Chapter 16 - Tenacity
Chell's toes jutted over the dizzying drop.
She stared at the white island in the sea of acid for a long moment before her vertigo leaped into focus.
"You've brought this upon yourself. And now you're trapped there," said Caroline, voice hissing through the speakers.
The girl backpedaled. And though she remained silent, she couldn't deny the truth to the woman's words. Just like there hadn't been a way out of her relaxation vault, there wasn't a way out of this test chamber either. Both entrance and exit remained locked. She'd already circled the room twice, feeling at the seams for cracks and imperfections and instead meeting a tightly-knit wall.
But her time waiting in that vault had taught her one thing: even when things looked bleak, there was always a way out.
And while technically the acid could be a 'way out,' Chell immediately dismissed that thought.
She would never give up. Ever.
Still, Chell sunk to her feet and dug her chin into her knees. She stared at her shoes, focusing in on the dark scuffs staining the sides and the once-white shoelaces now frayed and grayed.
Chell flexed her ankles and hard plastic dug into her Achilles tendons. With a frown she pried off both shoes and set them aside. During her escape she'd had a valid reason to just shove them on, but she'd had enough time to put them on correctly before leaving her hideout. Instead, she'd just shoved them on like before.
She tugged up her socks and wiggled her shoes back on, making sure the heel supports didn't cave in again.
Skrick.
Chell yanked her laces tight, eyelets squeaking. She pulled down her sweatpant legs and pressed a hand on the floor behind her for support. Her fingers curled around the cool, rusty edges of a metal grating.
It sunk into the floor slightly behind her, a tiny square in the patchwork flooring. Unlike the uniform walls and the uniform ceiling, the floor of the chamber looked as if the builders had simply slapped it together from scraps of other projects.
And right behind her—no bigger than an average air-duct entrance—sat a metal grating.
Chell scrambled onto her stomach and leaned over the grating. The direct overhead lighting cast a head-sized shadow through the gap in the floor, obscuring what little she could see of the area beneath the chamber. She scooted back, nose almost touching the edge.
Looking through the checkered window was like examining a dark room with a stationary flashlight. The lights only illuminated a square directly beneath her, the rest obscured in a dark blur.
Chell blinked.
She shielded her eyes with her hands and leaned closer. A few silver ducts reflected dying light, and the faint outline of a building's rooftop shifted into focus.
A building. She was directly above a building.
It couldn't be more than ten or fifteen feet beneath this chamber floor. She'd been right—this test wasn't contained by a sphere. But the grating itself sat along the edge of this new building—had it been a few feet to the right, she'd be directly over acid.
Clang.
Chell's legs quivered as she slammed both feet onto the floor. The sound echoed, and a split-second later that familiar voice came on.
"Are you doing what I think you're doing?" said Caroline,
Chell staggered, then took her words as encouragement. She sprinted forward, angling her feet in and kicking as hard as she could against the grating.
"You stop that."
The metal webbing dented inwards—she'd already taken out the four screws anchoring it in.
"You can't break down that exit with your bare hands, you know. It's metal."
Oh, she wasn't breaking down the chamber exit—well, in a way she was. She was just making her own exit rather than using the designated one.
Bang.
"If you're trying to beat yourself, I won't interfere. But if death is what you want—and it's inevitable, really—there's a much more painless method in that chamber. In fact, all of the other people who failed that chamber died by it. I'm sure it won't take you long to figure out," she said. "The acid really is the way to go."
Chell only smiled—she'd already briefly considered and rejected that idea.
Her chest rose and fell, and she wiped a hand across her forehead. Her nails tingled, jagged after she'd used them as makeshift tools to jam into screws and twist. Nine out of ten fingernails had snapped—but on the bright side, she'd managed to unscrew all four anchoring corners. She pressed a finger into her mouth and bit at a broken nail.
Shoulder muscles strained and groaned as she pulled at the grate. The heavy metal lifted a quarter inch then stuck. The design didn't allow it to be removed from the chamber's interior.
The grate crashed back into place.
Chell rose to her feet, bouncing on her toes. She couldn't just pull up the metal and set it aside—she'd have to knock it through from up here. But already the metal warped downwards as if someone had pinched a cloth napkin's center and pulled. A few more kicks and it would bend enough to cave in altogether.
She was so close—she wasn't about to give up now.
Bang.
Her knees trembled. Chell backed across the chamber, giving herself a running start and then slammed her feet into the floor with as much strength as she could muster.
BANG.
The left edge lurched beneath her, swinging down before vanishing into empty space.
A loud, echoing CRACK.
The mangled grating clattered against the lower building's roof for a split-second before skittering off the edge.
. . . Splash.
She lost her footing and her stomach lurched as she slipped through the opening. Her right arm flung out, struggling to grab onto anything but instead grasped at air.
Snap.
Her wrist cracked flat beneath her, absorbing the brunt of her fall. Tears welled in her eyes as the pain crackled to life like a dry log in a campfire. Chell inhaled sharply, and then curled onto her side.
She closed her eyes. Focusing on anything other than pain was next to impossible—it jabbed into her first like dull needles, then like sharpened blades.
Caroline's voice cut off as soon as the grate splashed into the acid—but Chell didn't notice.
A grimace darkened her face, and Chell clenched her teeth. Carefully she edged her right hand toward her chest and just cradled it there, hardly daring to breathe. One wrong move would make it flare to an unbearable level.
Minutes passed, and Chell refused to move. Her brain nagged at her to push it aside and get up and find a way off of this ceiling she'd landed on—going back into that chamber wasn't an option any longer.
The test shaft rattled, a low and rumbling sound that shook the buildings above her. Flecks of dust and debris rained down, and Chell cupped her left hand over her mouth. This movement—she'd felt the exact same thing when the lockdown had been initiated.
She hardly dared to hope that Caroline had reversed it.
It wasn't as if she could suddenly solve that chamber—that was impossible without a portal device, after all. But so long as the lockdown was disengaged, this meant she could navigate the hallways and doorways. She might have a shot at getting out of here.
Whoosh.
She gave a sigh of relief and then froze.
The door in the chamber above her slid open and Chell heard soft footsteps. A figure took a half-step into the room, face illuminated by the chamber lighting. Chell couldn't see, but she knew it was her.
Her breath shook.
She fought back the urge to scream and scramble away from her position on the floor, desperate to get away from her, but didn't. Any sudden sound or movement would alert Caroline to her presence—and one glance down the empty space where the grating used to be and she'd see Chell glaring right back up her.
She held her breath as she shifted into a crouch, motions slow and deliberate. She edged out of the square of light, neck craning upward and barely able to see out.
Caroline stared across the chamber, checking the ceiling and the walls and the acid but never once examined the floor. Instead she gazed out with an expression Chell couldn't place. It wasn't anger; it wasn't joy. The woman gave the doorframe a small pat and turned away, and the expression clicked.
Caroline looked—dare she say it—disappointed.
The doors hissed closed, and even after fifteen minutes passed Chell's body still trembled.
Thunk.
Chell landed softly near the room's entrance. The drop from ceiling to walkway hadn't been nearly as large as the gap between chamber floor and building roof—and whatever this structure was, it wasn't a test chamber.
Instead of investigating the room, though, she turned on her heels and marched down the in the other direction. There was no way she'd head back toward the testing chambers she'd just escaped.
Every step she took was a painful, relentless reminder. She needed to find a bandage or brace or something to help stabilize her most-likely-broken wrist. Yet she continued at a brisk pace, pathway passing through a stone tunnel before morphing into a catwalk suspended over swaying spheres.
The walkway ended at another elevator shaft, but Chell took the twisting staircase that brought her closer to the acid lake. A stone walkway connected her to a sliding glass door built into a rock face. Chell slipped inside, wrist still pressed close.
This was the most out-of-place room she'd ever seen in Aperture.
Plush chairs and ash-trays littered the room. The smell of cigarette smoke and ancient dust clung to the walls and carpet, stirring to life as she edged into the adjoining room.
Rows of typewriters sat on rows of desks, long since abandoned by their former users. Chell darted for the desks—if they'd left behind those bulky machines, she hung on to the hope that they had left behind other, more useful objects.
She threw open every drawer, sifting through broken pencils and dried-out pens and crumpled papers until her fingers brushed against a slick metal casing. Chell's eyes widened as she yanked at the handle and slid it onto the desk.
Patches of silver shone through chipping white paint, and bright red cross across the top and bottom cleared up any doubt about what this tin held.
She'd found a first-aid kit.
Chell fumbled at the clasps with her non-dominant hand and gingerly lifted the top. The same musty smell—like rotting books—rose from the kit, and she coughed once. She reached in and spread out the kit's contents onto the table: half-empty pill bottles, a string of band-aids, a thick cloth bandage, and a few strips of gauze.
Immediately she downed a what she hoped were a few painkillers, and then grasped at the yellowed bandage. Her teeth clamped onto one end as she used her free hand to unroll it, letting it twist out like a flattened snake. After slipping into a desk chair, Chell propped her right elbow against the desk and straightened out her wrist. She wasn't going to find a real brace or a real cast down here—she knew Aperture's views on health and safety. This half-empty kit was a miracle in itself.
Again and again she tightly wrapped the bandage around her broken wrist, beginning beneath the knobby part and then rising up and across her palm before returning to circling up and down her wrist until the bandage ran out.
She tried to flex her wrist but it didn't budge—good. She'd done a decent job, and her fingers barely jerked forward when she flexed them. Well, at least she knew those still worked.
Without medical attention, her wrist would never completely heal. But her makeshift brace might at least alleviate some of the pain.
After pocketing the remaining supplies, Chell slipped back into the main lounge and collapsed into a plush chair. She gave a long and happy sigh as she sank in. This was the most comfortable she'd been in a long while, and she felt as if she could stay there for years.
An hour ago, she wasn't sure if she could make it out of that test alive. And now here she was—relaxing in a chair and nursing a broken wrist, but completely alive.
She would've laughed with relief had she not been so terrified inside. She'd squeezed her way out of there, but she had no idea what to do next.
The chair enveloped her further, and Chell relaxed and stared up at the circular light fixtures that mimicked the dangling enrichment spheres. She tiled her head back and stared over at the two display cases bolted to the walls. On the right, she saw trophies and awards and what looked like a framed newspaper article in the back corner. A portrait of a young Cave Johnson hung between the displays, and Chell realized with a start that she'd never seen the man's face before. Those features, that expression—they suited him, just like his voice.
Her attention drifted to the last display case, and Chell took one at the contents before jumping to her feet and bolting forward.
She pressed her face close to the glass and a dark, box-sized device hung behind the glass. A small, shining plaque sat beneath it: Aperture Science Quantum Tunneling Device.
Chell breathed, then gave a small squeal and jump of delight.
That was it, right there behind the glass. She'd found the device she so desperately needed, even if it looked more like a cross between an overgrown leaf blower and something out of a Ghostbusters movie than an actual portal device. So many portal-friendly surfaces dotted Old Aperture—and if she acquired that device, she could go anywhere.
Her fingers trailed along the glass edges as she searched for a latch or lever, but instead she found a lock and empty keyhole.
Fantastic.
She should've known this was too good to be true; there was always a flaw in the plan. Sifting through that office had been difficult enough, and searching through it again for a tiny key would be next to impossible.
Hold on.
Chell took a step back and almost snorted with laughter. Since when she did she need a key to get into a glass case? She'd already caused enough destruction in Aperture—one more glass panel wouldn't stop her now.
Gray flakes rained down as she lifted up an ashtray. Her right hand barely hovered over the tip—there for balance more than support. Chell hefted the pole like a baseball bat and swung it in a wide and wobbly arc. The edge shattered through the glass just like Wheatley had crashed through that observation window.
Glass tinkled on the carpet. Chell kicked away the lingering shards then one-handedly edged the machine through the jagged hole. The device clacked as it dropped onto the floor and tilted onto its side.
Little fans and cords extended from the rectangular section—no doubt the part that housed the device's power system A large tube extended from one side of the device and connected to the operational end of the device.
She searched the bottom edge for some sort of power switch, but instead found a study cord attached to a dangling handle.
Okay—so powering up this thing wouldn't be as easy as flipping a switch.
Chell readjusted her position and planted her feet, left hand closing around the handle. Her arm jerked to the side as she revved up the device.
Click-click-click.
Her shoulders ached and her right wrist screamed in protest, but with each pull she felt the device edge closer and closer to starting. Chell yanked harder, grimacing.
Click-click-click-click.
The tunneling device sputtered, a puff of smoke drifting through the air. Chell shifted on her feet again and pulled so hard her arm popped.
Click-click-click-whirrrr.
The tube rattled against the floor as the device roared to life. Chell gave a small, relived smile and then shrugged on the harness like an oversized backpack. Slipping on the left strap was easy enough, but slipping her right wrist through the other strap without bumping anything was like constantly scraping against the metal walls in a game of Operation.
She snapped a buckle in the front, then staggered forward at the unexpected weight of the Quantum Tunneling Device. Hard straps bit into her shoulders, and the box hummed and rattled against her spine. Chell rolled her shoulders and shifted the operational tube to her left hand.
Her fingers hit a single trigger. Her face darkened. Strange—while this was clearly a dual portal device, she only felt one button. The portal guns sitting in Doug's office continued multiple switches—a trigger for each portal, and one for the energy-manipulator.
She glanced at the handle of the device, noticing a single sliding ring that circled around the 'handle' of the device. After pulling out her hand, Chell sat herself on the ground and propped the device's end between her knees.
With her non-dominant hand she twisted the notched ring to the right and let it click into place. If she squinted she could make out the word 'two' scrawled out in tiny lettering. The device lurched beneath her as she twisted it back to 'one.' It made enough sense—two notches for two portals.
Now she just had to test it out on a portal-friendly surface.
Chell pushed herself to her feet and moved through a doorway on the far left. Cave Johnson's voice roared to life with a tiny click of a speaker.
"Welcome, gentlemen, to Aperture Science! Astronauts, war heroes, Olympians—you're here because we want the best, and you are it. So: Who's ready to make some science?"
"I am!"
Chell's blood ran cold.
That voice—it was her voice, no doubt about it. Chell twisted inside at her optimism—she sounded to bright and cheerful and ready to take the world by storm. Those two words made her seem so undeniably happy.
It made Chell sick to wonder what sort of events could have caused such a drastic transformation in the woman.
Either way, she'd had enough of this place. Diving deeper into Aperture's past was something she could do another day. For now, she needed to head in the opposite direction and return to her room behind the Borealis.
She'd never meant to leave that safe haven, after all—and as long as she made it back there, Chell knew Doug would come back and sneak her up to the surface. There was no possible way he could know about her scrape with death and how she'd barely managed to scrape out of that test chamber with her life.
She could tell him that later, though—after they'd both made it to safety. For now she needed to concentrate on worming her way back to that room.
But the only direct path was through the testing track she'd just escaped.
A/N: Just a short chapter to say that Chell's 'okay' and now has the Quantum Tunneling Device. A quick note, though—if you look in the 50's section of Old Aperture, there really is a broken display case and a knocked-over ash tray. And also, in my mental layout of that place I put the 60's testing track on the far side of the acid lake.
And oh! I've been meaning to mention this, but if you're on tumblr and feel like following me there, my url is silverstreams dot tumblr dot com.
