A/N: Chapter 3 took a while coming due to Christmas and my own distinct lack of ability to brain. I'm sorry about that! But here it is and I'll try and be more prompt in future. This chapter takes place in the game Portal. Specifically, Portal 2 - cooperative mode.
"Kyle?"
Maggie Wilson pokes her head around her son's bedroom door and eyes him. "Kyle, what are you doing still playing games? It's late."
"Those guys fixed my computer for me," Kyle says, as though that explains everything. "I wanted to play some games."
Maggie leans in the doorway. "You need to sleep. You have school tomorrow."
"Mom," Kyle whines, "I only just started playing."
"How long is only just?"
He sighs and checks his watch. "Two minutes," he says. "I just sat down."
She eyes him. "Okay," she says, you can play until midnight but no later." She turns away from the doorway and Kyle silently punches the air.
His screen flickers and something changes, colours flashing and mutating.
"Huh?" He hits his screen, as though that will help, wiggles his mouse but nothing that should be moving isn't and everything that shouldn't is.
Commander Shepard walks off the left side of the screen and Kyle stares.
The screen turns to multiple coloured blocks and then snaps to an image of Claudia and Pete emerging from a Portal together.
Kyle stares at the screen in disbelief, then turns it off and walks to the doorway. "Never mind, mom, I'll go to sleep now."
He scratches his neck and wanders back to his bed.
He obviously needs the sleep.
"That looks sore," Helena says, reaching her fingertips out towards the side of Myka's face, down which there's a large, painful scratch.
"It's fine," Myka says and accepts a cup of tea off Leena with a thankful smile.
"Where's Claudia? Pete?" asks Artie, entering the B&B and placing his bag down on the table.
Myka shrugs. "They're going to follow me back tomorrow. Claudia's fixing the kid's computer since we broke it." She wraps her fingers around the mug of tea and lets the warmth spread through her.
"You broke it?" says Helena, lips twitching with amusement.
"Tesla'd it," says Myka. "It was us or it."
"Well, as long as they're all right." Artie sits down at the table and leans back, taking off his glasses. "I might actually get some sleep if Claudia isn't at the warehouse tonight." He shudders. "Loud... loud music when she works."
"You could just send her to bed," suggests Myka.
Artie squints at her. "But then who would fix the computers?"
Myka laughs and stands up. "I'm going to bed," she says. "I'll send out the search party if they don't come back by tomorrow."
"Do you have that, ah, book you promised me, Myka?" Helena asks, standing too.
"Book? Oh. Oh! Yes. It's in my room." Myka coughs a little awkwardly and moves towards the stairs. "Come on then."
Once they're upstairs, Artie looks at Leena. "Who do they think they're fooling?" he says.
"You," she replies.
"Oh," says Artie.
"What the hell is this game?" Pete says, walking around in the small white room.
Claudia walks in slowly. "It's Portal," she says, quietly. "Hm." She navigates through a small doorway and into a second, small, white room. There, in the middle of the room, is a Portal gun, sitting on a pedestal.
"Oh, fuck yes," she mutters.
"What is it?" asks Pete, following on her heels.
"It's a Portal gun." She reaches out, almost reverent, and takes the gun into her hands. She examines it for a moment before sighing, happily. "I would give anything to have one of these for real," she says, "or just to know how to make one."
She carefully slides her hand into the aperture and aims the gun at the wall.
"Claud, what are you doing?" asks Pete.
She grins and fires a red Portal, then an yellow one at the wall opposite. She can see herself through the Portals, thousands of her going on forever. She grins broadly at Pete. Oh yes, this is what she likes.
"That's pretty cool," says Pete, appreciatively.
"We need boots." Claudia makes her way around the room, pushing at things and pressing buttons until a drawer opens low down.
"Boots?" asks Pete.
"Long-Fall boots." She pulls two pairs of boots from the drawer and hands one set to Pete.
He eyes them warily. "These look kinda..."
"Awesome?" Claudia fills in. "I know, right?" She pulls the boots on and bounces on them a little. "You literally cannot land on your head when you're wearing these."
"Riiiight..." Pete pulls his boots on and bounces a bit too. "I feel so safe."
Claudia laughs.
"This isn't addressing the question of how to get out of here, though," he says.
"Good point. I was kinda hoping I could Portal through into reality." Claudia aims the gun upwards but none of her red Portals go anywhere useful, so she sighs and drops her arm. "I have to try this, then we'll talk artefacts." She fires a red Portal up at the ceiling then she dives into the yellow one beside her.
"Claudia!" Pete shouts.
She falls from the ceiling and then fires a red Portal at her feet. When she falls through that one she comes flying out of the yellow one at what feels like a hundred miles an hour and skids to a halt just before she hits the wall.
She flips her hair back, trying to look composed, and walks serenely back to Pete. "Yep," she says, "exactly as awesome as I thought it'd be."
Claudia refuses to give up the Portal gun for even a minute, so she and Pete sit on the floor against the wall and talk about artefacts with her nursing it like her own newborn child.
Pete is a tiny bit freaked out by her attachment to the object.
"Okay," he says, trying to break it down. "What were we doing before this happened?"
"Fixing that kid's computer. Kay... Ki..."
"Kyle."
"Right. Kyle. Because someone fried it."
"Wasn't me!" Pete exclaims.
Claudia nods. "Oh I know. Myka's getting so many tailor made viruses when we get back. So many..."
"Well, before you let loose the greatest Trojan horse of all time," says Pete, "can we figure out what the artefact is?"
Claudia nods. "Must have been something we were both touching. The computer?"
Pete shakes his head. "No. Doesn't fit."
They sit and ponder for a second until Pete says, "I don't have to have been touching it."
"Huh?"
"I was touching you."
"You don't have to say it like that," Claudia all but splutters, but then she nods and says, "So it's something I was touching."
"Whatever it is," says Pete, "it's probably out there... not in here."
"Damn."
"Any suggestions how we get out of here?"
"No idea. I thought maybe portal out, but someone would have to be on the other side..."
Pete opens his mouth to speak but the voice Claudia hears next isn't his... it's a woman's voice, coming from overhead, perhaps through a speaker.
"Hello and once again welcome to the Apeture Science Computer Aided Enrichment Centre."
Claudia stands, slowly, holding the portal device like a lifeline.
"Today, you will be testing with a partner. Please wave to your partner."
Claudia turns towards Pete, a look of abject horror on her face, and cautiously lifts the hand not currently covered with a portal gun to wave at him. He waves back, looking confused.
The floor disappears from under Claudia and the next thing she knows she's plummeting downwards. "Pete!" she shouts, but she can't see him or hear him and the walls of the tunnel she's in flash past her too fast to do anything about with her hands or the portal gun. All she can do is make sure she doesn't drop the gun and wait for the fall to end.
She slams into the ground at the bottom of the tube and is exceedingly grateful she put the long fall boots on and made Pete wear a pair too. She can't see him anywhere when she straightens up and looks around, all she can see is the small room she's in containing a button and a locked door, and a glass wall separating her from a room with a door and a cube.
"Pete?" she calls out.
She turns her head in time to see Pete hit the ground on the other side of the glass. Unlike her landing, however, his is less graceful and once the boots have cushioned his fall he tips forward to land on his hands and knees, gasping.
"That," he says, "was terrifying!" He scrambles to his feet. "Why would you play something like this?"
"It's a bit different when you're using a controller," says Claudia. She steps across to the glass, presses her hand against it, testing the strength of it. "We're going to have to test."
"To what?" Pete comes to stand closer and places his hand against the glass on the other side of hers. If it weren't for the glass they'd be touching.
"Test." Claudia holds up her other hand, still with the portal gun covering it. "It's what you do on this game."
"Sounds boring," says Pete. He wanders across and kicks the cube but it doesn't budge. "So, what do we do?"
"It's not boring." Claudia scowls and eyes the test. "This one's simple," she says. "Pick that cube up, pass it through that hole..." She points at the hole in the glass. "I'll put it on the button and we'll move on."
Pete nods. "Sounds simple enough," he says. He moves across, bends down and picks up the cube.
Except he doesn't. Instead, he groans, flails and falls flat on his ass, somehow, despite the boots keeping him upright. "Uh... this is heavy," he says.
Claudia stifles a laugh behind her hand. "Here," she says, and moves across to the hole in the glass. "Have this." Despite the fact she would like to keep the portal gun in her hands forever, she pulls it off and holds it in the gap. "There's a button on the side you use to lift heavy objects."
Pete takes the portal gun and gives her a smile. "Thank you," he says, and pushes it onto his arm. "How's this thing work anyway?" He aims it at the cube, presses the wrong button and red sparks fly.
"Button on the side," Claudia shouts through the gap.
"I got it, I got it..." He pokes around the device with his free hand. "Button on the side she says," he mutters to himself as he finally finds it. He presses the button and the cube lifts up into the air. "Oh, that's so much simpler," he says.
"Bring it over here. Come on." Claudia beckons him over and he lifts the cube through the gap and drops it the other side, then he passes her the portal device.
"You don't have to be so pushy," he says.
Claudia scowls at him, pushes the portal device onto her arm and lifts the cube. "You know," she says, "if you'd known better than to grab me while I was being electrocuted, we wouldn't both be in this mess."
"No, you'd be in here alone," says Pete, leaning his forearms on the bottom of the gap. "And excuse me for reacting to your impending death."
Claudia rolls her eyes, drops the cube on the button and the doors swish open both sides.
"Nice!" Pete exclaims.
They move through the doors together and meet up in the next room, containing two elevators. Claudia bites her lip and looks at Pete. "Uh," she says, "this is going to be rough."
"That took you an exceedingly long time to complete, Blue. Were you napping?" says GLaDOS.
Claudia snickers. Pete looks at her. "Wait," he says, "am I blue?"
"Yes." She steps into the orange elevator and the glass closes around her.
"Claud!" exclaims Pete.
She points at the blue elevator. "We gotta play the game," she says.
Pete walks over to the elevator and eyes it, then climbs in nervously. "I'm not going to like this, am I?" he says, and then the bottom drops out and they're both falling, yet again.