Chapter 54, all, and the beginning of Part III! I have a few more chapters left, and then I have to get knuckling down again on the writing for this…and hopefully not go a couple years again without updating….
Don't Starve © 2013 Klei Entertainment
Portal © 2007 Valve
Oh great—they had bonded.
Cooperative testing had been a thing before he had suggested it; it was to see if testing together brought people together.
News flash, it did.
It was aggravating. Now she liked him, and vice versa. They were getting along, and it wasn't anything fun to watch anymore.
Now can we kill them?
Well, he supposed so….
So the final test was brought up, they finished it, were standing nervously on the moving panel as it turned a corner—
Thank you so much for participating, he said, relishing their rather painful end—well, relishing his end, at least, but she was getting to be a thorn in his side, so there. KVAS protocol requires victory candescence, and while the portal device can withstand temperatures up to 4000 degrees kelvin, you, likely, will not. Have a good combustion!
The nerd, true to form, saw fit to correct his statement—
And she, true to form, decided to try a different way out—
And then they did what no one who had gotten to this test had ever done.
They escaped.
Absolute fury and panic dominated him as he tried to keep track of them, pull them out of the back halls and onto the testing tracks where he was in charge, the whole while being screamed at by the voices of the facility—they had told him that he was letting test subjects live too long, and now look!
He, meanwhile, having run out of patience, rounded on them and asked why he had been forced to keep all those useless offices and back rooms when they no longer served a purpose, which had sent the voices in a minor tailspin—
And then the whole facility went quiet with the realization that the escapees were getting mighty close to his chamber.
No. Nonononono—this was his domain, his throne room—they were not getting in here—
Except there was nothing he could do. He wasn't allowed to influence the rooms outside, wasn't allowed to lock the doors—all he was able to do was install a rocket launcher in the other room in hopes of slowing them down, and then frantically try to compose himself. Okay. So what if they got in here? He could flood the room with neurotoxin, have the cables rip them to shreds like he had those other goons so long ago…black nanite sword was always a good option….
Except….
All right, he had to admit, this was a little exciting—this was way outside his usual experiences. He hadn't laid actual eyes on a human in so long…and it'd be nice to be able to properly savor the look of despair when they realized they had come all this way for nothing.
And, maybe, when they were on their last legs and begging for mercy, he'd offer to spare their lives—if she told him why she looked so familiar. And then kill them anyway.
So by the time they barged in and looked around, confused, he had composed himself and was the picture of absolute relaxation on his throne.
Well, you found me.
"Okay," Maxwell muttered as they gingerly crossed the scaffolding to where some light was peeking through. "One more time over the plan."
"Find the control room," Willow said, forcing herself not to scurry along faster than Maxwell's hobble. Oi, this was irritating. "Then, while Wilson's busy smashing you with one of those mashy spike plates, I get him unplugged."
"Lovely," Maxwell sneered. "You missed the part where I have to still be operable for you to unplug him—otherwise it's you in the hot seat."
Willow took a moment to picture the facility with her in charge: everything on fire.
"Why are you smiling?" Maxwell demanded, startling her out of her reverie; he had caught up to her during her fantasizing and was currently scowling down at her.
"Thinking what this place would look like if it were up to me."
"A big pile of ash by the end of it."
"Yeah….I wonder what I'd have to override to blow the incinerator up and set everything on fire."
"Trust me, that option won't be available to you—unless you're like your boyfriend and crash the place around your ears—"
"First of all, and for the last time, Wilson is not my boyfriend. Second of all…does the place seem a bit…too quiet to you?"
"How do you figure?"
"I don't hear any machines or anything like that—I'd always hear grinding and moving and busywork before. Now there's just…nothing."
Maxwell paused, listening. In the conversational lapse, she found she could barely hear machines whirring—no creaking or grinding, just…whirring. Like they had been recently maintenanced.
"He can't have shut everything down," Maxwell said finally. "The facility wouldn't let him shut everything down."
"It's not shut down," Willow said, leaning over the railing to look. "It's just been…fixed." She looked back up to him, feeling a scowl mar her face. "What do you mean, the facility wouldn't let him?"
Maxwell looked startled and caught, like he was about to be forced to answer a question he did not want to address—
What is wrong with you?
Willow jumped, as did Maxwell—
And then Wilson spoke again, sounding far away—like he was projecting to a room somewhere. She beckoned Maxwell forward, resorted to bodily dragging him along when he shook his head and stayed where he was, following the sound of Wilson's Maxwell-sounding voice—
This isn't that hard of a concept—stay off of the button. I know, I know, you were a cube in a previous life, sitting on buttons is in your code. So is being tossed into the incinerator, I'd like to remind you. Now if you don't mind, I am very busy and have other projects to attend to—you stay off that button. If I have to come back to this room because one of you ignoramuses touch that button, I'm just throwing the lot of you in the incinerator and trying again. Do we understand each other? Good. Ta!
Nothing more.
Willow stopped, looked up in the sudden silence now ringing her ears.
"Well," she said finally. "He's finally cracked."
"You're just figuring this out now?" Maxwell asked, managing to make his sarcasm known even with his muted volume.
Willow spared him a withering look before examining the cube of tightly pressed-together panels before them. She had followed Wilson's voice to this location…maybe whatever he was testing was in here. She surprised herself by hoping he hadn't moved on to a fresh test subject yet—that was just her being silly, she decided.
Getting into a test track from the outside was much easier than getting out of one from inside, and it didn't take long for her to climb up on one of the armaments and lever a panel open. She gestured for Maxwell to follow—he shook his head—climbed back down and let him know in no uncertain terms that if he didn't get his butt on that metal arm and over to that panel, there would be issues. Involving falling a very long way again. This was quickly negated by him pointing out that she needed him, so her next point of argument was stomping on his foot and then kicking his knee before dragging him up onto the arm. Seeing as how he was very quietly writhing in pain, he didn't offer much initial resistance.
"Can I point out what a stupid idea this is?" he hissed finally. "We're wanting to confront him in the control room—the second he finds us, we'll be lucky if we get tossed on the testing tracks."
"You'll be lucky," she said quietly, leaning forward and shoving the panel open a little bit more—it was resistant to being moved. "But I'll talk him out of it. And I'm sure I can convince him to let us up there for a chat."
"You are insane," Maxwell said flatly. "You're not the only one he's listening to anymore—he won't be able to help but throw you on a testing track. It's what they want. You, an insignificant test subject, have no say in the matter."
She had to turn and stare at him. "What do you mean? Wilson is running the facility, from the looks of things—you make it sound like it's running him."
"And who would know better than me?"
She arched an eyebrow. "If you're trying to make me feel sorry for you, don't bother."
"Do I look like I care what you think—don't lean that far!"
Too late—the panel suddenly gave way and they went tumbling into the testing track.