Chapter 10, everybody! In which the effects of the cooperative testing initiative are seen….
Don't Starve © 2013 Klei Entertainment
Portal © 2007 Valve
"Wilson."
Wilson jerked awake—he must have dozed off. Sitting up. Oog, his back hurt.
He looked up to see Willow standing over him, one hand on his shoulder to shake him awake, the other holding yet another packet of Twinkies.
"Hungry?" she asked.
"Have you been sneaking food?" he asked, accepting the Twinkies.
"Me? Nooo," she drawled, tossing her head. "I tried, but a little Wilson popped up on my shoulder and started scolding me."
Wilson couldn't help but scoff at that—the closest he normally got to a laugh. Oi, she did have a point.
"Well, we ought to get ready," he declared, standing and stretching a bit. "You take care of…things…and I'll see about finding a first-aid kid—we might need one."
"You won't sneak food while you're at it, will you?"
"Me? Nooo," he mocked. "If I do, I might have a little Willow pop up on my shoulder!"
She laughed—at least that was something.
This cooperative testing initiative thing was beginning to wear on him.
The girl refused to talk to him, which irked him slightly. Why was it that the two people he was stuck with currently either wouldn't talk at all or wouldn't shut up?
The silence he could take, however.
Her antics were what he couldn't.
She seemed bound and determined to sabotage the tests at every turn, fortunately stopping short of dumping him into acid. But still—switching portals when he was about to walk through one, redirecting thermal discouragement beams at the worst possible times, shooting cameras off the wall, or fooling about with the portals and their conservation of momentum.
It was enough to drive him insane, and worse, the test track supervisor was having a ball, howling with laughter at his grief.
He was distinctly frazzled three tracks later, a portion of his hair smoking from a thermal discouragement beam that she had opened up very close to his head. Ow.
He sagged against the side of the elevator as it went to the next testing track, her on the opposite side, as far away from him as possible.
"Listen," he said finally—he might as well air out his grievances. "We can't keep going on like this—you'll kill me if you do."
"That's the plan."
Or he'd kill her. Either way. "This would be a lot easier if we worked together—"
"If you don't shut up, I'll make you look into the operational end of the device."
Oi. "This would go faster if we worked together."
"And why do I care?"
"Well, the sooner we get through these tracks, the sooner we get back to our lives." And I never have to lay eyes on you again, he silently added.
She didn't say anything for the longest time.
"Fine," she sighed.
Wilson watched as Willow flew through the air, landing on a scaffold. She was so much better at the more physical aspects of testing than he was.
"Are we getting close?" she asked, as he walked through a portal she shot on her level.
"I'm…not quite sure, actually," he said, scratching his neck. "My normal landmarks seem to have rotted away."
She made a noise in the back of her throat and looked up. "What about following the pipes?"
He glanced up to see a cluster of pipes running in the same direction. "That might work," he said. "Especially if we can find a ventilation duct—those have to run to the surface. Or a management rail—that would take us to a control center, and then we could summon an elevator."
"Lead the way then."
He did so.
How far they had come, he reflected. Cooperative testing was a success.
But was there anyone left in KVAS who cared?