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Chapter Fifteen: A Rescue Party
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Obligatory 4-year hiatus author's note: YEA I'M STILL ALIVE. HA. Cake to you if you've followed me for long enough to understand the pun. Anyway, idk about you, but I sure as hell could happily forget that the last 4 years of my life ever happened. So. In a valiant effort to forgive, forget, and make science, I give you this update. And hopefully more than one. But that I cannot yet promise. Science, y'know. It be like dat.
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The next morning, Chell had awoken even before the first tinges of pale light had broken the horizon. The atmosphere inside of the The Johnson House was sleepy and yet full of uneasy anticipation as its residents breakfasted and then began to load their gear down the stairs and into the entrance hall. Chell had packed enough food and water to keep her alive for two days, just in case, along with an assortment of other useful items that Clifford had given her. She put all of this inside of a heavy hiking bag that she deposited beside the entrance hall's double doors and then decided to wait in the quiet stillness of the parlour for the rest of The Coalition to assemble.
While she had not been permitted to carry a gun (firearm privileges were reserved for members only, Clifford had explained), Chell had found herself equally surprised and pleased when he had approached her while she'd been trying to calm her nerves by finishing reading her book in the parlour with a hot cup of tea beside her, and proceeded to hand her what had appeared to be nothing less than an actual dual portal device. Chell had been floored as she'd held the weighty gun, marvelling at its smooth white plastic shell and three gravity-manipulator prongs with a gaping open mouth.
How? She'd wanted to ask, but before she could reach for her notepad Clifford had shaken his head and laughed. "No, no, it is not an original portal device, although the function is more or less the same—this is a device I myself have created using a salvaged non-functional device from Aperture, many years ago, now."
The surprise and disbelief Chell felt must have shown on her face, because Clifford laughed some more. Chell, however, was beginning to feel that nothing could surprise her anymore—was there anything at all that they hadn't either copied or outright taken from the Laboratories, aside from GLaDOS herself? But wait—as she'd learned the previous day, they'd tried very hard to copy her, too.
Chell rolled the gun over in her palms before she slipped her right hand inside of the compartment and shuddered. It didn't just look like an original portal gun, but it felt like one—the material, the size and the shape, and the controls. There was just one minor difference, which was that this portal device only seemed to have two triggers, rather than the three that she was accustomed to. She frowned at Clifford.
"Does it work?" he smiled, watching her closely. "Oh, yes. It has been tested, though in a… a more ethical way than you may be familiar with. Go ahead and give it a try."
Chell raised the gun and with automatic precision pulled the rightmost trigger, aiming at a blank space of chestnut-panelled wall. A sizzling bolt of electric blue shot from the gun and exploded there, momentarily casting a shimmering pattern of cobalt sparks across the room as the gun wobbled in recoil. Chell barely flinched, letting her breath out slowly as she lowered it.
Clifford seemed unfazed. "Right, I forgot to mention." He pulled some kind of black, eerily glowing electronic device that somewhat resembled a very bulky wristwatch with a neon green screen out of one of his overly large labcoat pockets and proceeded to fasten it to Chell's left forearm, just above her elbow. "You'll need to use this if you want to make the portals stick on non portal-able surfaces. They still won't bind out here, mind you, but within the walls of Aperture, they will bind to any surface that emits Aperture's electronic signature."
She nodded, remaining stoic as she bit her lip, wondering. Could they really have developed portal technology that was able to bind with any Aperture surface and not just the typical portal-conductive ones found within the facility? Where had this thing been back when she was stuck inside of the testing track! You could portal literally anywhere! The results would be limitless. And moreover, what would GLaDOS have to say about such a device?
Something inside of her said that GLaDOS would find it somewhat unethical and plausibly outright disturbing. If GLaDOS had found out that the main subject of her endless years of science was to be upgraded into, essentially, cheat mode by some amateur mad scientist (who claimed to be the half-brother of Cave Johnson himself), Chell was more than willing to bet that the testing-crazed supercomputer would be armed and ready to pump the place full of deadly neurotoxin before you could even say 'science' at the mere idea of such a thought.
Yikes. Chell bit her lip, praying silently that Clancey's Wireless Power Transmitter continued to remain operational and subdue GLaDOS for as long as they were inside of the facility.
"As you can see, it's quite a well-crafted device," continued Clifford as Chell turned the PDD over, examining it. "We created it to be emancipation-proof, bulletproof, waterproof, and of course, neurotoxin-proof. Although, if it comes to that, you might want to start running for the exit."
Chell managed to return a ghost of Clifford's smirk, but she couldn't tell if he was genuinely kidding or not. You have no idea how likely that actually is, and you better hope your comrades never find out, she wanted to say to him, but sufficed for prodding questioningly at the buttons on the left side of the device.
"Ah, yes. Those are very useful within the testing tracks, I believe," continued Clifford with a nod. "Thermal Discouragement Beam Transmitter, to shoot lasers of your own accord. Emancipation Grid Resistance Field, to carry objects through the Emancipation Grids. And see that screen? When you're inside the chamber, the PDD will automatically connect to the wireless feeds being broadcast by every testing device, and gives the current status of each device, which you can manually change, like this—" he hit a number of buttons on the screen as Chell watched with her mouth slightly open, "And tell a button that a cube is on it when it isn't, or change a timer to count down for longer. Quite brilliant, isn't it?"
Without even tearing her eyes away from the device, she nodded. In truth, it was brilliant— so this was how Clancey and his team had made it deep enough into Aperture with GLaDOS awake to activate the Wireless Power Transmitter, she thought. All this time she'd believed that the five men she had met in the wheat field had been defenceless against GLaDOS, but now, she realized that she'd been wrong all along. And while the PDD (even together with the WPT) still did not make GLaDOS fully defenseless or the idea of waltzing back into Aperture Science after GLaDOS had already let her leave once of her own accord feel any less crazy, Chell had to admit that it was going to be a lot less dangerous than her previous adventures inside of it had been.
Wheatley would have referred to such a concept as the PDD as 'hacking', she thought, reminiscing almost fondly about the way his core body was able to manipulate hidden service panels within the testing track in order to open various routes for escape. Wheatley wasn't going to be joining her this time, though, she quickly reminded herself, and for good reason, too—a rescue mission into Aperture was no place for the Intelligence Dampening Sphere, human body or no human body. Not when so much was at stake and so likely to go so horribly wrong.
The thought of it did make her feel a little bit guilty, though—it would be the first time she'd ever set foot inside of the facility without him since they'd first met, and despite the rather sour memory of him stabbing her in the back, turning into a homicidal megalomaniac AI and trying to murder her seven ways from Sunday, Chell had (once up on a time) considered Wheatley a useful escape partner, a valuable asset, a friend, even, and it almost wouldn't feel right, confronting GLaDOS again without him.
The thought of this must have shown on her face, because Clifford's smile faltered. "Are you having misgivings?" he asked sadly, his eyes full of compassion. "I know this must be very tough. You'd only just escaped, just nigh two days ago … to walk back into such a trauma so soon is truly unthinkable."
Chell's shoulders dipped in a huge sigh. Well, she thought. It's not like I've really got a choice. From the moment she'd made up her mind in the meeting yesterday, she knew, it had to be her. There was no way that she was going to let someone else do this job. There was no way that anyone else could do this job.
"From what Doug told me of you, I daresay I'd be hard pressed to meet a more determined, resilient young lady in all of the state of Michigan, even the country," Clifford fixed her with another empathetic stare, his brown eyes shining kindly from behind his silvery glasses as he placed his worn hands on her shoulders, much like a father comforting his daughter. "I pray that this is the end of the bad times, and not the start of the end times. I feel for you, Chell. You have led a life where you have never—to your knowledge, at least—known a place of safety, a life without turmoil or constant danger. If I could give you anything, it would be salvation from that, but I need your help, I am afraid. Just one last time… and I hope with all my heart that the next time I see you there is one less thing that will weigh heavy on our minds, and that you can finally have some peace."
Chell swallowed hard. Never in her life had another human being nor robot ever spoken to her that way—not Doug, not Wheatley, and certainly not GLaDOS—and although she mostly considered herself to be a very non-emotional person who was strong and capable of just about anything, she couldn't help but feel a hard, painful lump rise in her throat at his words. She blinked hard, trying to hold it down, hating the way the lump burned and made her eyes start to feel glassy and prickly. Chell did not cry—this was solid, believable fact. Chell did not cry. Chell was not weak. Chell was a test subject, a soldier, a fighter. Chell was a survivor, She had to think about the mission, and only the mission, right now. It was as Clifford had said—there might be time, somewhere in the future, for things like what her and Wheatley had discussed yesterday morning to occur (things which now seemed like a millennium ago), for leisurely trips down to Lunar City, afternoon coffee shop shenanigans and lounging about on the sloping green lawns of The Johnson House happily in the late sunshine and enjoying what it was like to be human. But that time was not now, and that life was not hers, and Chell was not yet free to be human.
"As payment, you are welcome, from this moment forward, to stay with me in The Johnson House whenever you would like," said Clifford, clearing his throat. "This place will always be a home to you, do you understand, Chell?"
Chell was saved from having to think up some way to reply to the surprisingly emotional statement by the sound of the parlour door being banged open as somebody shouted loudly "There you two are," in an overly theatrical, exuberant voice. "It's just about time to go!"
The voice was followed by the din of mixed conversation as everyone inside of the entrance hall was talking loudly at once. Chell jumped, finding herself suddenly pulled back to her senses, and Clifford let his hands fall from her shoulders, giving her one last, empathetic look before they joined the crowd.
Inside the entrance hall were Jammers and two of his comrades, two men she recognized as Henry and Ryan; Doug was up, and so were Ann and Jose; and lurking near the corner were the twins Brayden and Bradley and none other than their good old favorite robot-turned-human, whom Chell was very surprised to see was already awake. She had not gone to wake him this morning on purpose.
She watched, somewhat guiltily, as Wheatley's eyes roamed the room and came to rest on her, but she was saved by having to answer to the hurt expression on his face by the arrival of the rest of The Coalition. It had been decided the previous night who of their number was to come for the journey back to Aperture, who was going to be joining Mayor Jacobs back to The Core Tower, and who was to remain at home, by Clifford; and Chell, to Wheatley's displeasure, had made sure Clifford knew that she thought he was quite right to make the decision that Wheatley should stay behind.
In fact, it had been rather coldly that Wheatley had wished her good night the previous evening, even going as far as to restrain himself from the awkward, full-body hug he usually gave her in favor of a curt nod.
Which was saying a lot for him, she knew, because Wheatley and the concepts of personal space and self-control were normally two things that did not really exist together and yet he'd somehow found it within himself to be frigid with her when she'd long since found out that the damned ex-core basically had abandonment issues and really was genuinely sorry for trying to kill her. Which basically meant that he'd wanted her to be by his side literally as much as was possible since, well, forever, as if the previous night wasn't proof enough of that already. So to see him standing there, successfully holding himself back was yet another blow to her psyche; and it wasn't like she couldn't handle it, lord knew she'd dealt with much worse before. But it was more the fact that this did not feel like a good omen, to leave him here like this—and angry with her, to boot—when she had such a risky mission ahead of her.
But Wheatley was not going to be alone in staying behind; he would be kept company by the usual occupants of The Johnson House. Ann, Jose, and their fellow engineers, it had been decided, would accompany the Mayor back to Lunar City for an all-systems checkup on the Core. Marcus, Clifford, and his personal team of scientists were going to be going over blueprints and schematics of both AI down in The Johnson House's laboratory, and Felix, the twins and their mother, Wheatley, as well as a small number of other guests were going to be free to spend the afternoon doing as they pleased.
Chell hoped that Wheatley would have the sense to keep himself busy and distracted enough to not ruminate on her whereabouts while she was gone; every PDD device was fit with a GPS which would relay the location of the person wearing it back to Clifford, so that he would be able to track their progress and be notified if their plan should go awry. If that should happen, Chell felt certain that Wheatley would be the first to know (besides Clifford, at least), but she didn't want him stressed out about her in the meantime, if she could help it.
But convincing someone as neurotic as Wheatley not to worry about someone as important to him as she was would be a tall order, though, even for an able person who wasn't a mute lunatic and was capable of speaking.
The remaining members of Clancey's Elite team—Ryan, Henry, and Jammers—would be accompanying Chell on her journey into Aperture for her protection and to assist Clancey in the removal of his team. Also joining the group, much to Chell's surprise, was going to be none other than Doug Rattmann, who had not set foot inside of the facility since he had left it nigh 30 years ago. "It's now or never," he'd said with a solemn sigh the previous night, upon Clifford asking him whether or not he would like to go with them. "It's about time I met her face to face. I was there when it started, after all… it only makes sense that I should be there for the end. And, besides," he'd shot a small smile over to Chell, "Someone who really knows her ought to be there to watch your back."
They'd looked each other in the eye, after that, and shared a moment of understanding. It meant a lot to her, that Doug was willing to do that, for her. He was getting on in age—he definitely was no spring chicken anymore, that was for sure—and even she knew that his prescription only took the edge off of his illness some days. It was extremely brave of him, to have the courage to face GLaDOS again, after all these years, and after what he'd went through the last time he'd seen her. Chell was probably the only person around who could fully understand the gravity of his decision and what it truly meant.
As Clifford excused himself, Doug wandered over to her and gave her another curt nod. "All ready, then?" he asked her meaningfully, keeping his voice low, but Chell could make out his words even over the sound of many 'goodbye's and 'good luck's being exchanged all around them.
Chell fixed him with a challenging, serious look in reply that said quite plainly, as ready as I'll ever be, and nodded back.
From behind her came a familiar voice just before she found herself being pulled into a tight hug. "Ah, take care of yourself, won't ya, girl?" said Ann's voice fondly. "I've never been in, in the Labs I mean, myself. But I heard it's real dangerous. You'll be careful down there, won't ya, darling?"
"Yes, do make sure to be careful, miss Chell," Jose added with a wink, following behind his sister. "We look forward to seeing you around here more often. You, and … ah, Willy? Was that his name? I always forget. Whare is he, anyway?"
"Wheatley, you mean?" said Doug, looking around for Wheatley's sandy-haired head. Chell looked around, too, frowning. While he had been there just a moment before, he was now nowhere to be seen. "I just saw him here. I think he may have gone back into the kitchen."
"Ah, whell," Jose sighed. "We will have to say goodbye another time."
"Yes. Jose and I are heading out with the other engineers in just a few minutes," Ann told them, slinging a rather large, bulky bag over one shoulder.
"I think it is just about time for us to be off, too. I believe our escort is waiting for us outside," said Doug pointedly before stretching out his hand and shaking both Ann's and Jose's formally. "We wish you the best of luck."
"And you," they replied back together.
Chell nodded, mustering bravery, and smiled as best she could despite feeling her insides squirm, knowing that it was not just her rather light breakfast of half a slice of peanut butter toast that was responsible for it. I'll be right back, she thought, giving Doug another pointed look. If Wheatley really believed that by disappearing so abruptly she was going to leave without saying goodbye to him, he could think again. He could swallow his wounded pride for long enough to give her a decent goodbye …
"Okay, but hurry. I'll wait for you on the lawn, all right?" Doug swung his own pack over his shoulder. "James and Henry are waiting."
Knowing she didn't have much time to waste, Chell quickly made her way to the other side of the hall through the mix of scientists and engineers left still wandering around the place chatting. She narrowly avoided Mayor Jacobs, skirting around the place where he was talking rapidly with wild gestures to Marcus with a wide berth, and entered the near-solitude of the gleaming kitchen, shutting the heavy oak door behind her.
Instantly, there was a thick, almost tangible stillness in the air. The kitchen was empty except for one lone human with sandy-blonde hair and a fair few freckles, seated at the head of the table in sombre silence. Behind him, a lone beam of the earliest sunlight of the day was streaming inside through the wide kitchen window, illuminating the dust in the air as it fell across him, partially hiding his pale face in shadow and making his hair glow almost orange from its ruby red hue.
"So." Wheatley's usually jaunty accent was pitched almost comically high, but with none of the warmth it normally had. "Leaving, are you? Without me?"
There was a beat of silence in which Chell felt a coldness spreading between them. No, she wanted to say. You know it's not like I have a choice.
There was the sudden scraping of chair legs as Wheatley abruptly stood up and strode toward her, somehow seeming taller than usual due to the sunlight still steaming in behind him, keeping his abnormally pale profile partially hidden. "That hurts, you know," he murmured, still cold. "It hurts that you didn't stand up for me, there, vouch for me, or anything. I'd have liked to come with you, as you very well know. I mean, it's not like you could have escaped from the Laboratories the first time without me, is it. And here you are, about to waltz back in, willy nilly, probably to your death, and you haven't even got the forethought to think, 'well, maybe old Wheatley might have a problem with that', yeah?"
As Wheatley spoke, he'd been advancing upon her, his voice growing louder and louder with each word. When he was close enough, his face was thrown into sharp relief and Chell caught sight of his eyes. While as a human, she usually found them to be less expressive than his core body used to be, they were currently shockingly wide and full of clear anger, their cobalt-blue depths somehow having lost all their warmth, mirroring his voice.
"Maybe old Wheatley might not like it, if I left him out here alone, in a world he's never even been in before, in a body he's only just got used to, with a bunch of strangers, scientists and things, people he doesn't even know," he sniffed, staring down at her motionless form with something of a mix between pain and satisfaction at the look of hurt and horror growing on Chell's face. "Yeah, real clever, innit. And Her, in the facility, what's She going to do to you, do you think, once she sees you in there again. Do you really think she'll let you go a second time? If it were me, mate, I'd have never have volunteered to go down there. It's not like it was mandatory, was it. Could have got on just fine, without volunteering yourself up on a mashy spike plate. I already saved your neck once, didn't I? And I won't even be there this time to save it again. Yeah, that's right. Ol' Wheatley won't even be there to save you a second time. I guess you had no forethought of that. Well."
The room was now ice-cold regardless of being half-full of sunshine. Unable to speak, Chell wasn't sure of what to do besides just stand there stupidly, frozen in shock. She wasn't the most expressive person to begin with, having spent so long holding in her emotions in order to survive GLaDOS's best laid traps, and Wheatley's words were so angry and shocking that Chell felt almost helpless to comfort him. He had to know that this wasn't on purpose. Neither she nor anyone else had intended to make him feel bad, after all. They had only wanted to protect him from harm!
"I thought we were a team," he said finally, his voice breaking. "'Ave you ever really cared about me, or was it just about—?"
But whatever Wheatley had been about to say next, Chell did not hear it, because at that precise moment, the doors behind him burst suddenly open with a loud bang, startling everyone. In streamed the twins, Bradley and Brayden, who froze, mid-conversation about who was going to take a turn first at their new video game, gaping at the awkward scene before them.
"Whoa," they said in unison, their eyes darting between the two adults.
Chell, wide-eyed, had backed into the adjacent wall, while Wheatley had paused in the middle of the room, his hands balled into fists, eyes still cold and staring. But at the arrival of the twins his entire body seemed to deflate with sadness as all the fight disappeared out of him and he sniffed loudly again. He gave Chell one last heartbroken look before he turned toward the twins, trying to muster a sense of cheerfulness.
"Hello again you two," he mumbled. "Don't you two know what time it is? Shouldn't you both be back in bed?"
"Maybe," said Bradley, shrugging off the oddness of the scene before him with ease only a child could illustrate. "We can't sleep. We've got a new video game, The Warriors of Grove Park, and we can't wait to try it! Do you want to play with us, Wheatley?"
Wheatley blinked. Even to Chell, the sudden introduction of normalcy in the form of the twins and their childlike innocence and excitement over something as mundane as a video game was a bit hard to process; Chell saw Wheatley shoot her one more hurt look before he cleared his throat and addressed the twins.
"Of course," he said with a pained smile. "Of course I'd like to play."
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Leaving Wheatley behind after their disagreement had filled Chell with a strong sense of unease that she just couldn't seem to shake off. They had had no chance to come to any sort of truce, and the arrival of the twins had made further discussion on the subject impossible. So Chell had left, fixing Wheatley with her best I'm sorry look, grabbed her pack and portal device from the entrance hall, and had gone to meet Doug, Jammers, and the rest of their escort out on the lawn.
Putting Wheatley to the back of her mind as best she could, Chell found their departure to be anticlimactically unceremonious; she could have been leaving for a leisurely walk for a morning coffee down in the city limits, only they did not go in that direction. Instead, they made their way down the garden path, the very same pathway Chell and Wheatley had been led up by Jammers as 'prisoners' what felt like a century ago, during a late summer sunrise that had happened to be nearly identical to the one she was witnessing just now.
With a pang, Chell turned and took one last look at the House, silently hoping that for Wheatley's sake, as well as the rest of the House's occupants that she and the rest of their company would return safe and sound; quickly scanning the diamond-paned, cheerful windows she surmised which of them belonged to the parlour, and which to the kitchen, trying to catch a glimpse of Wheatley to no avail. Silky sheer curtains had been drawn across them to shroud the House's occupants with privacy, almost forbiddingly, and with a deep, heavy sigh of defeat, Chell turned her back to the House, drinking in the sprawling urban mass of Lunar City instead.
The first strong, majestic rays of reddish orange sunlight were still breaking the hills to the East, once again scattering a dazzling display of fiery squares of orange reflection her way off of the mirror-glass skyscrapers like ten thousand miniature suns. The great big black pinnacle of a tower in the midst of them, which she now knew to be The Core Tower, was the only exception, its charcoal walls instead polka-dotted emerald green. Behind all of this, a few wispy clouds hung in the sky, melting the horizon into a rainbow of colour like an oil painting.
It was beautiful. By the time they'd left the last vestiges of manicured lawn the sky had lighted enough for Chell to see the withered stalks of wheat that grew sparsely at the top edge of the shallow basin Lunar City's river had carved out a millennia ago. She could see the stalks just peeking out over the top, some of their roots forming hanging masses of clumpy soil where small landslides had left the earth hollow and concave. They made their way up this scree-sloped, rocky terrain, following a staggering path of switchbacks while huffing and puffing, until they crested the summit, a high, broad mesa which Chell imagined was a thousand or more miles wide.
Here lied the wheat field. Beaten, weather-battered signs stuck out crookedly from the earth like acupuncture gone wrong. Faded and scarred messages still bleat out vague warnings of trespass, as if anyone in their right mind ever wanted to proceed. Chell took a moment to drink in the severity of the moment while Henry helped the last member of their party, Doug, scramble up the last bit of incline. She swallowed hard, recognizing the point of no return, feeling the threshold she'd crossed as though it were a physical barrier, some kind of invisible, natural Emancipation Grid. They were back in the wheat field, back inside of Aperture's outer limits. There was no going back, now.
Once they had regrouped and caught their breath, the five continued to march in renewed silence. Jammers took the lead, armed with his gun and the GPS. Doug followed, stooping and still winded, and then Chell, steady on her feet, went next, with Henry and Ryan in the back. The air up here seemed to weigh heavier on them, as though their individual, internal nervousness had somehow become palpable.
And as thoughts often do, when you're bored and stressed out, Chell's mind began to cycle through a repeated pattern of scenarios and outcomes. It wasn't all terrible, though—after years and years of being forced into situations with no room for mistakes, many of which required her to react immediately and to think on the fly, Chell was very good at it. And so, she began to mull over what exactly was needed to be said to GLaDOS in order to convince her to take up temporary residence inside of an android body and vacate her beloved facility. Indeed, it would be no small feat if they made it out again alive, not to mention if their mission actually succeeded and they had GLaDOS join them on the return journey.
What they needed to do, Chell thought as she plodded on and on in silence through the wheat behind Doug, was they needed to scare GLaDOS. They needed to make her second-guess that her control over the facility alone would continue to suffice keep her safe and able to do science forever onward. Because, while GLaDOS's downfall inside of Aperture was that she could be inconveniently, almost haphazardly prideful to the point where she considered herself to be near-invincible (as Chell knew well, having exploited the AI's weaknesses too many times to count), what would constitute as a dangerous flaw in her programming in GLaDOS's opinion in regard to the vast chaos of the outside world would probably be the limitations imposed by her facility being of non-mobile design.
She could not simply up and relocate if necessary. There was no way out, if and when her facility was in dire straits and became a warehouse of her own imprisonment. In a way, Chell thought, it already was—the supercomputer was as bound to Aperture as Chell was to her own flesh and blood, but whereas a human body had legs and hands with which to capitalize upon its lifesaving fight or flight response with self-defence and self-preservation and sometimes just running away when you needed to, GLaDOS was a sitting duck, helplessly bound, physically speaking, and privy to only the languages of programming codes and algorithms. She could pretend that she could adequately defend herself from every threat knowable to man (or robot), but this just wasn't true, and it was Chell's idea to use that weighty notion to her advantage.
They needed to scare her. They needed to scare her into believing that in order to save Aperture, she needed to leave her beloved facility behind for the moment. They needed to scare her into believing that surface matters were dire and risky and warranted a sudden, reckless partition from science, as though if she did not join their cause, the life and prosperity of the Enrichment Center was doomed. Chell needed GLaDOS to become their ally, which meant, for once in their tumultuous relationship, Chell needed to talk to her.
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The tin shed sat decrepit and rusted from years of being blown by wind and drenched by the rain. Baked by the sun, beaten by hail, struck by lightning and buried in avalanches of snow, the little ramshackle hut was just as deceiving in strength as it was in size. For who would have ever thought, if they had stumbled upon it just by fate, by mere happenstance, that it was a gateway to a world so deep and cavernous mere Tartarus could hardly fathom it.
Outside, on the doorstep, five humans brooded, some paced in clear nervous agitation shooting the innocent-looking shed with side-glances of sheer terror, others stood motionless with arms folded, scowling. But all of them listened to two of their number, or rather, one of their number, who spoke for the second—a dangerous, mute lunatic. Doug Rattmann and Chell had a plan. And beneath the surface, far, far below them, were five more humans patiently waiting as would-be captives, and one overdrawn, overpowered AI.
Vaguely, as though through some kind of hazy, drug-induced limbo, or cybernetic dream, GLaDOS thought she felt a notification ping from the very outer edge of her consciousness, so far away that it was little more than a pinprick through the numbness. It was from the surface, the ramshackle shed, requesting permission to be opened, further inquiry revealed, and it also revealed the presence of the five humans, no more, and no less.
Impossible, she thought, nearly overcome. It was so hard to focus. Why was it only once she was so incapacitated beyond reason that suddenly all of the humans in the world seemed to want to come knocking on Aperture Science's doorstep. You have got to be kidding me, she thought numbly, and summoned the lift.
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