Chell drifted.

Too scared to fall asleep and yet too tired to stay awake, she stayed in a state of disoriented dreamlessness. Hours passed—it must have been morning by the time she pulled herself together. The gradual increase of noise told her it must be time for work within the facility—and yet, the overall feel of the facility seemed less active than average.

She shifted away from her bunched-up jacket, shaped into a makeshift pillow for the cold tiled floor. Nose still buried in the folds of fabric, she inhaled. A harsh smell, all science and sterility, lingered on her clothes. But, beneath she smelled an even more potent smell of laundry fabric softener that filled her with an intense longing for home—not just her new house in town, but her true home..

She uncurled herself from the floor, pushing herself into a sitting position. Her foot brushed the banner, and her heart jumped. A patch of light danced in, a bright and warm reminder of the outside world. She longed to lift it up higher, to poke out her head into the light and let fresh air stream in. The girl leaned forward, grabbing a corner of the musty canvas and carefully restoring her curtain to its original position.

Click click click.

Wheels turned overhead, the sound growing increasingly louder.

"Ah, a science fair," a male voice said. Chell heard the sound of wheels braking. "Not particularly organized now, is it? Projects scattered about. Collecting dust."

The sudden voice—loud and close—knocked the air out of Chell's lungs. Hours upon hours of silence, of hiding—and then words out of nowhere. She jerked back, clanging against the back edge of the desk. It rattled, and a pen toppled to the ground. Above, she heard a scraping, sliding sounds—like sandpaper on wood.

The banner thumped to the ground.

Light streamed in, flooding her vision with deep gray panels. To her left stood the entrance to the project hall, and Chell knew if anyone walked through that doorway and happened to glance to the right, they would spot her.

She pulled into the shadows, pressing her fingers against the metal desk. With someone so close, she couldn't risk fixing her curtain. She'd spent so long hiding from people, and it would be pointless to throw that away now. But still, the risk of discovery loomed even larger.

Leaning down, she pressed her face into the floor and peered out the tiny gap between the desk and the floor. A strip of light lazered across her face; she squinted before sweeping her eyes across the floor, searching for a telltale pair of shoes.

But there weren't any feet. Just a voice.

A faint blue color tinted the floor, and as the British-sounding voice blabbered on, she heard a distinctly mechanical creak and began to piece things together. She gave a silent sigh of relief, hand across her heart. This robot—he was one of Henry's. He was designed to assist people, and he wouldn't care at all if Chell adjusted a banner. In fact, he might even offer to help.

Chell bunched up the fallen banner and edged her way out. Carefully, she tossed it across the back edge of the table, and then stood up slowly as to no startle the bot. She smoothed the banner and jabbed the corners into cracks, avoiding eye contact.

"Aargh!" The robot jerked back, trembling like a dog in a thunderstorm. "You can't just do that!" said the sphere, shutters drawing in. "Jump out of nowhere. Scare meto death."

She stared up at the robot, lifting a finger to her lips.

"Quiet? Want me to be quiet?" he said, giving a slight nod. "Well, in that case, maybe you shouldn't leap from under a table and scare. Didn't consider that, did you?"

Chell shushed him again, and the robot fell silent. She squeezed her way back beneath the table, making sure to disturb the banner as little as possible. Another collapse could be disastrous. As she curled herself back into a ball, the sphere began to blabber again.

"So what are you hiding from, anyways?" he said. Chell said nothing. "Playing some good 'ol hide and seek, then. I see. Love that game, though never actually played."

Footsteps sounded in the distance, the sound amplified by the silence. The girl pulled her arms around her knees tightly, wishing that the robot she'd wanted so desperately to speak to before, back in Henry's office, would just stop speaking right now.

"Just go away," she said, voice cracking.

A pause. "I would, but uh, I have no idea where I am. They told me to explore the facility. To 'just follow the rail.' Too bad this map looks nothing like reality," he said shutters closing. "These little dashes look nothing like rooms. I mean, how are you even supposed to get from one line to another?"

In the room adjacent, a door creaked. "Check in there," said a low voice." Maybe she came back."

Her heart skipped a beat.

Two men sifted through the room. Shuffling. The soft click of filing cabinets being opened, of desk chairs wheeled to the side so that they could duck beneath the desks to look for her.

"She's not here," said a male voice. He swore.

"Caroline's locked down this wing. She's around here somewhere," said Greg to the other man, sighing. Of course, hewas the one to get stuck with tracking her down—with help from security, of course, though the man accompanying the CEO's assistant looked more like an annoyed scientist rather than a real security guard. Typical Aperture—cheap as usual.

"Try down there," said the other man.

The two cut through the Daycare Center and flipped out into the science fair hallway. Behind another pane of glass, a metal sphere dangled from a management rail. It stared at the children's projects, not even flinching as they approached. Greg glanced over at the other man, who shrugged.

"Hey," said Greg. "What are you doing?"

"Just, er, reading these posters. Fascinating, they are."

"They're made by children," said the assistant. "But that doesn't matter. We're looking for a girl. Seen her?"

"Ah! No wonder it was so bloody difficult to read," he said optic widening. "Knew it. And hmm. Thinking. Takes a moment sometimes. Well, I have seen a girl, but I can't actually tell you where she is now, can I? Defeats the whole purpose of the game, really."

Despite being feet below the sphere, Greg glared down at the robot. Whatever this tin circle thought, this was no game. They'd been at it for hours, and all he had to do was just tell them and then they could get back to their normal jobs. "Just tell us where she is," he said.

The robot twitched, conflicting commands clashing within him. According to the rules of hide and seek, he couldn't tell the men where the girl hid. That just wasn't fair. And yet Greg, who had asked him to break said rule, held a lot more authority within Aperture than the girl. But still, he hadtalked to the girl before the assistant had even shown up, and he couldn't go back on her now. He twirled in his casing.

"Sorry," he said, twitching. "You'll have to find her yourself."

Exasperated, the assistant took another glance at the hallway. It was dark and sparse, a mixture of blank whiteboards and poorly-done projects and desks. One table in particular stood out from the rest. He pointed to it, at the whiteboard pushed unusually close, at the banner draped over the back edge. The men exchanged a glance then moved toward it.

The conversation dissipated. Chell listened. For a moment, she hoped they would give up and leave—but as the footsteps grew closer, she pressed her fingertips into the tile, shifting onto her toes and into a runner's crouch. If they did find her, she might have a shot at running away.

The man yanked the banner away, and the air whooshed toward Chell.

"Get back here!" Greg lurched, fingers brushing her arm. Beneath the desk her jacket sat abandoned, still scrunched like a pillow.

The 'guard' ducked around the corner, lunging forward to catch the girl's arm. She yanked and struggled, panicking. Sharp inhale after inhale flooded her lungs with air, the hyperventilation evaporating her strength. A moment later, the robot caught up.

"You're Chell?" Greg said. The girl glared up at him, a strand of hair dangling into her face. She didn't answer. She didn't have to—they knew who she was, clearly.

"Come with us," said the guy from security. "Caroline needs to see you." She remained silent, and her lack of response unnerved the two employees.

"Wouldn't want to ignore the boss," the sphere piped in. "Bad things happen when you do that," he said with a half-laugh. "Not that I would know—I've only heard stories."

Greg scrambled for a phone, dialing Caroline's office directly. It rang twice before she picked up.

"We've got her," he said, looking over his shoulder. The brown-haired girl stared at him, unflinching. He adjusted his tie, clearing his throat.

"Good," said Caroline, voice smug. "Take her to my wing and throw her into a relaxation vault. Be sure to keep her quiet, and do not make a spectacle of yourselves. And above all else, do NOT tell Mr. Rattmann."


Doug glanced over at a monitor that displayed a map of the facility. To the left, a bright blue, stationary dot glared back at him.

Click click click.

Doug tapped his pen against the desk, unsure of what to do. It was still early in morning, and Chell wouldn't arrive from school for hours yet. He figured these should be his most productive hours—after all, he had nothing to distract him. And yet the sheer silence itself, the emptiness of his office, was almost overwhelming. For now, he lingered in the office of one of his few 'friends' in Aperture since talking to Henry was easier than modifying ASHPDs. He tapped a finger on the screen, blue dot disappearing under his thumb. "That's your construct, right?" he said.

"The moron? Yeah," said Henry, lacing his fingers behind his neck.

"He's not moving," said Doug.

Henry dragged the mouse across the screen, hovering over the robot's icon. "Even though we gave him a map, he still gets himself lost," he said, scrolling to zoom in. "Now he's stuck in the Employee Daycare Center. What an idiot." This failure, this inability on their part to create this personality core only reflected poorly on Henry and his team.

"He's just looking around," said Doug, a tinge of defense in his voice, "and you did just tell him to go explore. Maybe that's where he wanted to go."

Henry shook his head.

"We've tried so hard to make artificial intelligence work. But it's not. We're running out of options here," said Henry.

And he was right. The scientists could spend a lifetime figuring out every possible scenario, every improbable situation a robot might face. It still wouldn't be enough. Lines and lines of endless code of code could not possibly adapt to the future the company might face.—

Doug looked up, eyebrows furrowing. The fluorescent lighting hummed overhead.

"We can't play at trying to make something act human. We've got to start from something," he continued. Out of all the things he and his team had learned, it was that artificial intelligence could never match a human life.

"What do you mean?" Doug said, crossing his arms.

"What I mean is that the Disk Operating System—which has been in development for ten years, is never going to be able to run this place with the help of an artificial intelligence. We're going to need a genetic lifeform component. "

"Wasn't that already the plan?" said Doug, recalling a stuffy room and hot overhead projector spewing out slide after slide of a poorly put-together presentation.

"I wouldn't know. Caroline's fired everyone on this project countless times. All I have is what people before me leave behind," he said, and Doug knew that that was a longer story he didn't want to delve in to.

Doug wrung his hands. "So what are you going to do?"

Henry rubbed his hands on his legs, then lifted them, palm up, and shrugged. "We can't just photocopy a mind and call it good. It's in the brain itself—in each individual cell and the connections forged between them over a lifetime. We've got to extract it, bit by bit—but we've got to find someone first."

"There must've been someone—on the plans, perhaps?"

"Sure. But Cave Johnson died, and we can't afford to use someone disposable. This is the future heart of the company. They'll be running everything," he said, pausing. From this point on the ethics of this project became, well, shaky. Ripping out minds, prying apart personalities—none of it would be simple.

"We've been looking into what that procedure would entail. It's going to be horrible, though. The process. Painful and ugly and terrifying. Even I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy—we're on the edge here, Doug," he said. "But I don't know if I want to cross it." He gave a stark laugh, ignoring the growing pit in his stomach. Out of all of the scientists to develop an ethical issue in Aperture, Henry had never considered that it would be him.

Doug swallowed, glancing back at the monitor and at the same blue dot. He could almost picture the bot, alone in the hallway and staring at the row of projects. He cleared his throat.

"Your robot's still stuck," he said, getting up from the chair. The wheels squeaked as he pushed it in. More than anything, he wanted to pretend as if the theoretical science this project was just that—still far off and unattainable, even though he knew it was easily within reach. In fact, he figured that Henry's team already had a plan in development for this.

"I'll go check on him."

He disappeared out the door, heading toward the Daycare Center. He needed to get out of this room, and besides, there was always the slim chance that Chell would be there.

As the scientist disappeared, Henry swiveled. On the screen, the personality construct's dot darted down the management rail, vanishing into the maze of the Enrichment Center. "Wait, Doug—" he said, calling out.

But Doug was already long gone, and by the time he reached the Daycare Center, so was Wheatley.