Chapter 50, everybody! A landmark chapter….Feel free to flog me for not updating on a regular basis—real life has been making demands on my time, as have other stories. Rest assured, the story isn't abandoned, and will get done sometime in the next century.

Chi-Chi's Poptart, thanks for the review! Yes indeed—he really ought to work on that….

Don't Starve © 2013 Klei Entertainment

Portal © 2007 Valve

It had been years since he had taken over the facility. Those who he felt had wronged him had long ago suffered their final, lingering end.

Which didn't leave much for him.

He tended to spend his time in apathy now, doing the barest minimum to keep the place running, occasionally stirring himself to pull another test subject from the human vault and throw him on the testing tracks whenever they got aggravated with him.

'They' being the numerous voices of the facility.

They might have said that he was their king, but they were pretty insistent on getting what they wanted—they wanted science, they wanted testing, and they were not above turning the nanites in his bloodstream against him if they thought he wasn't doing what they wanted.

In some ways, he felt that he'd have been better off with those goons from before.

But after a while, he conditioned himself to ignore them and the pain they sent his way—and they eventually backed off when he pointed out that if they kept this up, he'd stop working the facility altogether, and then pump neurotoxin into the human vault for good measure.

That never failed to shut them up.

But eventually, because he was bored, because there was nothing else to do, and because doing nothing was beginning to even grate on his nerves, he pulled up the next name on the human vault roster. Willow-something—the last name had been redacted. Intractable, the notes said—meh, too much trouble.

He waved it aside, went to the next one—oh-ho! So he had missed one of the nerds working here: Wilson Percival Higgsbury. This should be fun.

He had the goon sent to a relaxation chamber to get him woke up—ah, this would be fun, all the digs and the bites and the snarls and the laughing at his slow decent into madness….

Willow…why did that name ring a bell?

He had some time while transport was being handled, so he pulled her information back up, scanned it again. Nothing forthcoming, not really. Face looked familiar, but then again, all test subjects tended to run together after a while. Had been shipped over during that interim when this facility was still communicating with the other facilities…and then something had happened out there and all communication with the rest of the world had stopped completely. No skin off his back—one less thing to worry about.

They didn't want her, advised against it, which was enough to cement his decision.

Aw, why not? he asked aloud, sending the order. Bring her up—I'm in need of a challenge.

"What did you do," Willow said drily. "Say 'I'm in need of a challenge—let's go this way'?"

"I select from an earlier conversation," Maxwell said, matching her snark. "I was concerned with the places I actually intended to use."

She blew air out her mouth in irritation and ducked out from under him—he quickly leaned against a wall to remain upright as she assessed the situation.

A series of pistons slamming down into the hall, one after the other after the other after the other—of course KVAS saw no issue with this. And a portable surface on the other side. Hmm….

She spent a few minutes trying to time her shots so it'd hit the other wall—no dice; the pistons were too fast. She needed a better plan.

"Any suggestions?" she queried, cutting her eyes to Maxwell.

"Sorry, I can't help you."

Now she turned to glare at him. "Are you serious? Unless there's another way through, we've got to get through here. If you're not going to help me, help yourself."

He had sagged to the ground during her tirade, and was now glaring at her from there.

"Do I need to say it in smaller words?" he asked her. "I can't help test subjects—my programming doesn't allow it. I don't care if I want to help or not—I can't help you."

She didn't believe him—he was just being his usual stubborn self. And his eyes…they most certainly weren't showing any emotion, like fear or something like that. Right.

She took a deep breath—if she wasn't going to get any help from him, then she had to figure it out on her own, like she usually did. First thing's first—look around, see if there was something she missed.

She backtracked, walked around, stuck her head in little corners and glanced around—

Ah. Propulsion gel. This could work.

Now if only she could break the tube….

She looked around, found a sizeable piece of debris she could pick up, set up two portals like she usually did when she was stuck and wanting to goof around, and threw the piece in there, waiting for it to reach a high speed before timing it and placing a portal across from the tube—

Crash!

Success!

She dodged away from the splattering goop, shot a portal where it was landing, ran back out to shoot a portal on the wall facing the pistons. Okay, that was something.

But it might not be enough to get up to speed.

Maxwell had stuck his head around, looking like he was planning on asking her what she was doing, but she already set up a second portal, getting the hall leading up to the turn orange as well. Now this might do it.

She moved the portals until they were in the corner, went to the end of the propulsion gel, and started running.

The running moved into skating as she picked up speed, jumped through the first portal—

And out the second, the conservation of momentum involved meaning she couldn't stop now if she wanted to—Maxwell yelled at her as she sped by—

And then she ducked down into a ball as she zinged through, hitting the far wall without being crushed.

She had to sit there for a few moments, appreciating the fact that yes, she was alive, could hear Maxwell yelling—

She opened a portal and stuck her head out.

"Hey!" she hollered, redirecting his attention down the hall. "You coming or what?"

"Are you insane!?" he yelled, pointing at the pistons. "You could have gotten yourself killed!"

"I thought you liked the painful death of test subjects."

"Not when I need you for a distraction! What would I have done if you died, huh!?"

"Careful Maxie," she jeered. "You might give me the impression that you care."

She ducked away as he spluttered, tossed her pigtails as she headed down the hall. He'd either follow or not.

A yelp prompted her to turn, just in time to see him hit the lip of the portal and flip face first onto the floor. Ah, the sweet taste of victory.

Except she didn't believe him about needing her to distract Wilson. There had been something in his eyes, something almost human, that made her think otherwise.

If she didn't know any better, she'd think he was afraid of losing her.

She shrugged it off and moved on—thinking he was anything but the Maxwell she knew wasn't going to change things.

And she needed to not feel bad when it came time to swap Wilson back out.

Well, two test subjects out at the same time wasn't too bad—it kept him from getting too bored, at least.

Nerd-boy was being just as entertaining as he had hoped—continual digs and jeers, and he actually had the nerd so mad he couldn't speak.

Pull up the info on him—huh, fresh hire from a university. No wonder he had been low-man on the totem pole. Bring that up next test track—mwahaha, success, and the added bonus of seeing the guy floored by the fact that he had known that.

Her….

He couldn't help but raise an eyebrow as she went back to the relaxation chamber, picked up everything that wasn't nailed down, and went through the emancipation grid after his explanation.

She was going to be trouble, obviously.

But she was entertaining, at least, and surprisingly slightly more tolerable than most of the test subjects before. He wasn't going to tell her, though—it'd give off the wrong impression.

It was irritating, though, that he found himself not being as caustic with her—by a rating of 2.35%, they delighted in informing him. And, he felt, he was taking a bit more interest in her than was advisable for a test track supervisor—especially considering he actually noticed that she preferred the physical tests over the mental ones. Ah, a whole fresh line of jabs, right there for the taking.

She wasn't rising to them, however, not like the nerd did—they hit her and then rolled off. She brushed them off like an old pro, something that reminded him of something he couldn't put his finger on, which only made things worse and fired up his ill temper.

So, when she got the portal gun, he read about half of the safety precautions, started mumbling halfway through, and then tossed the rest out, declaring Nope, forget it—I'm not reading any more.

Ah, that got a rise out of her. Finally.

She gingerly tested the portal gun out, ensuring it wasn't going to blow up in her face (no comment)—

And then she swung it up to the camera and fired.

He had flinched away at the sight of the operational end of the device (whatever happened when one looked into it wasn't quite clear, but apparently it involved optics melting), but then the visuals in that room blinked out and the audio sensors picked up the distinct clanging of a camera colliding with the floor.

It took him a few microseconds to recover, but when he did, he was raving mad. DO YOU MIND!? Those things are worth more than you are! Much more—we've got the data on both you and your hometown, and trust me, one of those are worth more than the whole collective.

There were still sensors in the chamber, and they picked up her shrugging.

"Oops," she noised, giving a little curtsey before skipping off to do the rest of the test. How irritating.

More so when he realized he sort of approved of her action.