Hello all!
So... my absence... umm...
in my last chapter I mentioned that me and Isaacplayz wanted to start a Co-Op story... so um... we may have put RC on hiatus, and TaNL and F&R have kind of taken a back burner, not to mention my other HTTYD story Prosthetics... but We've started writing the story anyway... so yeah... Prosthetics will be going on hiatus until one of my other stories are finished, RC will be going on hiatus until whenever me and Isaacplayz feel like continuing it (Reviews may make us want to return to it quicker) and TaNL and F&R will be worked on sparingly as my new writers craft course is taking up a lot of my writing inspiration and time. anyway...
enjoy this long awaited chapter!
Chapter 8- "What's in a name?"
"From here on out I will be unable to monitor what happens, all my information must come from you." GLaDOS explained.
Understood. I answered
I continued down the ladder and ended up on a very rusty catwalk.
The source isn't in Old Aperture, or in New Aperture, it seems to be somewhere between the two. I told her.
"Peculiar."
"The spider doesn't live at the stump of the tree, or at the canopy, but instead somewhere between." the little turret quipped.
She keeps referring to the interloper as a spider. I relayed to GLaDOS.
"I understand, but again…"
It's not a she, yeah yeah I know. I interrupted.
I continued to walk along the catwalk, then the catwalk abruptly ended as it dipped down slightly to the pit below.
Beside me was some converted walls, across the way was a catwalk, above it was some conversion gel on the walls. I portaled to both locations and landed on the other catwalk. On the pillars around me were the letters AEGIS.(1) Above the door to the room ahead of me was the same combination of letters. But it seemed to be an acronym as there were periods between each letter. There was no explanation for what each letter was so I assumed it was some kind of overly complicated acronym to say 'server room' or 'offices' or a specific kind of testing chamber. Because that's something Cave Johnson would do.
"The room lives." the turret chirped.
That sounded very ominous. I'm glad I have this turret… oh wait… I don't even know if this thing can shoot. It may be defective beyond just its voice lines; it never shot me or Wheatley on either occasion. And it's not like I could ask it, or GLaDOS.
'You better be working' I grumbled in my mind.
I walked in the doorway and onto a small elevator platform. It began to go down till we were in an octagonal room in front of us was the source of the command. Above the door it said A.E.G.I.S
Aperture Employee Guardian and Intrusion Security. Hopefully there'd be just a big red button to press that stopped the flooding, but I wasn't too confident that'd be the case. I stepped through the door to find a hallway with turrets along the sides.
Hey GLaDOS, can you shut down turrets remotely? I asked
"No, is there a problem with the one you're carrying?" she asked worriedly.
No, she's fine, I've just encountered a really long hallway filled with turrets on both sides. The hallway leads to AEGIS. I explained.
Does 'AEGIS' mean anything to you? I asked
"AEGIS, the Aperture Employee Guardian and Intrusion System. We must have done something to awaken its protocols." GLaDOS mused.
Oh, above the door it labels it as 'Security' instead of 'System'
"They must have updated it and forgot to change the acronym." GLaDOS supplied.
How do I get past the turrets?
"How should I know, you're the one that evaded all my traps before?"
Yeah you never went overkill and filled the longest hallway in Aperture with turrets on both sides!
"I can induce a forced update, which will remove the turrets from every location in Aperture, but only for a few moments before they are replaced.
Great…
I stood before the hallway and waited for the turrets to be removed.
Claws came out of the ceiling to lift them up. I sprinted through the hallway. In my haste I knocked the leg of the turret I carried against the stand that all the turrets stood on, it tumbled out of the range of my ASHPD and I had no time to go back for it.
I reached the end of the hallway just as the turrets were lowered back down.
… GLaDOS, can you force an update again?
"What is it this time?"
I dropped the turret in my haste…
"Unless there's an actual change to the code, or the design I can not force an update." she sighed
I got on my belly and began to crawl to the turret who was on its side.
I crawled under about 40 red targeting lasers before I was close enough to grab the turret(2)
"Why are you Lying down in defeat. Get up and go get rid of the interloper!" GLaDOS aggressively asked.
I jumped up at the sudden aggressive tone before realizing there were now 100s of turrets that could see me.(2)
I threw my hands over my head as I pinned myself to the floor.
Instead of hearing lots of gunfire and the turrets crying out as they are hit by each other, I heard GLaDOS.
"What are you afraid of? There's a mission to be done!" she shouted
I hesitantly stood up and found that the turrets didn't react to me at all.
They… they aren't shooting me?" I asked
"No, I've updated them, if you're gonna be living here, I can't keep my Turrets with the command to kill you on sight." she answered as if it was obvious.
Which frankly it was…
Now I felt like the Potato
I picked up the different turret and hesitantly turned to the doorway at the end of the hallway.
I hesitantly made my way towards the door as I cast a glance at every turret I walked by.
I made it to the door and turned to cast a look at all the turrets over my shoulder.
I opened the door and entered into the chamber on the inside. To my right and left were large old server rooms, but the thing right in front of me is what caught my eyes.
Hanging from many rafters was a large bulky GLaDOS like form, instead of being white with a single yellow optic, this version was black with five orange ones. There seemed to have been a sixth at one time or plans to add a sixth as there was a large black gap where it would have gone to make it symmetrical. It raised itself up to glare at me.
"Subject detected." it's monotonous voice droned throughout the room.
Ummmm GLaDOS... it isn't just a computer program… it's like you.
"AEGIS… so you're the bug in my facility." GLaDOS threatened.
"Actually Spiders aren't bugs." the turret corrected
No one answered the turret.
I looked to my left and my right in the server rooms. These little black turrets were being placed all over the room. Even GLaDOS was never overly cautious to this extent; they were even being placed atop the servers themselves and lined every wall of the room!(2)
The door locks were engaged and massive vents opened in the walls.
"Syphoning oxygen out of the central chamber." AEGIS droned.
GLaDOS you didn't happen to make some kind of air filter in my lungs did you?
"No, even if I had it wouldn't help you. He is taking the oxygen out of the room, not pumping toxic gas in." she answered.
"Replacing Oxygen with Neurotoxin." the massive black machine stated.
Suddenly even more vents opened and started to expel a faint green cloud.
I covered my mouth with my real hand and lifted the turret with the robotic one.
The turret's laser swayed around trying to find a target.
Why won't it shoot?!
"Turrets have a set list of Targets, you'd have to add AEGIS to that list. Similar to how I removed you from it." GLaDOS answered.
So what was the point in bringing a turret?!
"To encourage you."
This isn't very encouraging!
I jumped behind a set of computer monitors. I dropped the turret since she was nearly useless in this scenario.
Instead I grabbed a chair with both hands and threw it as hard as possible at the giant dangling machine.
It clanked off the massive machine.
He didn't seem to care.
"To kill a spider you need to use a boot… a Reboot." the turret supplied.
GLaDOS the turret is suggesting we try and Reboot him.
"It's a stupid Turret! Even Wheatley was smarter than they are! Even AEGIS is and he's just a series of protocols!" GLaDOS shouted.
Well I don't see you doing anything!
"I'm sealing off the flooding, releasing the Neurotoxin into empty chambers, guiding Blue and Orange, explaining everything to you, trying to Hack AEGIS and preventing him from hacking me, and you say I'm doing NOTHING!?" she raged.
"Your attempts to hack me are futile." the PA said. However it sounded like a mix of both their voices. Like they had managed to hack each other at nearly the same time.
GLaDOS he's going to kill you, can't you just disconnect this chamber?
She didn't respond which I took as a no.
GLaDOS tell him a Paradox! I realized
"Just Shut up. I'm currently busy dealing with something else." she gritted out once again in both their voices.
I heard lots of clanking and roaring behind me. I turned and found Blue and Orange sprinting down the hallway of turrets with a massive sickly green wave wiping out all the turrets behind them.
They banged on the door to be let in, I stood up and leapt for the door panel.
"Don't!" GLaDOS shouted.
I looked at them sadly; I knew they'd be recreated… but it's a horrible way to go.
Suddenly I had an idea.
I shot a blue portal at my feet.
Then looking out the door's window I blasted my orange one at the floor.
Blue and orange fell through, once they had made it through I moved my blue portal to the edge of the platform overlooking AEGIS.
The three of us flattened ourselves against the wall as the toxic liquid burst out of my portal and drenched AEGIS.
His frame shuddered then dropped.
Blue and Orange high fived each other even though they had done nothing.
AEGIS shuddered once more before going still.
We simply waited for all the toxic goop to pass through the portal and allow us access to the hallway.
I opened the door, grabbed the turret and left the room with Orange and Blue.
They were chattering at each other, loud enough that I couldn't hear the turret mumble something. I wasn't too worried, I just assumed she had said something along the lines of 'we did it!'
We returned to the main chamber where we found GLaDOS tediously fixing the facility on her cameras. Panels needed rearranging, cameras needed realigning, discouragement beams needed calibrating there was much to do.
Me and GLaDOS helped reset the facility. Of course GLaDOS was much more efficient; doing about 100 things in the time it took me to do 1 but it was something.
"You know, there's something I've been wanting to do." GLaDOS stated offhandedly.
And that would be?
"Invading Black mesa and stealing all their abandoned tech."
What about those people who blew me through your shed?
"True they will be a problem."
I assume Orange and Blue have to remain close to the facility for some reason, or you just wouldn't trust them to accomplish the mission successfully.
"Your second guess was accurate. I could arm you…" she mused
As corny as it was I had to make a pun.
GLaDOS you already have. I said while rolling my eyes and waving the prosthetic around.
She looked at me intently before she snorted and then caught herself and acted as though she totally hadn't laughed.
"What I meant was to give you a form of self defense."
What did you have in mind?
"A blade of some kind. Did you have any preference?"
Not really, you're the inventor.
"I see, well what if it came out of your forearm, you wouldn't have a need to hold the blade, this would also allow you to utilize the ASHPD in combination with the blade, however this would disallow you to use the screen or keyboard in combination with the blade."
Sure. Will I need to go to sleep?
"It will take some time, but now that I can… now that they are detachable, I can work on them without having to put you into a coma."
What will it be made of, Titanium like you?
"No, Titanium reacts negatively with the Oxygen particles in the air, my body prevents this by combining it with plastic, doing the same to the blade would negate the whole purpose of it being a sharp melee weapon."
So what would we make it out of?
"At the moment I'm not sure, I'll figure something out."
What about like a mini 'mashy spike plate' on my arm?
"From what I've recorded, you seem to be a bit more methodical than the chaos that would be required for a plate of spikes."
What about discouragement beams?
"It would be incredibly hard to make a blade out of the beams, Hard Light Bridges may be a possible option…" she answered
She created a hard light bridge in the chamber and began putting it through different experiments to see how she could change its shape.
After about an hour I had gotten bored and went to find the 'different' turret. Now that I think about it I should really give her a name.
'Turra?' I thought, no I shouldn't name her because of what she is physically.
'Omniscient?' no… That's a mouthful, I could shorten it to Omni(3) though… but it just doesn't sound right… it fits… but I don't really know, it just doesn't call to me.
Before I came up with another possible name I found the turret, I had forgotten I had left her in my room.
"Welcome back!" she chirped.
I waved at her as I went and sat on the bed.
"Is something troubling you?"
I tried to explain that I wanted to name her, but gesturing that you want to name another person is actually quite difficult.
The turret had gone silent and was just looking around.
I stood up and looked at the serial number that was hidden on the inside of her left panel. Surprisingly instead of some random number in the billions it was simply two digits.
42.(4)
The turret looked up at me.
Hey GLaDOS this turret is one of the first made.
"Hmm? What?" she asked distractedly.
The really smart turret, she's one of the first made, her serial is only 42.
"Yes yes how lovely."(5)
"I'm not one of the first, I'm Different!" she chirped.
I froze, GLaDOS didn't say anything to give away that's what I'd said, so could this turret see what I type?
If you can see this message, nod.
"Why?" GLaDOS asked
Not you.
The turret seemed like it was about to nod before I replied to GLaDOS.
I slapped my palm to my forehead in irritation.
GLaDOS, just ignore my messages for the next 5 minutes or so.
"Um… ok."
Little turret, nod if you are receiving this message.
"Are you seriously trying to communicate with that turret?" GLaDOS asked
GLaDOS! 5 minutes…
"Fine fine…"
Turret, please nod if you are receiving this message.
I'm not receiving this message, I'm different!"
God this little turret is so difficult.
"I'm not difficult, I'm different!"
"That's confirmation enough. Somehow she seems to be able to access the link between me and you." GLaDOS interrupted.
"You called me she, but… I'm not she, I'm different."
She's got you there, you did say she.
"Shut up, both of you."
She needs a name.
"Why?"
She's part of the Aperture family
"There is no 'Aperture Family' and even if there were, a Turret like her would be nothing more than a houseplant."
People name plants.
"Not anyone sane…"
"I'm not a plant, I'M DIFFERENT!"
"There, why don't we name it 'Different'?" GLaDOS agreed
Fine, what's Different in another language?
"That's a very broad question… Which language?"
Um… greek I guess?
"Διαφορετικός" GLaDOS said.
Uuuummmmm… Italian?
"When referring to a female as you do, 'Diversa'" GLaDOS translated.
That's kind of a name… Latin?
"Alium."
That would actually work. I could nickname her Ali!
Ohh and her middle and last name could be Dia and Diversa!
Ali, Dia, Diversa!
From Alium, Diafetcos and Diversa!
"You mean 'Διαφορετικός'?" GLaDOS corrected.
Sure.
"So you're basically naming her 'Dif, Dif, Different' in Latin, Greek and Italian?"
Yeah why not?
"Because it's like calling you 'Hu Hu Human' in three separate languages. But whatever, I really don't care, now if you excuse me I will be returning to experimenting with Hard light bridges." GLaDOS replied
For one, you were on board with naming her 'different' and second, you called her 'her' again.
GLaDOS remained silent.
"They aren't dead you know." the little turret said looking down at the bed.
Well of course they are, they aren't breathing or pumping blood.
"In a different place and a different time, those humans are laughing and talking about Solar Panels."(6)
Are you saying what they talk about in Heaven… is Solar panels?
"No…" the turret replied
I waited for an explanation but none came.
Ali?
"Yes?"
Are you gonna explain?
"No, no I don't think I will."(7)
Why not?
"You're making it very hard to concentrate," GLaDOS chimed in.
Then let me talk to her.
"You are."
You know what I mean!
"Yes yes, you want to communicate with the other robots..."
Could you try and figure that out as well?
"Not at the moment, I am experimenting with the hard light blade… while on the subject could you please return?"
Sure. stay here Ali.
"She's a turret she can't go anywhere without assistance."
'She'
"Just get over here." she snapped.
I rushed to her chamber and found her leering over the hard light bridge, which had a sizable half circular divot cut into its side.
"Creating a Gravitational force, such as that created by the portal gun can manipulate the individual Photons. This would theoretically allow you to stretch and shrink a HLB, however more tests are required, however we have enough knowhow to shape the Hard Light Bridge to become a blade."
That was far too techy for me, but I understood the last part.
"I'd like for you to 'draw' the design of the blade using your screen, once that is done I can make it."
I activated my screen and just kind of looked at it blankly for several minutes as I tried to imagine myself fighting with a blade attached to my forearm and how that would work.
After a couple minutes GLaDOS peered over my shoulder.
"You haven't started?" she sighed.
"You know what, don't answer that. Just focus on drawing."
Eventually I came out with the idea of a scythe like blade that would reach out under my fist so nearly my entire forearm was serrated. Beside it I also drew a large rectangular shield that I may be able to use as well, that way I have added protection instead of just a blade.
I showed my idea to GLaDOS, she added a few things but they were minor.
"Please deposit your prosthetic on the panel." she asked
I turned and detached my arm and let it drop onto the panel as she had asked.
Since it would take a while I returned to my room.
There I found the turret in the exact same place as I had left her, exactly as GLaDOS had said.
Ali certainly noticed the absence of my arm since her optic looked to my right and constricted in an almost analysing expression.
"You can't communicate without the arm?" she asked after a moment
I shook my head no.
"So you can only really answer yes or no questions?"
'Maybe', I gesture with my one hand.
She seemed to think for a moment.
"How would you feel if GLaDOS had the ability to return Wheatley?"(8)
I frowned but actually thought about it.
I mean I enjoyed his company when he wasn't attached to GLaDOS' body. But at the same time what he had done while in that body was unforgivable.
Using my shoulders and what was left of my 2 arms I made a shrugging gesture.
"Do you feel ok stealing from Black Mesa soon?" she asked
I hesitated for a brief second before I remembered all the recordings Cave Johnson had of him exclaiming in the background about Black Mesa ruining his company.
I nodded vigorously once I'd made up my mind.
"Even if there are people there?" she added
It's been over 2 years since I was blown down the elevator shaft and another 200 000 years before that when I had glimpsed what I think was a parking lot.
When I escaped later there was a wheat field in its place. With those weird humanoids with the big flying thing that shot me, either those flying things killed everyone or people just died of natural causes, I doubt anywhere else was as sustainable as Aperture, as odd as it is Aperture the 'don't worry about our patients/subjects health all we want is science' company actually has a very sustainable facility.
I nodded.
"What are you gonna do here? Like why stay?"
I looked at her expectantly as I was unable to answer her questions.
"Oh right silly me you can't answe…"
"Chell. Your Hard Light Tool is complete." GLaDOS announced over the PA system.
I turned and made my way to the central chamber, after waving goodbye to Ali of course.
When I arrived in the chamber I found GLaDOS waiting impatiently
"What took you so long?" she asked.
"Right still mute…"
I turned and found the panel next to me raised with my arm on it.
I lifted it and put it on.
The panels that covered the keyboard/screen had a small light bridge projector on the edge of the lower panel.
Using the necklace thing I powered up the blade.
A long blue blade appeared, stretching from my elbow all the way to a little beyond my knuckles, it was a little above my forearm so it wasn't pressed against my arm. It's outline was light blue with a slightly darker blue inside. It was extremely thin, but just as sharp.
I swung it around.
I quickly called in a weighted storage cube and was about to slash it in half when GLaDOS suddenly moved it out of the way and my blade hit the ground.
I disabled the blade and pulled my arm away from the ground.
I looked at her confusedly but she dropped a redirection cube in front of me.
"Use that instead."
Why?
"Errmmm… it is far too dense for a first cut." GLaDOS stated.
I activated the blade and cleaved the redirection cube down the middle.
I turned to my side where the weighted storage cube had been.
"Why don't you test the shield!" GLaDOS exclaimed as she dropped a turret on top of the storage cube.
It immediately opened fire and I barely had enough time to activate the shield and raise my arm to block the onslaught of bullets.
The shield was similar to the blade, it was light blue on the edges and dark blue on the inside. Little tiny light blue rings appeared where all the bullets pinged off.
The turret stopped after a moment.
Are you TRYING to KILL ME AGAIN? I exclaimed
"I umm… I… no…"
Then what was that?!
"I um… just go."
Fine. I huffed
I got in the elevator and neither of us said anything to each other.
The elevator stopped a few levels below the surface.
"I haven't exactly gotten around to repairing the elevator after that whole fiasco." GLaDOS regretfully admitted.
I was let out into an abandoned portion of the facility. I quickly climbed my way up through the abandoned facility and climbed out of the damaged elevator shaft. I struggled to pull myself out as I cautiously glanced around for more of the weird people who found me the first time. I activated the shield. And quickly spun around making sure the creatures and the flying thing weren't anywhere nearby.
I wasn't sure if this shield would protect me from a blast from the flying device, but it would hopefully protect me enough to prevent the need for anymore prosthetics.
Thankfully there was nothing near here.
I disabled the shield and activated the screen and brought up a satellite map of the area, I found that Black Mesa was fairly close by. So, I began to walk through the wheat field in the direction of Black Mesa.
Eventually I escaped the field of wheat and stood on the side of a road.
… a very dilapidated road.
The concrete had turned brown after so long, a ruined pickup truck had sunk into the concrete, so much so that the tops of its tires were level with the normal height of the road.
The road sign was simply a brown pole that stood in a pile of rust from the actual sign.
I glanced around yet again for those creatures or more of those flying ships.
Once again they were absent.
I followed the road for several more kilometers before I came across the black mesa facility.
The front looked like any normal facility, even Aperture on the surface… looked like a normal research facility.
I pushed open the grimey glass doors at the entrance and entered into a lobby of sorts.(9)
It was a large domes room, two hallways lead off diagonally towards the back, to the right and the left. In between was a small white paneled desk with a glass top. Inset into the glass was a small low set monitor and a keyboard and mouse.
The walls itself were white and grey with a blue accented ceiling and a single lighter blue stripe above the hallways that wrapped all around the dome.
I disregarded the hallways and went towards the desk.
Clicking the power button on the computer caused several sparks to the cords below the desk, they had been frayed and rotten with time, the power cord was the worst, the plastic had split down the entire wire and the gold filaments inside had corroded until parts were just blobs of corrosive acid.
Using the blade I cleaved the wire until the computer was no longer connected to the power source. I then used the prongs of the portal device and powered the computer using my ASHPD.
I quickly scanned through the documents on the computer and found nothing useful other than a map of the facility which I managed to maneuver my arm to the interface port while keeping it connected to the power cable. After several interrupted attempts I had managed to get my arm in a comfortable position where it connected to both the interface port and the cord.
Now to just let it download…
"I see you've come for reprisal." a deep, quiet, oddly soothing but unnerving voice interrupted my thoughts.
I jumped backwards and lost the connection to the map of the facility.
I turned and found a man wearing a Navy blue suit and a royal purple tie. He had short black hair and strange green eyes. The door to the lobby gently bumped closed behind him.
I looked at him cautiously, then to the hallways to my right and left to make sure nothing was going to come and shoot me like last time.
"I am not with the Combine, if that's the source of your apprehension." he said in that same soothing but unnerving voice.
I powered up the shield just in case this man tried anything funny.
"I presume that is from Aperture." he stated as he took in the glowing blue shield.
He turned away from me and set down a briefcase beside a small bench and then sat down on it.
"I mean you no harm, I am merely here to observe, and intervene when necessary."
I cautiously approached him and stood before the bench.
"Do sit, I am honest when I say I mean you no harm."
I hesitantly sat
"For the time being, of course." he added.
I stiffened instinctively expecting something to happen.
When nothing did I took the opportunity to try and contact GLaDOS.
"Even if the Combine were not obstructing communication I don't believe Aperture has that great of a connection."
I stopped typing and turned to him expectantly but cautiously.
In his lap sat the briefcase.
He snapped it open, the snaps of the locks were unnerving in the ominous silence.
Upon him opening it I saw a stack of paper, some pens, a small pouch and a card.
He took one of the pens and drew several circles with several lines connecting them so that each circle had two other circles connected to it, the first and last being the exception.
Then he began to draw inside each of the circles, starting from the last he drew a bench with two figures on it, a male and a very deformed female with three prosthetics, in the males lap was an open briefcase and both were staring at its contents, after that he moved on to the circle before it, there he drew a small shed with the same girl but less disfigurement and no prosthetics, instead her arms and legs were very burned and charred and her eyes were closed as the shed splintered as she crashed into it, around the shed and the female were strange beings with the same blue eyed white masks as those that had blasted me into the shed…
I did a double take as I looked at the other circle he had drawn and realized it was us currently.
I looked at him bewildered but he ignored my surprised look and moved onto filling in the other circles. In the others he drew a different man and a different woman, the man was holding something oddly similar to a Portal gun, however his was more flat edged and octagonal then the smooth round Portal device.
The very first circle he'd drawn was the only one yet to be filled in, as he finished the second he moved on to the first.
He drew a strange background, the first time he'd bothered with a background. In it were these strange floating islands, each were quite small, about the size of a car, some were a tad bit larger however.
He then drew in these strange aliens, they were large, white and bloated with three arms, two on the sides and one hanging from their 'chest' they seemed to lack legs and instead had a massive body with an equally as massive head with extremely undersized arms.
He also drew in the creatures that had blasted me into the shed and their ship, he also drew other strange versions of them and other versions of their ships.
He clicked his pen having finished his drawing, the sound echoed through the large dome shaped room.
"These are the combine and the Xen. alien forces from other dimensions."
Suddenly the picture warped and became colored and animated like a video. I watched as the 'Combine' and the 'Xen' waged war against each other.
"In this battle the Combine enslaved the Xen and added them to their empire, some however escaped, when this facility mistakenly activated a portal both species came to Earth."
The first circle returned to black and white and the next became colored and animated to show them waging war on earth with Humans in the crossfire.
"Both wanted control over earth for separate reasons; the Combine wanted to conquer and enslave humans as they had done to the Xen. The Xen wanted control of Earth as it was a strategic position to utilize to retake their home world." he explained.
The third picture became colored and animated as the second returned to its original state.
"The humans fought against them the battle lasted a mere seven hours due to the Combines superior technology. Utilizing the tech that had been attained from the combine several break thoughts were made. Black Mesa profited from most of these. "
The fourth drawing/image became alive while the third became dull and dead.
"The war had been lost, however there were survivors who continued to interfere in the Combine's plans. My Employers took a special liking to them and employed me to nudge them in the right direction."
I gently tapped his chest and then pointed upwards then tapped the Xen to hopefully ask 'your employers are the Xen?'
"My employers are the Xen, if that's what you are asking." he answered as he recorrected his tie.
He then pulled another sheet of paper out from beneath the first and handed it to me along with his pen.
'And you have the power to make pictures come alive?' I asked
"No, Time and Space work differently for me, as you must have noticed by this image." he stated as he skipped over several of the circles and made the last one come alive.(10)
'And what do you want with me?' I inquired
"Simply to nudge you, as I've done with others in the past."
Abruptly he closed the briefcase and stood up.
He walked towards the door before turning to me,
"Farewell, Ms Johnson." he bid before turning and opening the door.
'Sir what's your name?' I hurriedly scribbled out but by the time I rushed to the door to show him my question, he was gone. I even opened the door and stepped outside forgetting that he had mentioned 'Time and Space work differently for him'.
Unsurprisingly I saw no sign of him.
k wow this is the most amount of footnotes I've ever had in a single chapter... k so... *deep breath* lets go.
(1) congrats to nicholas1212123 for guessing correctly
(2) I feel after the events of Portal Stories: Mel (I know its not officially canon but screw it) AEGIS would beef his security if he was ever reawakened. and if you want to know how he was reawakened go back and reread the labels of the levers Chell flips in the server room, read it carefully and even find the definitions and the plural forms of the words if you don't understand.
(3) a reference to my character in the new Co-Op story with Isaacplayz, I haven't started posting it yet for lazyness reasons, but go check it out on his account.
(4) if you don't get this reference... just... I don't know...
(5) something Isaacplayz will say when I get over excited about an idea I have for a story
(6) this is a short inside joke me and Isaacplayz have while working on the other story.
(7) a short reference to Captain America's line at the end of Endgame.
(8) this is kind of a question to you as my readers, if I'm able to... would you like Wheatley to be re-introduced into this story? please leave your answer in a review
(9) any description of events, characters, locations or items from Half-life are purely from google images, the half life wiki and my own imagination because I'm too lazy to figure out what it looks like.
(10) so what he is doing here is he has created a portal of sorts that travels through space and time and placed it over the picture he's drawn, so it will show what he has drawn technically in real time.
*DISCLAIMER* please ignore dhea11's review, I've asked that they don't review again due to them not leaving a review about this story and instead promoting their own contest about a completely separate genre. If I were able to I'd remove their comment, however since they have an account I am unable to do so, so I must settle for reporting them and hoping the Moderators remove it.
Thanks for reading everyone!