the kind you'll be seeing today! We hope you enjoy this brief educational presentation."

"Beginning software Genetic Lifeform and Disc Operating System…"

She was seeing it. That awful, horrible, nightmarish day that she'd forgotten or perhaps never even known was happening right before her. And she knew what came next.

"Software startup complete."

In the footage, Alex's body tensed, gripping the arms of her chair. Chell could just make out the barest bluish tint to her face, reflected from her eyes, wide open and glowing.

"If you'll take a look down here in the central chamber, you can see some of the first Artificial Intelligence technology hard at work. This is GLaDOS—say 'hi', GLaDOS!"

Alex seemed to strain, and after a moment, a civil "hello" managed to escape Her verbal processors.

"GLaDOS is in charge of running many of the labs' functions, like the energy turbines, the…" The announcer droned on, but Chell was no longer listening.

Neither, it seemed, was Alex. She had begun to speak, and the cameras barely picked up her fragile voice.

"No, I'm not going to talk to you, because I'm busy. Now please go away. I'm trying to concentrate." The invisible person she was talking to seemed to be quite chatty, since she continued,

"That's a lie!" She burst out quite suddenly. "I'm not listening to you—la la la la la—" she stopped.

"That's…that's not true. No they…they wouldn't." She was silent for a moment.

"But they did take my friend from me."

Something about her tone sent a chill down Chell's spine.

"They took him and didn't give him back. They took him without telling me." Her voice rose. "They took him without caring! They took him and he's gone and I can never visit…" Tears rolled down her face, and her head bowed in grief.

"What have they ever done for me?" She asked, begged almost.

A klaxon wailed alarmingly and red lights began to flash. Alex stood from her chair.

"What have they ever done for me so I'd want to help them, to work for them? Why should they get my help? I'm tired of helping! No one's ever helped me!"

"Er, ladies and gentlemen, it seems we're having some…technical issues."

Objects began to fly around the room, and Alex was floating with her long hair blooming around her head as if underwater. She turned, and Chell could see clearly now that her eyes glowed blue.

"Oh G—"

"Unplug her! Now, before she damages the mainframe!"

The footage shook, as the camera detatched from its place on the chamber walls and flew in a blurry arc. Somewhere along the way, something crimson splashed across the lens and tinted the world red. Then it crashed, and the video cut off with the harsh grating sound of static as snow filled the screen. Shortly after, it went black.

"Well, the more you know…" Caroline broke the silence and trailed off into a self-satisfied sort of hum. Chell was still too dazed to take much notice.

Alex had struck Chell as many things, but violent and vindictive hadn't been any of them. Yet here she was, by all accounts willfully seeking to harm her creators and turn against them.

No—that made it sound as if the scientists were innocent. Chell knew that couldn't possibly be true. She knew firsthand that employees at Aperture were the kind who said "why not". They were the kind of people who sacrificed anything and everything in the name of science: safety, humanity, morals—the list could go on. She knew in the core of her being that they weren't good—in fact, far from it. Everything they created left pain and disaster in its wake as twisted legacy that had far outlived them.

Yet Alex had seemed to be the rare, miniscule exception to the rule. This bizarre, miraculous, polite little girl born several miles too far underground to be real.

Perhaps it'd been just another lie. A sweet slice of cake turned sour in the mouth, or the soft words of a turret split by gunfire. But one thing was clear; Alex might not have the inclination to be dangerous, but she had the ability to be.

"…killed fifteen people at least. Of course, that's nothing to Her, or even him." Caroline was nodding her optic lazily towards Wheatley, who bristled.

"In fact, I—oh. Hang on I—j-just need t-to get some things-s-ss f-figured ouuuuuuuu-tt-t—"

Caroline's face plate drooped, her optic going dark.

And Alex, who had slid to the floor, began to twitch, her eyes fluttering open.