Chapter Two

An Uncomfortable Episode

Chell's short sleep was disturbed by the blood-chilling call of a roving Combine siren, and her breath hitched with every rising toll. Civil Protection must have been close by. And if they were close by then she would have to find a new hiding place. Fast.

The cold voice of the Combine overwatch soon joined the alarm, filtering through the hundreds of thousands of speakers found throughout the urban sprawl known as City 6; "Individual of interest – you are charged with socio-endangerment, level three. Protection units, prosecution code: clamp, pacify, lock."

She really needed to move.

Pulling her backpack from beneath her head and swinging it onto her shoulders, Chell rose to her feet and leapt from her carboard hiding spot, flexing her toes inside what remained of her Aperture Science Long Fall Boots. She broke into a loping sprint, barely registering the faint and uneven sounds of the tap-clink-creak-tap that her broken footwear echoed into the empty alleyway. Not even the missing spring of her left boot could slow her down, nor would it affect her stride; she needed to get to safety, and if she could not find safety then Chell would make damn sure that she could put some distance between her and her hunters.

Perhaps everyone back at the camp had been right - she should not have gone out to look for supplies. But people had been hungry, injured. They needed something. Anything. And now her capture would just spit in the face of the anything and everything that so many other people had done just to protect her.

She had just wanted to return the favour.

Chell turned a corner, heading into an adjacent alley that was shrouded in the darkness of night. Her eyes peered into the bleakness until, at last, they found the faint outline of an old vent. The cover had been removed long ago, and it was just big enough for one person to squeeze into and to shimmy on through to the inside of an abandoned building. There were many such vents like this, ones that the resistance used for supply drops, makeshift escape routes or for the training of new recruits.

Tearing the bag from her back, Chell fell to her knees and pushed the backpack before her as she crawled into the claustrophobic space. She shuffled forward as fast as she possibly could, and though her elbows and knees were dressed in thick denim and faux leather, Chell could still feel that sharp and painful scratching sensation of friction against rusted metal. Her fingertips dug into the cold dirt and dust, pulling and pushing.

Pushing. Fingertips tearing at glass. White walls. Glass walls. Trapped in place. Trapped in a space within a space. Numbers on the wall. A single red light – an eye. A soundless scream…

Chell yelped as her head collided with the low ceiling of the vent, jumping as she caught herself spiralling into bad memories. She couldn't do this. Not now. Not when she was in immediate danger. Danger.

Danger of suffocation. Hands scratching at a faint seam. No. Not now. No. No air. Light too bright. A room beyond: empty. The smell of many years of sleep. Sickening. Air. Falling. Hands and knees and elbows, all in pain. The floor. Please no. Not now. Focus. Focus! Music. Too happy. Too familiar. Madness! Anger! Confusion, and then clarity. A thrill down a spine. The eye, it watches.

An internal scream, so loud that it drowns out her thoughts. Trapped. She had been trapped. Tricked. No hope. No prayer could save her now. Failure!

A voice. Familiar, but strange. Cold. Clinical. Malicious. "Hello, and once again, welcome to the Aperture Science computer-aided Enrichment Centre…"

Chell pulled at her hair, using pain to bring herself back to reality with a sharp tug. She could hear her laboured, uneven breathing bounce from dull walls and back to her ears. She was still hidden inside the vent, but the faint light from the room beyond held the faint pink hue of the morning sun.

How long had she been stuck in this particular episode? Now all of her energy was gone, and she could only slump against the metal that had been thoroughly warmed by her body heat and slicked with her sweat.

Her drive was gone. Chell, the daughter of two of the most powerful people in human history, could now only lay in a filthy vent and stew on everything that had gone wrong in her life. Not even another Combine siren could force her into action.

She just didn't care.

Chell lay alone in a self-loathing silence until she vaguely registered that her bag was taken from her. Sudden muffled voices rang in her ears like a klaxon and grasping hands reached out for her own, pulling her free of the vent and into the now bright sunlight that filtered through both the dust and the broken windows.

An unusual face entered her line of sight, one with several bright, red yes and brown skin stretched across a long and thin face. A vortigaunt.

"Tell Sii-Hya that the Chell Johnson is safe," the vortigaunt turned to a nearby human, dressed head to toe in makeshift resistance armour. "We will wait until nightfall before we transport her back to the camp."

Chell's attention was temporarily piqued when she heard Sii-Hya's name; that gentle old vortigaunt was the leader of the camp that she now called home. No doubt would he rebuke her for leaving without permission or company, but as the vortigaunt above her lay his hand across her forehead - and her mind began to go blank - the world around her vanished. She found that she just could not care about that either.

The sensation of falling came across her body and made her limp. And, finally, her frenzied mind cleared into nothing but light and warmth, and it was a warmth that spread through her in the entirety.

So warm. Like a summer's breeze. A relaxing bath:

A comfortable bed.

Chell shifted, feeling blankets and bed sheets wrapping around her into a cocoon of safety. With a quick peek over the blankets, Chell found that she was met by her childhood bedroom. Shelves with toys and books lined the furthest wall, and on the wardrobe there were pictures of her own design; her parents, Chell herself with her friends, childish portraits of her little family unit as a whole, and a crude design of an early Companion Cube.

Beyond the door she could hear her parent's voices.

She needed to see them. She had to. Just one last time.

But as she sat up in hr bed something began to feel… off. Looking about her room, Chell found a vortigaunt standing next to her window. He wore a tattered jacket that had been adjusted to fit his alien frame, and bore a look of deep concern that spoke in utter volumes.

Sii-Hya.

"Wake up, Chell Johnson," Sii-Hya's voice was gentle as he spoke. "Wake up - I need to speak to you."