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"Warning: Authorized Aperture device has gained access to an abundant amount of files. Confirm? Y/W"
"No." Said a bored voice, echoing through the walls. The voice sounded powerful enough to even send the bravest test subject to shivers. "This is never going to get old. Ever since I woke up, there was chaos in the security room nonstop. Even the human moron isn't here, and I already knew that he has caused yet again another incident in the facility. My facility." the voice, of course, couldn't have belonged to anyone other than THE person Herself. Or, so to speak, the AI itself: GLaDOS.
A portal appeared on the wall next to her, it's blue light illuminating the room. Two robots came out. The blue and orange robot, from before. "I see you came back empty handed..." She answered. The two robots chirped nervously. They knew that when She spoke like that, it meant trouble. "Well, I might as well just cancel out this test since you guys have failed so easily... I told you two to not come back here until you find whatever is infiltrating my Facility. What do you have to say for yourself, Orange?" Her yellow eye stared at the orange robot in a bored looking way.
The orange robot chirped nervously, shaking in fear, the portal gun quivering in its metal hands. Her bored eyes were intimidating it. She then looked at the blue robot. "What about you Blue? What do you have to say for yourself? After all, you had the notion to come back here empty handed." The Blue robot tried to hide his shivering from Her, but he couldn't. When met with silence from both bots, she blinked at them slowly, shaking her robotic head on both sides. "Well, if you two can't do anything better than to shake violently, I might as well put you guys back to the CO-operative testing Initiative Unit." She watched as both robots exploded next to each other, screaming in fear. Black scorch marks marked where they both have been standing. Of course, she knew that they wouldn't be gone forever. Their memories were backed up by the Enrichment Center's files, and all She needed to do was just get them new bodies.
GLaDOS looked back at the one monitor in the enrichment room to see how the Party Escort Bot was doing in the search. It did a great job, since it captured a full surveillance video on who was infiltrating the Facility. GLaDOS replayed the footage, eager to see what it was. 'Finally…' She thought. 'Lets see who really is messing up my facility once more.' She watched, as the Party Escort Bot hid in the hallway, waiting to see it the infiltrator came out of the room. To her surprise, it wasn't what she expected. Out of all the things that could have been infiltrating the security room, it had to be... another human. The human girl ran into the robot, then screamed, and ran away. As GLaDOS looked closer, she had a bag full of metal clanging things, but GLaDOS couldn't make out what they actually were.
She continued watching as she saw the mysterious girl run up to the nearest lift and waved at the Party Escort robot. " Sayonara Sucker!" was last heard, before the footage ended with the robot crashing into the elevator's glass, its optical cracking a bit from the impact. 'Funny…' thought GLaDOS. 'She looks like test subject 001, except she has the ability to speak, and she is way smaller than her…' She looked back at another footage, to the one where Chell was trying to take her down for the second time. The moron was there, screaming as the Enrichment Center prepared itself for another Core Transfer. Chell was staring at both of them.
She compared it to the image of milliseconds before the girl crashed into the robot. She thought at how similar they both looked, not by their semi different features, but at how they show that they are determined, but also showing hints of fear within them. That was until an amazing Idea popped into her mind.
A feeling of eagerness returned to her. The feeling was familiar. The feeling that she felt that was permanently built into her system. 'This feeling…' She thought. 'I know what this is…' She looked at where the lift was taking the mysterious girl. Since this was found in an old area in Aperture, there wasn't any technology that allowed her to interact with her there. But with a lot of searching by using the power of technology, she managed to find the exact location of where the lift was taking her in a matter of seconds. The lift was taking the girl to one of the newer areas in Aperture. "The Personality Spheres Unit… Interesting… I'm sure that I can find a way to escort her to me" Said GLaDOS.
She looked through a camera and saw that the two cooperative testing robots have already acquired a new body, and were waiting in the relaxation vault for Her next orders. GLaDOS activated the loudspeakers in the vault. "I have suspended the Co-operative Testing Initiative Unit project on hold for another different test… a test where both of you need to work together to find someone."
From one of the many surveillance cameras in the vault, she saw both of the robots looking up to it and nodding, indicating that they understood what they had to do. 'The last known location will be sent down to your Aperture Science Enhanced Optical System, which you two had received when you transferred into your new bodies. All the information will be attached to the location. Don't disappoint me this time.' She warned. The two robots nodded and left through the metal doors.
GLaDOS then faced the monitor once more, displaying the two images of Chell and the mysterious girl looking at her, and she felt relieved that finally, yet after all the chaos that had happened in the past week, she was finally glad to know that she would have someone to test soon.
0~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~0
Nina breathed a sigh of relief. She was finally in the Personality Spheres Unit. After so much time, the fear she endured while hiding from the robots, she was finally there. She looked up at the first door that caught her eye. She read the sign that was hanging above the door: "Aperture Science Human Enhancement Center." she watched, as the two metal doors opened up to rows and rows of other doors. Nina sighed. 'Why does this place have to be so big?' she thought. She walked inside, not questioning the fact that the doors were still functional, or that there was a consistent humming noise all around her . It only mattered to her that she found her brother and got out of the place.
She walked through the first hallway, which was marked as "Lockers." 'Figured it's the first place I should look into, since of course, my brother should have had some stuff on him before he went to whatever they did to get his conscience into one of these cores.' she walked inside the room, and not to her surprise the room was yet again, dark. 'This room feels different than all the other rooms I walked into…' thought Nina, shivering with what she felt was fear.
Nina walked down to the room, and turned on a switch, hoping that it was to turn on the lights. She cringed as the entire room screamed as electricity hit the lights for the first time in years. 'Seriously, how long was I in the Cryo-Chamber for?' she thought, as most of the lights turned on. She looked around the room now. It was even worse in the light.
She wondered inside the room, her heart pounding loudly in her chest. The room looked like a mess. Lockers were torn, and many were rusted. Nina understood why they looked like that. It has been years, possibly centuries, since they had been replaced. But that didn't explain why there were tons of sheets of paper on the ground, and tons of lumps of rocks in the room, and the reason why the room smells. Nina covered her nose. 'There doesn't seem to be anything in here to help me find him…' she thought.
She looked around some more, and took note of the weird paintings on the walls. They were pictures of, something. Nina looked closer. It looked like a picture of a big robot. Down underneath, there was handwriting on the walls. Nina looked and read: "Don't trust her". She looked around some more, to the wall behind her. That's was she gasped in fear as she looked at the one word that was written on the wall, in orange paint: "NEUROTOXIN" it said.
Nina backed away from the wall. 'Who wrote this?' she asked. Then she remembered. Her brother's files said that his job was to distract the GLaDOS unit with a [Redacted] subject, to prevent her from flooding the Enrichment Center with Neurotoxin. Nina looked at the wall with the picture of the GLaDOS Unit. 'What if the GLaDOS Unit didn't just flood the Enrichment Center with Neurotoxin?' she thought. She looked around the room, to the lumps of rock and dust. That's when she realized that they weren't lumps of rock and dust, as she made out some shapes in the piles.
'These were never rocks…' though Nina, as she picked up a long shape from the ground. It looked like a rock from just seeing it afar, but when seen up close, she froze in fear.
The rocks were bones.
Nina felt like she was gonna puke. She threw the bone away. 'Eww.' she thought. She looked at the entire room. 'The GLaDOS Unit flooded the Entire Facility with Neurotoxin.' she thought. This was the reason why the facility was abandoned. This was why things were a mess. 'If the GLaDOS Unit really did succeed in its intentions, then that means that they turned my brother into a robot for nothing!' Nina kicked the lump of bones on the floor.
"That's it." she said out loud. "I'm finding you. No matter if there is a homicidal robot who might be after me. You hear that GLaDOS? I'm going to find him!." she yelled, her voice echoing the empty room, down to the empty halls.
Nina walked out of the creepy locker room, and walked over to the next room, which was yet again, another locker room. Nina ignored the creepy paintings on the walls, and the lumps of bones that were still on the floor. She walked over to the next switch, and turned on those lights as well. The room was at least a little more cleaner than the last one. All the lockers were open, and left unused, except for one, that was still closed. 'Looks promising…' said Nina. She walked over to the locker, and punched it open. The door fell down, and Nina sighed. There was nothing inside the locker.
She walked away from the locker, and looked around the room. There was nothing else to look into. Nothing was inside this room. She walked out of the room, careful not to trip over more bones on the ground. She walked down to the next room, which now had a new sign that said, "STAFF ONLY." 'There has to be something in here. My brother literally worked here!' thought Nina, as she walked inside that room.
The room looked spotless, as Nina walked into the room. She turned on a nearby switch, and watched in amazement as the room lit up perfectly. The lockers were really neat, and looked like regular lockers. 'I guess the advanced staff gets better lockers than the regular people that work here.' said Nina. She looked at the lockers, all having a tag pasted on them. Nina looked at the words. "Sanderson, Lorraine. Moran, Jake." she read from two lockers. 'I wonder which one is my brother's locker?'
She continued walking over to the rows and rows of lockers, hopefully finding something that would help her remember her brother's name. "Micheal, Ruben, Bram… None of these sounded familiar!" said Nina in frustration. She continued walking by some more lockers. Names drifted by, and Nina continued walking.
It wasn't until she stopped, at an unusual name. "Kevin… Unknown." she said aloud. She looked at another locker that was next to it. "Stephens, Wheatley." That Wheatley name sounded somewhat familiar. Nina was sure she heard that from somewhere. She examined the Kevin locker. Nina looked at her name tag. She doesn't have a last name next to it. 'That's maybe because my last name was unknown… let me see what's inside this locker.'
Nina punched the locker. The door didn't budge. Nina sighed. Maybe these lockers were better than they looked. She looked at the lock. It was a screen. Nina touched the screen. "PLEASE ENTER A 4 DIGIT PIN TO CONTINUE." said an electronic voice. Nina sighed. 'Password Protection. Great.' She sighed as she looked at the number pad. 'How bad would it be? All I need to do is to punch in a bunch of codes until one gets accepted.'
Nina took a deep breath. She typed out a random 4 digit code. "CODE:1234… NOT ACCEPTED" said the voice in the lock. Nina sighed. 'Worth a shot.' she said. "THE APERTURE SCIENCE ADVANCED LOCK SYSTEM HAS BEEN INITIATED FOR THE CONVENIENCE OF THE OWNER. PLEASE SCAN TO UNLOCK." Nina looked at the screen now. It was showing an outline of a hand. 'Okay, weird.' said Nina 'I know that Aperture is really, really, advanced in technology, but this is way too advanced.'
Nina put her hand on the screen. A white line was swiped where she had left her hand. Nina watched as the screen glitched out. 'Oh great. I broke it. Guess I'll have to try this the harder way…' Nina readied her fists to punch the locker, until the electric voice came from the locker stopped her in her tracks. "HANDPRINTS HAS BEEN VERIFIED AS NINA_UNKNOWN. PROCEEDING ORDERS FROM THE USER. PLEASE REMOVE THE APERTURE SCIENCE USB DEVICE TO ACCESS THE INFORMATION NEEDED."
Nina watched as a small device; similar to the one she found taped on her nametag, popped out of the screen on the locker. 'Whoa.' she thought, as she took the USB. The screen blacked out, and then the locker opened up. "USER VERIFIED AS RELATIVE OF OWNER. PLEASE FEEL FREE TO TAKE ANYTHING LEFT OF YOUR RELATIVE FROM THE APERTURE SCIENCE ADVANCED LOCKER DEVICE. WE THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION."
Nina looked as the locker slowly opened up, revealing an old Aperture Science Gel Researchers Coat, and a couple of First Aid Kits on the top shelf. In the bottom of the shelf, there was a pair of weird boots, a telescope, and a framed picture that seemed to have fallen off the top shelf. Nina picked up the famed picture. Tears streaked down on her cheeks. The picture consisted of young Nina holding a telescope pointing to where her brother was pointing, to the stars of the milky way they had spotted. Nina's brother had a huge smile on his face.
Nina continued looking at her brother's face. 'He seems to be the happier one, seeing the stars like that without the telescope.' she thought. She continued to look at her brother's face, his smile, everything. He looked so happy. Nina took the framed picture, and put it in the bag. She removed some can beans to make room. Then she took out the computer and opened up to the page where she downloaded the security footage.
She closed out that page. 'I'll look at it later. For now, I gotta see what my brother has inside this chip.' Nina plugged in the USB chip into the computer. A video file, and a couple of documents popped up. Nina gasped, at the sight of her brother. She immediately clicked on the video file.
"Nina. Nina oh Nina, it's me, your brother Kevin. Listen, I should have listened to you about that promotion. You were right. It was dangerous. Now, they want to pour my brain in a computer. Nina, I'm going to be gone for, more than a while. Listen. I don't have much time here. This is supposed to be my bathroom break, before they put my body in the Suspension Tubes. Listen here. If you are watching this a couple of years later I need your help. The GLaDOS Unit was designed to have feelings, and right now, they have homicidal feelings towards Aperture. I'm working on a way to get the genetic lifeform out of her system, so she would work the way she was supposed to."
"I am the only one with the right files to find the originality of the genetic lifeform. I can help others before they have been exposed to neurotoxin. But first you need to find both the Sphere I am in, and my body. Put on the boots I have in the locker. They are the Aperture Science Long Fall Boots. Not the latest model, but it will protect you from the GLaDOS Unit they are working on. She will succeed in not just flooding the Enrichment Center with a deadly Neurotoxin, but the entire facility will be full of that too. If she succeeds, then she does nothing to prevent herself from killing you, so you will have to do a lot of jumping here."
"Nina. Please be careful. I have provided you with an Aperture Science Core Tracker, and a document of the entire, and I mean the literal entire map, of the Old and New Aperture that would be worked on. It's not up to date, but it could help you. They keep the bodies in the suspension room, locked away from the Facility to prevent the FBI, and other law enforcements from finding them. The map would tell you where to go."
"In the event if my body is dead, transfer the files to an Aperture Science Human Relations Avatar Device. It's not much, and it's not the same, but at least, I'll always be with you. Nina, and don't forget this. I love you. It doesn't matter where I am. Somewhere in Aperture, in a computer, space, it doesn't matter. I will always be there for you, in spirit. I love you Nina. I know you can do this. You are the only one left of this family who can save me."
Nina looked at the screen. Her heart felt shattered. She looked inside the locker, at the boots her brother mentioned. The last thing he left for her. She sighed. 'Brother, I will find you. Aperture, Black Mesa, or even Space, I would find a way to rescue you.' She took off her shoes, and put the other ones on. They fit perfectly fine. She looked at the telescope. 'As much as I would like to bring it along, I can't.' she thought. With a heavy heart, she closed the locker, but left it open slightly so in case if she were to come back, she could at least open it without any hassle.
Nina walked over to the locker marked, "Stephens Wheatley". 'The name rings a bell too loudly to be ignored.' thought Nina. She tried to open the locker, but was met with the same electronic voice. 'Forget it.' said Nina. She walked away from the locker. 'It wasn't mine to look into anyways.'
She activated the Aperture Science Core Tracker. She watched, as the app loaded into the computer. After the loading screen disappeared, she looked at the words on the screen. "PLEASE PUT IN THE ID OF THE DESIRED APERTURE SCIENCE PERSONALITY SPHERE." it said. Nina's eyes widened as she remembered the document of the blueprint of the sphere that she had inserted in her USB, the one she found on her nametag. Nina opened up to the blueprint, and copied the ID down to the tracker. She watched, as the tracker collected the data. 'Finally, I really am going somewhere with this!' thought Nina, as she read the data listed on the screen.
Scanning for Connection…
Connection not found.
Last known location of Stable Connection: Aperture Science Enrichment Center
Dated back 5 years ago
Nina looked at the map. The Enrichment center isn't that far away from where she is. But then Nina looked, as a picture of the GLaDOS Unit showed up on the screen. 'She's in there.' she thought.
A clatter was heard in the distance. Nina closed the computer screen, and looked around. 'Someone's here' she thought. She heard chirping in the distance, and then a loud, electronic version of a shhhhhhh. Nina's head screamed at her to run. And she did just that, running behind a locker, just in time as the two robots from earlier walked into the room. Their opticals shone brighter than before, and they looked more like flashlights in the brightish room.
Nina looked at the robots. They were holding out the same guns from before, the ones that created portals. 'If I could get one of those guns, and teleport out of here, then I could get away from them' thought Nina. She put the laptop in the bag, and zipped it up tight. Then Nina stopped, and angrily slapped her forehead. 'They are robots! What chance do I have? They are way smarter than me! Why did I-' her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of metal footsteps behind her.
'It's now or never.' thought Nina. She ran around the locker, and met face to face with the robot with the blue optical. "Need this!" said Nina, as she took the portal Gun from it. The robot chirped loudly, and Nina ran off, out of the locker room and into the hallway. She heard the other robot screaming, and metal footsteps chasing behind her.
Nina ran into the hallway of the Personality spheres Unit, and turned around for a brief moment to find that both robots are now chasing her. She ran further and further into the Personality Spheres Unit. She fumbled with the portal gun in her hands, inserting her hand inside the socket of it. 'How does this work?' she thought, her mind racing.
Nina turned to another corner and gasped. The Hallway ends. There are no doors in the hallway so she can escape to. She ran all the way to the end of the hallway, and turned around. There, the two robots stood there, chirping to each other. The robot with the orange optical stood there, blocking off any space allowing her to exit, while the other robot with the blue optical walked to her, its optical blinding her.
Nina was trapped
0~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~0
Wheatley was scratching his head. It was one of those handy things that his limbs were able to do, relieving some of the minor disturbance of the itch that sometimes his skin would have. Why skin itches like that, he didn't know, and he doubted that Chell would know something about it either. It's one of those very sciencey things that included too much thinking in a version that you wouldn't understand.
Wheatley picked up the paper that came from the mail every sunday. He would normally look at the small cartoons in the back, and answer the puzzles in the puzzle section. There hasn't been that much interesting news going around in the town of Eaden ever since the attack from Her. From then, the papers were loaded with news and schedules of town meetings.
It was only then that this week, the papers returned to their original state of emptiness, except for the cartoon and the puzzle at the back of the page. It could be either a maze, Sudoku, or even a crossword puzzle. Sometimes, the newspaper would be so empty, that they only send out the puzzle and the comic section, and nothing more.
Wheatley looked over at the puzzle section, and sighed. Another maze. He had really hoped it was Sudoku this week. It was so easy just to put numbers in the boxes that don't exist in a row yet, and the satisfaction that everything has its own little box, and that in the correct places, makes it seem like a finished puzzle. He sometimes wondered if he was a number, and that it would only be a matter of time before he finally finds a way to fit it with the other numbers in the box. Being in a human body isn't cake walk, and getting used to a new home away from where he came from isn't that much easier either.
"Time" he remembers Chell's voice, from a conversation that he had with her. "It takes time to get used to new things." When met with Wheatley's confused look, she sighs. "Give it a couple of weeks. You'll see what I mean. You'll get used to it."
But Wheatley was not used to it. He was lost, just like he is right now in the maze underneath the warm afternoon sun coming down from the kitchen window. Mazes can also be tricky. How does it expect you to get the correct path on the first try? It seems like in every path he takes, there would always be another wall in front of him.
He grumbles and fiddles with the eraser at the tip of his pencil, and erases his path as Chell walks in the room, with some flour she bought from Aaron's store. She stopped, and looked at him for a moment. "Another Maze?" she asks him. Wheatley nodded, still fiddling with the eraser, the smell of burning rubber lifting into the air.
Chell set the bag of flour on to the table and looked over to his shoulder. Sure enough, there were faint trails on the paper, from the dead ends Wheatley had encountered. She watched as Wheatley drew another path. Right, left, down, and another left, and there, he meets another dead end. "I don't understand!" he shouts now, in frustration. He set the pencil down and stood up, looking down at Chell.
"It's like the walls move! Every time when I figure out the right path, I always end up crashing into a wall, or trapping myself again. Why even find the right path if the puzzle doesn't let you find it!" When Chell raised one eyebrow, he sighed and then sat back down. "I'm sorry I yelled," he says. "It's just that it's so intriguing. It reminds me of Her, and how she would normally use the walls to block us in, just like there."
Chell nodded and kneeled down to the table. It's kind of the same reason why she doesn't do the maze puzzles. Even though it is just a design on paper, solving the puzzle in general still reminds her too much, the "Mashy Spike plates" (as Wheatley would call them) crushing against the walls, moving toward her as she ran through the cat walks of the facility.
She picked up the pencil, shaking away the painful thoughts creeping up into her mind about Her. "Then think about it this way. We are here." She points to the middle of the maze. " This is the Enrichment room," Wheatley cringed. "We need a way to get out of there, so…" she moves the pencil, creating a new path. Up, left, up, right, down, left again, and then up, to the beginning of the maze.
Wheatley watched, dazed. "How did you do that?" he asked. Chell looked at him. "Sometimes, you need to work backwards to solve these." Wheatley nodded, understanding. Ignoring Chell's path, he tried to solve the maze again, this time, from the inside and towards out. The walls didn't move around this time, and he soon found the exit as well.
"A loophole." he says, and she nods.
0~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~0
The portal gun shook in her hands as Nina readied it, pointing at the wall next to her. It's the last resort now, before the robots take her to somewhere she wouldn't want to think about. Still blinded by the opticals from the robots, she fires.
A portal appeared right next to her, opening up to a new area Nina had never explored before. 'A loophole!' she thought. The robot with the blue optical froze for a moment, looking baffled, but that gave Nina all the time she needed. She ran into the new area without a second thought, and then instinctively fired another portal in the wall behind her, closing them off before they would chase her again.
Heart pounding in her ears, Nina looked around. This seemed far away from where she was before, now in a new area. The hum that Nina heard when she went inside the Personality Spheres Unit was louder here. She looked around. It was a very big, spacious room - no, bigger than a room. Kind of like a factory size room. It was also very dark, with very little faint blue lights in the distance.
Under the blue light from the portals, Nina looked at the portal gun, to better understand its functions. She looked at the end where she had to stick her hand into the gun. It's like a glove, but it has a handle attached to it, the one used to fire the portals. She turned the gun around - to the operational side, and wished she regretted it. Her eyes burned, and she stifled a scream.
Rubbing her eyes, Nina sat down on the catwalk that she was standing on. 'Note to self: Don't look in the operational end of the Portal Gun.' she thought. Nina stood up, and slung the bag over her back. She began to walk down the catwalk, eager to get away from the area. She knew that she wouldn't be alone for so long. That other robot with its orange optical still had a portal gun, and it wouldn't be long before they figured out where she ended up being.
Nina looked around the walls, the operational end of the portal gun lighting up her way. Painted on the walls are big, red letters. Nina walked by them, forming the words as they passed by her. It wasn't long before Nina reached the end of the trail of letters that formed the words: APERTURE SCIENCE SUSPENSION VAULT. Further Down the end of the words, the catwalk ended in an elevator.
"Hello!" said a voice. Nina screamed, shooting the portals out of her gun all around her. "Who said that?" she said. There was a scream to her left, and Nina aimed the gun in that direction. "Don't shoot! Please, it's too bright." said the voice. "Who are you?" said Nina, looking deeper into the darkness. "I swear if you are one of those crazy robots after me, I will fire again!"
"Crazy robots, what do you- oh wait. You mean the Co-operative test initiates?" said the voice again. "I guess so?" said Nina. "Where are you, I can't see you." There was a sudden whirring sound in the distance, getting closer to Nina. She backed up, slowly. "Right here." The voice said again behind her. Nina screamed and jumped, punching whatever it was behind her with the portal gun. The voice screamed again. Nina could now see it a bit, a floating shape thing in front of her.
"AHHHHH! Ow! Didn't anyone tell you to never point the operational end of the Aperture Science Portal Device directly into other core's opticals?" Said the voice. Nina put down the gun, but she still grips it, just in case. "Didn't anyone teach you to never scare every person you- wait did you say core?" she asked. In front of her, a pink optical emerged from the darkness. "Whoa." said Nina.
"Yes, I did." It said. The pink optical studied her for a bit. "We don't get much humans around here." said the Core. "The last human we encountered nearly blew up the entire facility. Twice, according to recent times." it explains. "When was this?" asked Nina. "The first time, it was 4 years ago. I was there. Fact: I was nearly sucked up into space." it says. "The section time was just recently, about a week ago. Didn't blow up the facility, but from what my knowledge tells me, she was trying to free our test subjects."
"Huh." said Nina. "So is this the entire suspension vault?" she asked. "Not quite." said the core. "These vaults extend to miles. It's my new job to take care of the life support system now, on the remaining ones that are still living." Nina's heart skipped a beat. "Remaining ones? What happened to the ones that died?" If there are very little people who still remain alive, that means that there is a chance her brother really is dead. "Lets just say that the old caretaker of this place didn't take good care of them." said the core, its pink optic looking down to the ground. "Many have died because he didn't check the life support systems regularly, like he's supposed to. She was right. He really was built like a moron."
"Do you know someone here who has the name of Kevin Unknown?" asked Nina urgently. "He used to work here, and now he's a core just like you." The core looked at Nina blankly for a few moments, and then turned to her. "I'm sorry." he said. "I'm still somewhat corrupted. She didn't fully fix me yet, as a ticket of gratitude for saving the facility. What were you saying?"
"Kevin Unknown, like his last name is unknown. Is he here?" asked Nina. "Yes." said the core. "I do have a record of Kevin Unknown here. He's been here for… 99999..." The robot trailed off. "Fact: It's at least a century by now." it explains. "Is he still alive?" asked Nina, hopefully. She crossed her fingers. 'Please let him be alive.' she thought, as the core processed the request. 'Please, please let him be alive.'
"Just barley." said the robot. "I'll have the repair core fix up the life support system for him." Nina laughed, with joy. "Oh my gosh, thank the lords! Can you send me his location?" she asked the core. The core nodded. "Sure thingGAHHHHHHH!" Nina jumped back from the core, just in time to see the core scream in pain as bolts of electricity crackled around him. "No!" screamed Nina, as the pink glow from the optic faded to black.
Nina looked around her, portal gun readied in her hand. Up above, on the top of the wall with the letters indicating her location was a blue and orange optic, glowing down on her. Nina screamed, and fired the wall with her portal gun, attempting to escape. But no portal emerged from the wall. "What?" Nina screamed she fired the portal gun again and again at the wall. But nothing happened.
A huge clank was heard next to her, followed by another, as both the Co-operative testing robots fell down on opposite sides of her. They ran to Nina and grabbed her, the robot with the orange optical grabbing both her arms tightly, and the blue optical robot taking the gun away from Nina. Nina kicked and squirmed, but the robot's grip was far too strong.
It wasn't until the blue robot squirted a white paint over the wall Nina tried to fire in. Then, with his portal gun, he fired a portal. To Nina's surprise, it worked. "Oh come on." groaned Nina. "You mean to tell me that it only works for him now?" She watched as the robot then fired another portal up high to the sky. The portal on the wall displayed a hallway. Windows along the walls showed that the hallway ends in a giant pod.
Nina gasped. They were taking her to the Enrichment Center, where She is.
0~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~0