Chapter 29

Rejected

42 Hours until Bring Your Daughter to Work Day


"—became the first mammal cloned from an adult cell successfully. Dolly, as this sheep was named, was born healthy and lived for six years before dying from of a common ailment of domestic sheep. This was a revolutionary project for the progress of science. The process used for the cloning, called Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer—"

"I'm coming in."

Chell jumped a little from her position on the edge of her bed as Karla pushed open the door to her room.

"What's that?" Karla said, moving over to look at the television in the corner.

Chell jumped from her position on the edge of her bed. "I didn't hear you."

"I didn't knock." Karla glanced back up at the television. "Enjoying the only-channel-we-get-down-here Aperture Channel?"

"Yeah," Chell said.

Before the show could switch to their advertisements, the Aperture logo cut in.

"They play documentaries on here now?" Karla said, folding her arms. She took a step closer and craned her neck up at the television. "Last time I checked they only showed Aperture: Foundations videos."

Chell rolled her eyes. "Oh, they show those too." She'd seen several short clips during the commercial breaks that fruitfully advertised the same handful of homemade films. An amalgam of news footage, safety tips, press conferences, and lengthy legal disclaimers, all dubbed over dated footage of the facility.

"And now, back to From Dust to Dolly. This premium screening is sponsored by Aperture Science's initiative for a more well-rounded, educated workforce. Remember, knowledge is priceless, but your job is not!"

Though interesting the first few times around, Chell now preferred to stare at the wall or switch to a static channel. Sometimes she imagined the specks of black to be ants scurrying around on a busy day. If someone could see through the stacked buildings and ceilings, she imagined that they'd see the workers move around in a similar way. Just ants darting through walkways and hallways to do each of their jobs.

"I don't get this place." Karla shook her head. "Most of us are already college educated—if they really wanted us to gain more "education," they'd pay for our graduate school. Or at least fund our research," she said.

The screen faded from a close of a sheep grazing to a wide shot of a grassy, sunlit field. Little clouds of white dotted the skies and, in more solid, grass-eating forms, other puffs of white grazed the fields.

"As if we're going to gain anything from shows like this—" Karla gestured to the television "—that I didn't already learn in high school biology."

Chell gave a forced smile. She'd never gotten to take a biology class. She'd heard horror stories about what high school science was like, though. Kids passing out from pricking their finger for a blood sample to slide under a microscope. Others getting sick mid-dissection of a worm, or a frog, or some pig's organ. She wouldn't have to wince as she made the incisions and charted out the creature's insides with an equally grossed-out lab partner.

Was it possible to miss something you hadn't yet had the chance to experience? In a way, she missed it. She longed for this rite-of-passage that she had no current chance of ever experiencing.

This education of hers—if she could even call it that—was undoubtedly more advanced and hands-on than any classroom setting. She wasn't sitting through her thousandth slideshow on The Water Cycle or on volcanic eruptions. At the same time, here it was all science, all the time. It'd be a dream come true if she ever pursued The other skills she was learning might be invaluable if she ever pursued in the sciences, but eventually she would need a proper education if she ever wanted anyone to take her seriously.

"I wish I could go to school," she had said one night, while walking back to her room. She did not know it at the time, but the walls must have had ears because the next day, the singular channel that her television received began playing these clips from the outside world.

She couldn't directly trace it back to her saying those words herself. For all she knew, this could have been in the works for months. And yet she couldn't shake the feeling that this had something to do with her and her admitted lack of education.

Not that she'd ever bring this up to CarolineDOS. However, she gave a silent thanks and looked back at the television.

"You're watching From Dust to Dolly: Genetic Engineering Innovations."

"I don't even get this," Chell said. "They can make a duplicate of something? Just like that?" She held her hands together and pulled them apart, palms upward.

Karla made a small grimace. "It's a little more complicated than that," she said. "Genetically identical doesn't equal a carbon copy. More like they both come from the same starting. Like identical twins. Though genetically indistinguishable, they can become entirely different individuals."

Chell shrugged and turned off the television. She adjusted her Aperture-brand t-shirt and sweats and the two set off. Karla lead by a few strides and their footsteps echoed down the hallways as they began the twists and turns leading to their destination.

"Why are you even doing this, anyway?" Karla said after a while. "No one ever really wants to take a test subject evaluation."

"Well, I do." Chell said. She tried to keep her voice firm.

"I still don't get it," Karla said. "It's dangerous and doesn't pay well at all, if money is what you're after. Employees here only ever do it to confirm job security. If anything, it's a last resort."

Chell gave a vague shrug, as if she couldn't be bothered to explain it to her. She didn't have to explain it to her, honestly. All she needed to do was to take that test.

"Just tell me what you know about it."

"I'm not really supposed to talk about it," Karla said. "It is supposed to be secret."

Chell just raised her eyebrows in response. As if she didn't go into a supposedly secret lab almost every day just to see what they were up to.

"Yeah, I know," Karla said. "Don't tell anyone I told you."

Chell just gave a snort in response.

"Well," she started, "they're going to sit you down in a room with cameras, but don't be too concerned. They're just there for the safety of the Test Associates. Occasionally we do get an applicant that becomes agitated." Karla scrunched her nose, as if remembering a particularly unpleasant smell.

"There's already cameras everywhere here."

"We don't have enough data storage to record every application interview, though. Half of the time the cameras aren't recording. They're just there to make you nervous."

"Why do they want me to be nervous?" Chell said.

"The person you are when you're calm acts differently than the person you are when you're nervous. We just want to have a good idea at how that nervous person is going to react to the tests assigned to them. Every single one of your actions while you're in that room is a part of your test subject evaluation. They're going to start judging you as soon as you walk into that door."

"I didn't realize they were so picky."

"They're not, really," Karla said. "Each experiment that's recruiting test subjects have their own lists of criteria. Based on your application results, you'll get assigned to whichever study you'll best fit."

"What happens if I don't fit any of them?"

"They'll find one that fits you," Karla said. "They have a hard enough time getting people to apply as it is, so the criteria for isn't too strict. If anything, the application process is just meant to profile you and then sort you into an applicable ongoing study. For example, if you showed on the testing that you were particularly inept with understanding three-dimensional spaces, they might put you in a track of increasingly difficult maze-like puzzles."

Chell gave a vague grimace and faint groan.

"I never said they were fun studies," Karla said. "They're not testing the mazes—they're testing the people involved. These tests poke and prod at any fears you might have revealed. They will push you into situations they know for certain you won't like, and if that doesn't work they'll keep pushing you until you hit your limit and crack." She paused for a moment. "These tests are about human reactions."

Chell pursed her lips. "So what's the point? What are they even testing?"

"You," Karla said simply.

They paused at a corner. Karla glanced glanced ahead, and put her hand to her chin. "The application is going to be filled with questions and you are required to answer every one of them."

"Is that hard?"

Karla didn't respond to that. "Figure out what their question is really asking. Don't say a word until you're certain of it, and of your own answer."

"What if I can't figure it out?"

"Then don't answer," Karla said. "They'll go on to the next question."

"But I thought you said to answer them all."

"Refusing to answer is an answer itself."


"Let's start with the basics," the woman across from her said. Her hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail and her sky shirt looked a bit blocky on her. A nametag listed her as Hannah, Testing Associate.

Hannah glanced at the pile of paperwork in front of her. "To make this as easy as possible, I'm going to try to run through all of this quickly."

Chell nodded. Something about her—perhaps her no-nonsense attitude or the way she looked right through her—made her skin crawl.

"On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the worst pain imaginable, what's the highest amount of pain you've been able to withstand without losing consciousness?"

Chell opened her mouth to object to the question before closing it. She supposed that one was fair enough. "What happens if I say ten?"

"Then I'd pretend to be impressed if I didn't already know you were lying."

"Then seven or eight, I guess" Chell said, wanting to reflexively cradle her wrist but catching herself before she did. She was glad she had slipped off her makeshift wrist brace before she came here. If she told them she had an injured wrist, they'd probably make her do one-handed push-ups.

"If given a choice, what would you like to be called?" Hannah said, rattling off the question and then glancing at another paper. "Oh, I see your name's Chell," she said, answering herself. "Uncommon enough name. I don't see a surname listed."

Chell shrugged. "Does it matter?"

"I'm required to put down something to cover our back legally, though. Just in case your testing results in injury or death. The government doesn't like it when we can't follow up with a subject's next-of-kin," Hannah said. She flipped over the paper with Chell's basic information, searching for the last name. "If it were up to me I could care less. I do need your last name, though."

Chell hesitated. What name was she supposed to put down? She wasn't even sure which one of her last names was legal anymore. Her so-called 'parents' had sold her out and subsequently disappeared. Putting down the Naransky name was bound to dig up things from her past and weaken the integrity of her application.

"Mossman," Chell said, then reflexively began to spell it. "M - o - s - s - m - a - n."

Her only reply with the scribble of Hannah's pencil. "It says here that you've been involved with Aperture Science since 1996. Could you elaborate?"

Chell pushed the tips of her fingers together. "Well, both of my—" she hesitated "—parents worked here when I was young. I'd come to the daycare after school." Her hands slipped and she interlocked her fingers tightly, waiting to see if she'd be pressed further on the details. If so, Chell would have to backtrack on her listed last name.

The answer appeared to satisfy Hannah.

"Are you prone to dizziness, short of breath, have problems waking up in the morning or problems standing up for 48 hours straight?" she glanced up at Chell before making another mark. "Of course not," Hannah continued, ticking off a box. "Otherwise you wouldn't be here."

Hannah proceeded to slide over a sheet of paper with 92 options for her to choose her favorite color. After scanning the list, Chell circled one at random and handed it back.

She was handed another sheet, asking her to list her level of education—as described by others, apparently, and then answered a question asking if she required any jewelry for health reasons.

"Do you require socks to be a part of your uniform?"

Chell shook her head no.

"Good, because we ran out of socks," Hannah said.

With her Advanced Knee Replacements, she preferred to go barefoot. Getting on shoes with two metal bars attached to her legs turned getting dressed—and getting her shoes on—into an odd sort of acrobatic yoga. Visiting the lab required socks and shoes. That, and Doug insisted that if she walked around barefoot, she was going to step on a nail and get tetanus and die.

"Do you require music to perform simple tasks?"

"Uh, no," Chell said.

"All right, this next question is a story problem. Sally, Dwayne, Anthony, David, and Franklin are collectively exactly 10 years apart in age. Sally is two years younger than David. David's favorite letter is 'g'. Anthony's favorite letter is also 'g' but Dwayne has no preference, insisting he likes all the letters equally except for 's'. What is Franklin's favorite letter?"

Chell stared up at the ceiling, struggling to keep all of the bits of the information in her head. "Could I get a pad of paper and a pencil?" she asked, mentally repeated to herself as much of the question as she could remember. Sally is 2 years younger David letter g Anthony letter g Dwayne no preference no s—

Hannah muttered to herself and opened a drawer. She handed over a beat-up clipboard with a knobby pencil chained to it.

Chell tapped the tip of the lead against the desk, then jotted down the names and the letters she could remember. She drew a horizontal line beneath with little arrows at each end and labeled the aforementioned 10 year age difference. Chell could see where Sally fit, but how did that have anything to do at all with letters? She stared at the letters again, struggling to find some sort of underlying pattern. Perhaps their favorite letters spelled something?

After a few more moments of idle scribbling and grasping at straws, Karla's words came back to her. All they were testing was how she reacted, not whether or not she got the correct answer. It made sense that they would give her overly-complex or nonsensical questions. Still, she thought, I want to get it right.

"V," she answered.

The testing associate raised her eyebrows. "Interesting choice. Including periods of mandatory silence, what is the longest you have voluntarily gone without talking?"

"A few days, I think," she said gently. Chell frowned, trying to remember just how long she had been in Old Aperture before her sleep. "I could go longer if necessary. Why?"

"It doesn't matter why. Just something we have to know," said Hannah. She scribbled in another box on her sheet, already moving on to the next question. "Now, I need you to choose your favorite color." The test associate slid Chell another paper.

"You already asked me this."

"Just answer it."

Chell glanced through the 92 options, noticing that these choices were different. At least, different enough that she couldn't immediately locate the color she'd chosen last time. She picked the one that closest matched her previous selection and slid the paper back. They had to give her points for an attempt at consistency, right?

Hannah compared the two answers with a flick of her eyes. "How does lying about your favorite color makes you feel?"

Chell held her palm up and gestured toward the paper with a frustrated exhale. She splayed her fingers and gave a little jolt of her hand between the two papers.

"I said, how does that make you feel?"

"But I didn't lie on it," Chell said. "I couldn't—"

"Do you feel sorry, or not sorry?"

"For what? Answering the question?"

"There's two answers here. Only one can be the truth, so you must've lied."

Chell wished she could snatch the two sheets out of the woman's hands and just show her that she hadn't lied. "I didn't get a choice," she said.

"Just answer the question," Hannah probed. She gave Chell an exasperated look. She'd already done this too many times today. "Do you feel sorry, or not?"

"Fine. Not sorry," Chell spat back.

"There we go," Hannah said. She circled Chell's answer and lightly tapped on the desk. "The quicker you tell the truth, the easier these remaining questions will be."

A clock's tick echoed off of the walls. Hannah continued without hesitation. "Do you trust yourself?"

"What do you mean?"

"Do you have confidence in yourself and your own abilities?"

"I guess," Chell said.

"You're not absolutely sure of it, then. So that's a no." Before Chell could protest, Hannah circled in the answer. "Are you plagued by suspicions that other people, including coworkers and relatives, may be doing things behind your back to hurt you?"

"No," Chell lied, too easily.

"I want you to be honest with me here. It's more likely than people think," Hannah said. "The people you think you can trust end up being your downfall. Be truthful—do you think they're planning things behind your back?"

"They're not." Chell insisted.

"It's tragic. I'd watch my back if I were you."

"You don't even know my friends. They wouldn't do that to me," Chell said again, growing more and more defensive. Why did this woman have to keep questioning every single one of her answers? Was nothing she said good enough? She didn't stop to think about the few friends she had, and how devastating such an act would be.

"If you say so." Hannah shrugged. "Do you feel that you have let your co-workers, and/or larger mandated collective down?"

Chell hesitated. She pulled her hands out and gripped the edges of her chair. This is where Karla's words came back to her. These questions were doing exactly what they were designed to do—to poke at her and pry into her life and stir up her emotions until she gave them a free preview into what her breakdowns would look like.

Chell forced herself to take a deep but jagged inhale.

Don't react. Don't react. That's just what they want you to do.

She pressed her lips together and stared straight ahead. She didn't have to answer that question. She was not going to let them have this answer.

"Why should Aperture Science accept you as a research volunteer, and would anyone file a police report if you went missing?"

HR NOTE: Subject refused to answer.


"So when will my results come back in?" Chell asked.

Hannah didn't look from her paperwork. "You failed," she said. She took a moment to stamp Chell's profile with a red REJECTED stamp before leaning down to scribble in a few notes. She twisted around to open one of the filing cabinets behind her and slipped Chell's file into it.

Chell just watched as the stamp went down and as her file disappeared into the sliding drawer. "What?" she said, confused. "What do you mean?"

"I said, you failed the the application. We're not accepting you as a testing candidate at this time."

"Wait, how?" Chell tried, going back over the test in her mind. As far as she could remember, she'd done everything right. "What did I do wrong?" She'd followed Karla's instructions and answered everything as truthfully as she could. She hadn't tried to make herself particularly stand out in any way. And yet there was something wrong with her application? Could it have been because of her current situation? If anything, she felt as if that would have been an encouragement for them to accept her.

"I can't say," Hannah said. She glanced down and straightened the badge pinned to her shirt. "Even if I could, it wouldn't help you. There's no re-takes or re-applications. We'll keep your information on file, and if there's ever a time at which Aperture could use someone fitting your profile, we'll be in contact."

Chell opened her mouth but no words came out. What was she supposed to do now? This had been so important to her plan.

"If you'll excuse me, I've got other people to interview," Hannah said, rising from her chair and moving toward the door.

Still reeling, Chell followed her out and back to the folding chairs lining the hallway.


Chell kept her hands tightly folded as she waited for Karla to come back and get her. She picked at a sticker that Karla had put on her shirt earlier. Hello! My Name Is: CHELL. Her name wasn't even in her own handwriting. There was something about seeing her name in someone else's handwriting that made it feel as if it didn't belong to her. It wasn't really her name unless she was the one to write it down.

Chell picked at the edges of the sticker and barely glanced up when Karla finally approached. The green border around it designated Chell to Visitor status. Visitors were not allowed to travel unaccompanied through the facility. Besides the risk of them stumbling into top-secret projects, the immensity of the place made it easy for even veteran employees to get lost. "So did the sticker help?" Karla said.

Chell shrugged. "At least she didn't ask me how to spell my name," she said, her tone a bit dark. This wouldn't have been the first time that people had tried to figure out how to correctly spell her name while simultaneously avoiding just asking her how it was spelled. Instead, she ended up with things like 'Cel, Chel, Chelle, Shell, Shel'. Infinite possibilities for infinite cluelessness. "Not that it even matters now." She kept her eyes focused far ahead, as if there was something in the distance far more important than this.

"Why wouldn't it?"

Karla frowned. "What do you mean you didn't pass?"

Chell gave an absent shrug.

"Impossible. Even the most neurotic employees here get roped into testing. They've taken in anything from dropouts to the chronically homeless. Everyone passes."

"Not me, apparently."

The sticker crinkled underneath the folding fabric of her shirt. She moved up a hand and ripped it off. Colored threads stained the back of the sticker, and the fabric pilled where the sticker had been. Chell folded the sticker on itself and began to rip it in half over and over.

Though Karla had become accustomed to Chell's quiet nature, this pointed silence that didn't feel right.

"Hey, look on the bright side," Karla said. "I bet there's people who would pay good money to know how you failed that test. Hell, I bet most of the people working here would easily pay."

Chell didn't answer. Even if people asked, it wasn't as if possessing more money would make her feel any better.

"How did you do it, anyway?" Karla said, continuing to prod the girl back into conversation.

"Like I'd know," Chell said. "I just did what you told me. I tried to answer all of the questions, but I couldn't. Was that wrong? Should I have answered?"

"It's not that," Karla said. She kept her voice contemplative. "It's just," she paused, pursing her lips as if she couldn't figure out exactly how much she wanted to say. "I've heard lots of stories of people quitting the test in a rage, only to later be informed that they'd been accepted into the program."

"I didn't get mad at her, though. I just got mad at the questions."

Karla clenched a hand tightly around a pen in her jacket pocket. She wished she could go back and check the girl's test results, but doubted she could get the correct permissions to access that data. If anything, she'd like to review the test proctor's notes and to see just why she'd made that decision. This result seemed too atypical.

"I don't know what to tell you, Chell," she said. "You're a smart kid—I know you must have given it your all. If anything, this should be goodnews. No one really...volunteers to be a research volunteer, if you catch my drift."

"But I wanted that," Chell said. She clenched her fist and the bits of sticky paper stuck to the inside of her hand.

"Why?" Karla studied the girl for a moment, admiring how steadfast she seemed in this decision. "I know that this was your decision, but why?"

Chell shook her hand violently for a moment, then picked at the fragments of the former sticker on her hand. "I thought—if I could just go through a testing, then I could prove to them—to all of you—that I did it. I finished it. Because once test subjects get through their track, they get go home. They're done with Aperture," She said. "Right?"


36 Hours Until Bring Your Daughter to Work Day

"Ha ha. That's a good one."

Chell kept one hand on the taut telephone cord as she leaned against the fake windows of her relaxation vault. She waited for her words to sink in.

It took another few seconds for her to get a reply.

"Oh. You're serious," CarolineDOS said. Her voice was oddly devoid of emotion. "But no one fails the test. Not unless you're a public figure or in law enforcement. I would know. I helped design it."

"Well, I did."

"How did you even manage to fail at this?"

Chell didn't answer. She'd been asking herself the same question.

"What was the point of getting evaluated, anyway?" Chell tried. Why had she even gone through all of that trouble to be kicked out? Why had it been so important for her to potentially be a test subject for Bring Your Daughter to Work Day?

"Well, once they give me access to the test subject records tomorrow—which they will have to—then I could easily alter your file and give you the correct authorization to leave the Enrichment Center."

"So I could have just left?"

"Not exactly. You'd have to—"

"But I could have left."

"It's never that easy. You'd have to wait to the conclusion of the testing, the post-testing examination, and then your exit paperwork. That wouldn't happen until cleanup from tomorrow's events had concluded. Then, and maybe then, you might've been able to walk out."

"So that's it? The only thing keeping me here is some stupid area on a file?"

"Like I said, it's not that easy."

"Why didn't you tell me? If I had know, I—" Chell stammered and kicked at the frame of her bed. She wanted to say that she would have tried harder, but she had already tried as hard as she could have.

CarolineDOS hesitated. "I didn't realize that you needed any more motivation for a plan designedto help me and get you out of here."

"If I had known—" Chell repeated again, though she didn't know how she was supposed to finish that. This wasn't something that she could blame on Caroline. She knew that this had been huge, and she'd blown the chance anyway.

"So," Chell started again, voice darker. "Whatever part I was supposed to play in your grand plan, you're going to have to find something else. What now?"

"Without you as the star test subject, my attention tomorrow will be divided. This means that I'm going to have to worry both about running tests tomorrow and building up a hefty defense on whatever they've got planned or me tomorrow."

Chell tensed. "Yeah, about that," she said. "It's going to be bad. They're already about ready to celebrate their success."

"What do they have planned?"

Chell hesitated. She wasn't sure if she was supposed to just tell her that the personality cores were based off of her. Either way, CarolineDOS would find out about it eventually. A pain jolted up her finger, and Chell realized she'd wrapped the telephone cord too tightly around her finger. She unwound it and rubbed her finger until she felt the blood flow freely once again.

"Well? If this is really as big as you claim, then I need to know what they're doing."

"It's more cores," Chell said. "There's this one, the Morality Core, that they say would make you like an entirely new person. They said you wouldn't be a threat anymore. It's going to be bad," she said. She twisted a finger around the telephone cord.

"Then you'd better figure something out," CarolineDOS said, oddly calm. "If you can't find out any information to help us bypass the cores, then we're going to be out of luck. Your failure has left us with no choice. This is our Plan B, and there isn't a Plan C. "


24 Hours until Bring Your Daughter to Work Day

Chell paced around her room, moving back and forth intently. She could tell by the lighting cues both inside and outside of her room that it was 'day' time. Or, at least, time for the employees to be getting back to work. Or time for test subjects to be awake. Either way, she was awake and alert and she couldn't shake the trembling anxiety inside of her.

No one had come to pick her up today.

Usually, someone stopped by to accompany her to their lab. She had won at least a little bit of their favor. They liked that she listed and that she asked genuinely curious questions about their work, and how they would eventually deconstruct their technical jargon into concepts she could understand. That, and sometimes they could use the extra hand when working on the cores, or needed her to run across the room to grab something. She was still fascinated by it all.

And yet, with less than 24 hours to go until Bring Your Daughter to Work Day and the accompanying festivities, she hadn't heard a word from them. She kept her eyes on the carpet, following the slightly pressed-down trail of footprints she'd created. It was almost like when a piece of furniture was left in a spot for too long. The carpet fibers never stood up in the same way again.

As she passed by her bed, she stopped to pick up her phone. They had left her their lab number and extension in case of emergencies. And while it may not seem like one to them, to her right now as certain an emergency.

She dialed the phone extension from a scrap of paper at her nightstand. The phone rang a few times before one of the employees answered it.

"Hello?"

"Hi," she said, then remembered to identify herself. "It's Chell."

"Oh—" said the person. Probably Henry. It sounded like him. "Hold on. Let me grab Doug for you."

Before she could raise an objection, she heard the phone muffle and rustle as it was moved, then heard a faint shout of "Rattmann. Phone's for you." After a few more moments, another voice picked up.

"Doug Rattmann speaking," he said, matter-of-factly.

"Hey," Chell said, searching for some cheer to inject into her voice.

"Chell?" he said, part question, part statement. "Is something wrong?"

Chell paused. "Well, not really," she started. Of course, out of all of the people she could have talked to, this was the one she ended up talking to. Why couldn't Henry have just talked to her instead of handing off the phone as if he didn't want anything to do with her? As if she was some baby that needed to be changed, and he was not going to be the one to do it.

"Can it wait?" Doug said. "Sorry, but we're working on a really tight deadline here—" he said, nervousness creeping into his voice.

Chell inhaled. "But that's exactly why I want to be there—"

"Chell, this really isn't the best time. We really have to focus today."

"But that's why I want to be there," Chell said. "I'll be quiet as a mouse," she said, tapping her lips with her free hand. "I promise."

"I know you want to. Maybe tomorrow? Wait, no—" he said.

"I'm so bored in here," she said, flopping onto the bed dramatically. "There's nothing to do here, and you're all going to be busy all day tomorrow too," she said, giving her best pleading, kid-wanting-candy-at-a-grocery-store voice.

"Well," Doug said, voice catching a little bit.

Chell almost felt like pumping a fist in the air. She knew she had him now.

"I suppose it couldn't hurt. But if anyone complains, you'll have to go right back, you hear me?" he said. That must have been his best impression of a parent voice. Perhaps this was easier for him to do over the phone, where she still occasionally sounded like a kid.

"Got it," Chell said. "Thank you," she added even more quietly. She wasn't quite ready to apologize to him yet, but she wanted him to know that she appreciated this.