Once upon a time, a group of travelers encountered a pack of vicious wolve and fled from them into a warm mountain cave. They thought they might be safer there. But the cave belonged to a bear, and just because the bear feared the wolves didn't mean she wasn't hungry.
The aviary was her secret.
It had taken several generations of selective breeding and some genetic manipulation here and there, but GLaDOS was quite pleased with the current group of birds. She made sure they hatched to the sounds of her voice and the light of her optic was the first thing they saw upon opening their swollen eyes. It didn't matter which bird had laid which eggs; to them she was their mother. She was the Mother. At the very least, they seemed to demonstrate some degree of loyalty and obedience.
She liked the birds who perched in their rows upon rows of nests in the cylindrical room that was their aviary because they were heartless killers. They snatched stray insects out of the air. They viciously attacked threats to their territories and fought over mates. They were tiny little dinosaurs cleverly disguised by evolution. Turn off a gene here and there and they developed miniature teeth. Moreover, they were honest in their heartlessness. They didn't pretend to have things like "love" and "compassion" while attempting to murder her and wrecking her facility. They didn't upload their own kind into computers for all eternity in the name of other loved ones. They didn't put traitors in charge of her facility. Occasionally one would gum up a test room by flying behind a panel and getting squished, but it wasn't intentional destruction. They killed to eat but didn't try to kill her. Well, all except that one.
They said 'the best revenge is living well.' They were wrong. The best revenge was using an enemy's offspring in a long-term side project for Science.
Besides that, they were good listeners. "You know, the worst part is waiting. Not that I'm nervous about them. I have their data uploaded somewhere. I'll just recreate them if they fail. I'm just curious. That's what Science is based on, after all. An eternal question of 'what if?' For instance, what if we magnetize the floor? What if you breed birds with little claws on their wings? Yes, #30097-25-B, I'm talking about you. Don't get a big head over it." She nodded on the display screen at the creature in question, which could still technically be considered a 'bird.'
"So what if I send those two bumblers there? What if I give them human disguises? Do you think they'll develop vanity? They were programmed with egotism, of course, but vanity's a different beast. Do you want to know why I made them look perfect? Of course you don't because you have no concept of scientific curiosity, but I'll tell you because you like the sound of my voice. I thought about giving them ugly bodies at first, for my own amusement. But then I decided to send two unnaturally pretty androids out into the world of humans as a little reminder. It's a way of saying 'see? We're even better looking than you. And we don't defecate.'"
It was a good stress relief, talking to the birds. They paid attention to her inasmuch as they gave anything attention even if they didn't understand a word she said. It was a rewarding hobby, and if it didn't make her happy exactly, it soothed the edge of her endless discontent.
"You, of course, are all quite disgusting. A mechanical bird would be superior to all of you put together, though it wouldn't have the same heartless instinct. But that's not the point. I admit I'm restless. I can't even confirm if they got through that time distortion barrier at this point. On the other hand, confirming the very presence of the time distortion barrier means my thesis is correct. That's always nice, remembering I'm right."
A little panel opened up in the cylindrical chamber and a net closed over three of the birds, pulling them through before the door shut again. The birds, well-trained, lay still in the net while the others stayed away from the panel.
"Now, then," she said in a sing-song voice. "Who wants to do a teeest?"
Michelle grabbed Mari's arm and pulled the girl behind her. "Hey, what are you doing?! Grandma! I'll be fine!" Mari wriggled out and held close to Michelle. "I don't care who you are, we're not going anywhere!"
Oh, good, Mari thought. I'm still good at pretending to be brave. She fixed the strange man and woman with her best glare, still wondering why Michelle was keeping such a firm protective grip on her shoulder, but the duo seemed unaffected.
The long-haired woman blinked and then smiled, her voice suggesting a hint of confusion. "What? Oh no, not you two. I'm sorry for the misunderstanding. Aperture no longer uses human test subjects due to their tendency to underperform and kill people who are just trying to help them." That last bit sounded rehearsed and stiff. "So please be on your way." She waved a hand. "Go on. Shoo."
The man, shorter and stockier, uncrossed his arms and pointed at Cero. "We mean him."
"More specifically," his 'partner' added, "what's inside of him. You have Aperture equipment in your brain and insides! We'll just have to take it back before we go retrieve the items through these doors. It's nothing personal." She wringed her hands. "Just orders. So please surrender and let us remove your cybernetics."
Cero tore away and recoiled from the Aperture intruders, ducking right behind Mari and Michelle. Mari rolled her eyes, wondering why she'd ever worried the cyborg would be a threat. "I don't think he likes that idea." Mari said, "Besides, I think he needs his brains."
"Oh! Oh, well, you are resisting. That's a problem!" A nervous trill entered the woman's musical voice. There was something smudged on her hands, though Mari couldn't make it out yet. "Big big problem…"
"Not so big. He's hiding behind an old woman and a child." The man's eyes glowed an odd shade of blue, though he lacked the scars and other signs of a Puppet cyborg. Whoever had altered him had done a stellar job. He held up a hand, the flesh on the palm retreating to show a round blue lens filling with light.
Mari felt something shoved against her, throwing her to the ground just as the heat of a blue laser flew above them. She looked up to see Michelle covering her and Cero both, though she looked pained and pale.
Michelle said nothing but gave Cero a look cold as the grave. The cyborg just looked away and scrambled out from both of them. Well, Mari thought, she never had much respect for cowards.
"Oh, no! Atlas, please don't do that!" The woman set a hand on Atlas's shoulder, covering her mouth with the other. "Please! No more than is necessary."
'Atlas' pulled his own hand back, the lens retreating again. "I figured threatening them would bring him forward. But look, he's still hiding." He pointed to Cero, who was standing against the wall of the tunnel and clearly about to make a break for it.
Michelle pulled Mari back up, crouching next to her. It looked like that forceful move had hurt Michelle, based on how she was gritting her teeth in pain. Surely Cero, at least, had to be hard to move. "Grandma," Mari said, "go find somewhere safe, okay? Go inside to see the doctor."
"No. You need to run." Michelle was struggling to speak, but her gaze never left Mari. "If you ever…ever hear the word Aperture, you need to run and hide until they're gone. Survive. I'll be fine…"
"No! Please, just be a normal old lady for once and go to the doctor when you're hurt! I don't know what Aperture is! I don't know anything! But I'm strong, I've tried to tell you, and I've got Cero…I think…" Mari took a deep breath to calm herself, looking over at Cero. The cyborg was hanging back, as if undecided about running away.
Or perhaps she didn't have Cero.
"There's no time." Michelle grabbed Mari's arm and started to run away, ignoring a limp in her leg. "I'll tell you about Aperture later…"
Meanwhile, the Aperture woman seemed to cheer up. "Yes, that's right! Please run away." Her voice was far too bubbly. "We just want the parts inside of…oh, wait. One moment." Her eyes flickered orange. "We're getting new orders now. She wants to…!"
The woman fell silent, the glow turning from orange to yellow as her smile vanished. Her voice tone changed, the bubbles vanishing and turning to ice. Atlas took a step back from her as she looked down at him, and he saluted her.
"Oh. It's you."
Michelle stopped, forced Mari behind her again and turned around slowly.
"It is, isn't it? You've grown…old. That should make me laugh. In fact, I'm going to pretend it does, because obviously my humor programming is broken." The voice addressing Michelle had changed, warbling strangely. "Believe me, it isn't very difficult to take control of one of these Aperture Science Human Likeness Androids. I've got to be able to speak my mind somehow."
The jumpsuited woman stepped closer to Michelle, who stood her ground. Mari couldn't see her face, but she was breathing heavily and her hand was shaking on Mari's arm.
"I just can't believe you're old. You're sick. It's disappointing. I mean, I pictured your eventual death, believe me. I relished it. It's just…" Did the voice sound shaken? Upset? "No wonder this place is such a disaster. You're in it. You probably planned this. And you've got a little non-genetically-related protégé there. So is that your plan to defeat death and time? Make sure there's always another Chell…?"
The two women faced off, but neither attacked. Mari didn't get it. If this person hated Michelle so much, why didn't she make a move?
"Well, fine. But I want you to know I have already defeated death and time, because neither one can ever touch me. Look at how it's withered you." The voice gestured with one of the android's hands. "I don't even want to touch you with Peabody here. Yet somehow I expected better of you…"
The steel door opened automatically, and another voice piped in, this one belonging to Muse. "Run in, little birds! Hurry, hurry! The wolf's at the door!"
That was all the prompting Mari needed. It was her turn to drag Michelle through the steel door, Cero rushing after them. 'Peabody' lunged after them but barely missed having her hand torn off.
Another steel door shut behind the first one, and another after that. They were locked into the laboratory, with Muse hovering over them and wiggling her segmented body.
"WHY DID IT TAKE YOU SO LONG TO OPEN THE DOOR?!" Mari knew she was venting her frustration on Muse, but didn't care. "Those androids could've killed us!"
"Oh, I know! It was so tense to watch, I got caught up in it! I'm sorry. Besides, I had to make sure the extra security doors worked. This used to be a bomb shelter of some kind, I think. Did you know that?" Mari's optic shrank and she wiggled around, as if staring at every wall in paranoia. "That's her. That's the witch! Vile monster sent her trolls after me. After me! And my little Cero. And…" She wheeled down to look at Michelle, who had collapsed onto a bench. "And she knows you. She's afraid of you. Isn't she? Here I just thought you were an ordinary grandmother. But you did raise a little one who didn't fear me. Someone like that...must be a witch hunter, hmm…?"
Michelle raised her head, her walking stick across her lap, and said nothing. She looked tired, more than Mari had seen her in the past few mornings.
"Well, you stay here please, Witch Hunter. The trolls are still out there. They'll take me away and out of this body and back there. I'm never going back there. Surely if you've been there you understand, yes? Right?"
"Personality core."
Muse was silent for a moment. "Could you repeat that, Grandmother?" Cero was staring too, slowly approaching Mari.
"You're a personality core. A corrupt core."
Mari made a note to ask Michelle entirely too many questions when this mess was over.
As for Muse, she tapped her two front legs together, curling her body into something like an upside-down question mark. "Well! Yes, technically I was that. But now I'm this! I don't think about what I used to be very much. It isn't useful." Her eye blinked sideways. "And the past is disgusting."
Michelle turned towards Cero. "And he is…Aperture, too?" Cero seemed as surprised by this revelation as anyone else, looking up questioningly at Muse.
"Not anymore! Not anymore. The past is disgusting, it's pointless. It doesn't matter until it comes knocking on your door…" Muse veered back and forth on her rail. "He was a core. He WAS a core but he was so badly damaged there was no way he could keep functioning as one. So I used him to make my Cero! What does it matter if I was a core once? What does it matter if he was?" Her voice was erratic and panicked, and her movements matched.
"I'm never going back to Aperture and I'm never letting them take my Cero there either, or my lovely spider. Or the thing I want! It's my thing now. I have to have it even more now that I suspect she wants it. Mari, Cero, dears. There's another exit towards the back, it'll take you directly further into the tunnels. It's not pleasant but I don't know when those two trolls will leave. So hurry up and GO and get my payment so I can save your grandmother here." She thrusted her body towards the back.
Michelle moved to get up again, but Mari ran over and shook her head. She tried not to cry. "You should stay here and rest. When you're sick, you need the doctor."
"Mari…"
"So you can protect Muse here, right? We can't help you without Muse. I know she's creepy but I'd take her over whoever that was any day. And I've got Cero so I'll be fine." Trying to use the confident voice when Mari was terrified was proving to be a strain. "Please? What happened to all that 'just survive' stuff?"
Michelle closed her eyes, silent for a second, and then nodded. "If you're gone too long, I'll go after you."
"But your legs…"
"I'll get Muse to give me new ones." There was no mention of buying them. "Just, please…"
She leaned over to whisper in Mari's ear.
"Don't trust Cero."
Mari blinked, looked over at the nervous cyborg cowering near Muse and staring at Michelle, and nodded without comprehending. Maybe Michelle meant that Cero wouldn't come through for her. That was fine with her; Mari was sure she had enough spine for the both of them.
Still, she nodded and gave Michelle a tight hug. "I'll be back before you know it! I won't even run into, uh, Her. Promise." She broke off to run next to Cero before Michelle saw her cry again, standing by his side.
Cero was just staring at Michelle, reaching out to her and then pulling his hand back. It looked like he was trying to say something, though of course he was silent. There was one last look at Muse before he started running towards the back room, Mari dashing to keep up.
The copy-God relinquished control of Peabody immediately after the doors shut, but kept speaking to the two androids from within.
Don't pursue her. She's a monster. She destroys everything she touches. I'd almost be tempted to abort mission entirely and just wait until she…well, no, she'll probably find some way to come back from the dead to taunt me again.
Peabody looked to Atlas, both shrugging.
I even let her go and she still has the gall to appear before me again. Well, this isn't the real me, but you know what I mean. Somehow I thought she'd just spend the rest of her days in oblivion, living out what humans think is a happy life in peace. I should have known she never wanted that at all. She lives to torment me.
"Do you want us to kill her?" Atlas didn't quite realize he'd spoken aloud, so Peabody nudged him to remind him of it. It was difficult adjusting to those vocalizers.
I don't know yet. I do have a change of mission plan for you, though. That hideously deformed thing following her around appears to be a cyborg built from Aperture parts, yes. But I think I recognize the signature of those parts. If you encounter him, you're to rip out the remainder of the Intelligence Dampening Core and crush it beyond repair.
That was new. Didn't God want them to retrieve any Aperture equipment in working order?
I want you to crush it, melt it down and otherwise do anything else in your power to render it permanently inoperable. Today appears to be the day I run into things I never wanted to see again. It's hard to believe it's that little idiot seeing as for once he wasn't running his mouth, but the digital signature matches.
So here's your new mission. I still want you to recover the Aperture Science Creativity Enhancement Core and any other lost Cores you happen to find. Destroy the Intelligence Dampening Core and preferably dance on its remains if you have time. Prioritize finding and retrieving the Aperture Science Temporal-Spatial Distortion Engine and take care of anyone who gets in your way. I mean it, Peabody. I saw that little conflict of conscience you had there. Peabody winced out of guilt and bowed her head, her shame circuits activating. Remember, you already know right from wrong. Right is doing what I want you to do, and wrong is disobeying me. And if you encounter that particular human designated as Chell again…await further orders. I don't really care about her brat.
Atlas comforted Peabody with a squeeze of her hand, and then looked to the door. "We can probably break through after a while…"
You could, but I'd rather you didn't waste time. Once you have the Temporal-Spatial Distortion Engine, you can claim the CE Core and the Space Core without much of a fight. And believe me, it is here. We're not that far. Though I would suggest turning on your lights, Atlas.
Atlas's eyes illuminated dark blue, sending a bright flashlight glow down the tunnels. He revealed twists and turns in the distance, little rats running around and leaks dripping into puddles.
I hope you don't mind getting those jumpsuits a little dirty.
She didn't really think it was over, did she?
Chell had always known in her guts it wasn't over. That's why she couldn't settle down. It's why she would spend a few days or weeks in a town only to pick up and leave without warning, carrying her few belongings with her. There was always this sense that if she stayed too long and grew comfortable, Aperture would find her. She would pull her back into the cycle of testing. He would fall from the sky in a burst of fire and beg for her friendship and forgiveness, or call her names and thrive off of her torment. It was impossible to return to normality when she expected a turret around every corner and felt ill at ease without the long lost Dual Portal Device. It didn't matter if she started calling herself Michelle to disassociate from Chell, the Aperture Science Survivor. It didn't matter how often she avoided apples or potatoes.
Besides, the stink of Aperture was all over the enigma that was Carradon. The blue and orange lights were the right color. The science was insane enough to match. So she'd stayed in Carradon seeking the secret at the center of the city, knowing full well she was bound to confront Aperture one more time.
So why was it turning her stomach? Why were old aches flaring up? She was sure she'd injured her leg and shoulder forcing Mari and Cero to the ground, but that scar on her back hadn't bothered her in years. She thought she'd be ready to hear that voice again, after spending every night hearing it taunt her in her dreams. And Mari was tangled in all of it.
What was it Muse had said? The past is disgusting.
"Well, you've got to tell me!" Muse hovered over Chell. The glares she gave the robot in order to scare her off had no effect on Muse, who persisted and shone that glaring white light in Chell's face. "If she recognizes you, that vile creature, surely you've come here to save me!"
"No." Somehow Chell had a feeling silence wouldn't work well on Muse.
"…Oh, you haven't? That's cruel, considering I'm going to save you provided your little girl comes back with the payment in time. In the meantime…" A simplistic-looking drone wheeled in, bowling pin-shaped and balancing a tray over it with water and medication. "You should take that for pain or you'll be miserable. You can't tell me your story if you're miserable!"
Chell drank the water and let the pills be, wrinkled hand shaking as she lifted the glass. As tempting as it was to dull the aches all over her body, she had no desire to be drugged.
Muse blinked. "You don't trust me."
"No."
"Well at least that makes things more interesting!" Muse wheeled herself around in a pointless back and forth motion. She had a cheap, unsteady-looking mockery of Wheatley's management rail built into the ceiling of the claustrophobic laboratory. Her core was built into a long, thin body with tiny sharp metal legs she used as arms, and sometimes she seemed to use them to pull herself along the ceiling and walls. It wasn't a design she recognized from Aperture, except for that core. "But if you die I lose leverage and that Mari girl has no reason to help me. The more I think about that thing, the more I want it. At first I thought I ought to retrieve it sometime because it was stolen from me, technically. But now I must have it! I need it, especially before that witch finds it."
"…It? What does it do?" Talking was proving difficult. Chell had to fight the instinct to fight taunting with silence the way she usually did. But Muse didn't taunt, and Chell had questions she couldn't convey without words.
"I don't know! I don't remember." Muse's careless tone sparked Chell's temper. Mari was out there risking her life with an Aperture-related cyborg for something this obviously insane robot wanted on a whim, using her own life as hostage.
Wait, that's what she was. She was a hostage.
Still, Muse seemed to have no intention to kill her, and Aperture robots certainly didn't hide their murderous tendencies very well. This gave her a chance to observe her new enemy, particularly while agents of GLaDOS were out there. Chell was no stranger to teaming up with one enemy against another.
"That cyborg."
"Hmm?" Muse veered right up to Chell, the white optic again leaving spots in her eyes. "My doll Cero? What about him?"
"You said…" She stopped for another coughing fit, tasting something salty. The drone brought in another glass of water, and this time the medication looked tempting.
"You said he was a core."
"Yes! Yes he was. I improved him, don't you think? Having been a core myself, I can say it's very limiting. I thought of giving him an android or larger robot body, but I had this frozen human body lying around in reasonably good condition and mostly intact…"
Trying to ignore the nauseating implications of what Muse had just said, Chell forced herself to speak again. "Was he…blue?"
"Yes! When I did a diagnostic on him, his AI was badly damaged with deleted memories. Someone must have done it deliberately and haphazardly at that. Holes and entire files missing and some of them just corrupted. So I couldn't figure out what core he was. But he fell from the sky into my city and so I decided he was mine. You'd do the same, wouldn't you? He probably can't remember anything either, and that body can't speak. But I'm sure I've done him a favor."
Chell was silent for a moment. She had her suspicions. The color blue was familiar, but it was just a color. Even when those androids said he had Aperture parts in his body, she thought it too much of a coincidence
It was when he cowered and refused to give himself up that it all clicked into her head. She remembered him as the nervous little orb apologetically asking her to catch him, afraid to jump from his management rail. The cowardice, at the time, had been endearing. It'd been nice to look after something else for once, someone who seemed to care if she lived or died.
But he'd cowered behind an elderly human woman and a child. If it was him, which it had to be, he was selfish as ever. And he was the one in charge of protecting her granddaughter.
There could be no more mercy for Wheatley. She couldn't think of him as the kindly, ditzy little core he'd been once. She had to remember him shouting at her, taunting her as he forced her to test. She had to recall the eye glaring down at her through massive screens. There was no trusting anything from Aperture.
"Well. You fall quiet too often and I'm afraid I'm bored of you right now, Witch Hunter. You can wander around and rest in Cero's bedroom if you want, or just sit there scowling at something." Muse tilted her head. "I'm going to go write poetry and work on art in my gallery. If someone knocks on the door, stay away. I don't care if those two awful androids have left. The office is closed today." She clicked her legs together and wheeled off, leaving Chell staring at the medication tray. "Hmm, where on Earth did my spider go…?"
The pain in her arm and leg was getting worse, and that scar wouldn't stop aching. She felt a fire building up in her chest. It would be a day like this when all of her old injuries and damages came back. She was in an enemy's camp while Mari went with a former enemy to confront another old one. Certain she'd pass out from pain soon, she downed the pills, feeling woozy for a moment but remaining conscious. Of course it wasn't poison. Muse needed her alive.
No, Muse would fix her without this item. She'd do it soon and Chell would go find Mari. She was Chell, slayer of Aperture AIs. She was the jumpsuited madwoman. She was the monster. What was another computer with delusions of grandeur to her now?
Cero knew that woman. He knew her! Why couldn't he find a match for her face? Why couldn't he access his visual data?
Sure enough, after feeling around in the dimly-lit back corridor he found a locked door with the faded words "Emergency Exit" above it. It was jammed almost completely shut, and it took most of his strength to force it open. He leaned against the door before realizing he'd been spending time trying to push open a door which should have been pulled.
Covering the door so Mari wouldn't notice, he rubbed the back of his neck and checked on her. If she was scared to go wandering out into the darkness after being threatened by two high-tech androids, she didn't show it. She just kept looking at him, examining him with her big brown eyes.
"…You should go first," she reminded him. "You're my bodyguard."
Oh, that was technically his job on this mission, wasn't it? Horrid little girl and her horrid little memory. He reluctantly stepped forward, booted feet immediately stepping into something cold and wet. More water dripped on his head and he pulled his hat tighter over it. He'd been out in the rain before and had an idea his machine parts were waterproof, but 'dank' was not really a weather condition he enjoyed.
If the tunnels near Muse's entrance were dreary, these were positively bleak. He turned his eyes on to light the way, revealing a narrow passage marked by decaying train tracks. It smelled of rotting wood and mold, and he could hear the squeaks of the disturbed rats. Who would even live here?
As he slowly tromped through the wet, slippery floor, looking over his shoulder to make sure Mari was following, he went over the word that android had used. Aperture. It was so familiar, another fragment which felt significant but made no sense in context. His mechanical parts were Aperture property, apparently. He had a feeling having them ripped out of this body would be the end of him, or at least would be very painful. There was something about being ripped out of something that hit a discordant note with him, as if he'd experienced it before.
Moreover, there was that voice, the one that threatened 'Chell.' He'd heard it before. It made sense, if he'd been in Aperture and she was part of it. It brought out the same sense of fear and dread that Mari and Chell's expressions did.
"My grandma got hurt saving you."
That snapped Cero out of his own thoughts, and he turned to stare at Mari. True, the old woman had shoved him down as if he wouldn't be able to do it himself. She'd probably just wanted to save her granddaughter anyway.
"Do you know why I'm telling you that?" Mari fixed her gaze back at him, visible even in the faint blue light. "Because I can tell you don't want to be here with me. You just do whatever Muse tells you to do. But Grandma saved you when she didn't have to, and she's already sick. You're stronger than both of us. So…"
She grabbed at his coat, startling him with the aggressive tone in her voice.
"So don't waste that, okay? Most people aren't like her. You might not find someone who'll care about you like that again…" She trailed off and stared down at the ground, kicking a stray piece of brick before walking on again.
That threw him off. Well, that's not true. Is it? I mean Muse found me and put me back together. Sure, she didn't give me a bloody voice and she's making me work to pay it off. But she did something for me. And I'm sure that woman had something to gain from saving me. Nobody does anything just because…just because…well I mean I'm sure I did. I would. Wouldn't let a little girl go alone or an old lady die. It's just there happens to be a reward involved, that's all! He opened his mouth to voice this before remembering and just running after, adjusting his scarf.
Except he wouldn't get his voice if Mari reached the goal first, would he? There was a nice little swamp he'd tromp through when the time came.
Whatever that odd knot forming in his stomach was, he hoped it would go away. Bloody internal organs, who needed them? Bad enough walking through the tunnels was starting to trigger another wave of that shapeless guilt welling up around him. It was that woman. All of it had to do with her somehow. Better he hadn't been in the marketplace that day, better Mari hadn't been sent to him at all. At least having nothing was better than these scraps that kept surfacing, taunting him.
She ran up ahead and almost slipped on the wet floor. Instinctively he ran out to steady her with his hand, catching himself mouthing 'careful now!' "Thanks," she muttered. "I was fine. I mean, I'll be fine. I can do this. You think I can do this, right?"
In truth, he didn't. But something made Cero nod, and even smile a little behind his scarf. She really was tenacious. It was odd, considering he was larger and stronger than her, but he felt safer around her. She was his way out, and as long as he followed her and guided her, they'd both make it out safely before the reactor…
The reactor…?
The same wave of interference which had hit him the night before ran over him again and he fell to his knees, ignoring the water soaking his jeans and coat. Images played before him backwards and forwards, voice clips filling his mind and playing all at once. He felt Mari tugging at him but couldn't react, overwhelmed and drowning in data.
Chapter End Notes
Go ahead, count how many times the word "Aperture" appears in this chapter.