The limousine was waiting right outside, just as GLaDOS had promised. Chell stepped slowly down the driveway towards the vehicle and waved. A very tall man in a dapper but torn and battered tuxedo exited the car from the front seat and made to open a door for her in the back, but she held up a hand and opened it herself. If I can solve life-threatening tests, she thought indignantly, it's not like I need help getting into a car.

She was silent for the entire ride, thinking about the situation. If she returned and this was actually a trap, she wasn't sure what she'd do. But whatever happened, she'd have deserved it, considering she'd fallen for it. And if it wasn't a trap, and whatever was the problem was something major, she didn't know if she still had the wits and strength about her to help. She would probably end up as a waste of space. Either way, she decided, GLaDOS had sounded pretty sincere about the problem. But then again, the same ruse had fooled her for most of her first "science adventure."

The ride was incredibly long; her sort-of-psychiatrist had provided a house for her that was, upon her request, as far away from Aperture Laboratories as possible. However, with her lost in her thoughts, it felt like mere minutes before the limousine came to a halt. Chell opened the door and stared at her destination.

In truth, she hadn't seen the front of this place since she had been around eight. The first annual Aperture Science Bring-Your-Daughter-to-Work Day had been an absolute disaster, she remembered. After she had virtually shut down GLaDOS the first time, she remembered catching a glimpse of the parking lot for a few moments, before a crazy robot had dragged her back into the facility with a disturbing message: "Thank you for assuming the Party Escort Submission Position."

But that was the past. This time, it was her own decision to return. She seriously doubted her sanity because of this, but GLaDOS had let her live once, which Chell figured for her was the same as saying, "I love you." Except in a non-stalker-ish way. It was the least Chell could do to help her with whatever was the matter.

The building itself was a very tall, wide, white, pristine establishment made of painted metal with sliding glass doors in the middle. The entire building was symmetrical with what appeared to be eight full wings, four on each side. She walked cautiously towards the front doors, trying not to notice the sound of the driver speeding away as she went. The parking lot had been recently paved, and the hot summer sun was making the tar slightly sticky. Said tar clung to her shoes for a moment each time she set foot on it.

It only now occurred to her that she wasn't exactly dressed for this occasion. She was wearing the same tank top shirt in which she had woken up the first day of her second adventure. It was white with the Aperture Science logo in black on it. Her pants were, coincidentally, orange, but not the ones she was supposed to wear with her jumpsuit. She had actually burned the suit the moment she had had access to fire-in other words, when she had arrived at her house and seen the fireplace.

Her pants were actually embroidered with blue flowers. She didn't know if blue flowers existed in the world, but darn it, they were pretty. She wasn't sure how GLaDOS would react when she saw the pants, but she honestly didn't care. The pants were comfortable, and for size six, they were pretty loose.

And they called her fat.

She finally arrived at the glass doors, which opened as she approached. As soon as she set foot in the facility, she began feasting her eyes on the waiting room. The floor, walls, and ceiling were all white, as was the reception desk, which looked to be made of painted wood. There were several uncomfortable-looking chairs lined up against the walls. These were a dark gray instead, like the single light fixture that hung from the middle of the ceiling, which was oddly bright enough to light the entire room. An elevator in one of the far corners opened and closed sporadically. A single open white door next to the reception desk led elsewhere into the facility-probably, Chell assumed, the test proper.

"Hello."

At the young-sounding, synthesized voice, Chell whipped around to look at the speaker. She noticed, for the first time, one of the many Aperture Science Core Transfer Receptacles in a dark corner of the room. She stared around in horror for a sentry turret, but nothing was there.

"That was more entertaining than I believed it would be," the voice continued, sounding slightly older this time. Chell sighed and advanced towards the receptacle. She couldn't make out much, but she could tell that a personality core rested inside it.

It was a light gray, steel, spherical mass, about twice the size of Chell's head, with hinged handles on either side. The handles were mostly metal, but the middles were a white rubber, presumably to make holding it easier. It had a single large eye in the middle. The iris was white and it had a small black pupil in the center, which gazed at Chell with what she could have sworn was an amused expression.

She picked it up out of the receptacle. "O-okay, that's enough manhandling me," the core ordered. "I'm surprised if you don't recognize me."

Chell rolled her eyes before setting it down on the floor, where it rolled for a moment before landing on one of its handles. Of course I know your voice, she thought. "Okay fine, I'll explain," the core told her. "Remember when the moron put me into the potato battery before?"

Chell nodded.

"Well, that got me to thinking that I should really have a mobile unit in case I need to move around. So I took one of the cores and placed it in my chamber so that if I wanted to, I could download my software into it. I took the only core with a white eye so that I could remember which one it was. So now I'm the Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System Personality Construct. I mean, I was always a core, but now I'm mountable software. So technically you could attach me to myself. And it's a good thing I thought of this, too, because the, um…problem came up only a few days afterwards," GLaDOS explained.

"I suppose I should explain what's going on now," she continued. "Remember how that idiot went on about the Cooperative Testing Initiative right before he tried to kill us? Also, remember when you woke up after putting me back in control and those two robots were looking up at you? Well, first, they have names: ATLAS and P-Body. Second, they…well, they may possibly have completely taken over my facility. And now they have control over everything and I'm just a personality core. I also learned that my body has an extra mainframe in the event that two AI's are running the facility. Interesting fact.

"So now I need your help to get them out of my body before they completely ruin everything. I'm sure they're not going to take nicely to the idea, but we need to either confront them as a team, or figure out exactly how to remove them without them knowing. The first option is less appealing, but at least we know how to go about it. The only unfortunate part is…well, unless you want to make your way into and navigate the outskirts of the facility-not that I don't know how good you are good at that-" At this she narrowed her pupil at Chell-"we'll have to go through my testing tracks. Funny enough, I'd just switched out tracks when they took over. So you'll have to go through a completely new set of chambers. Sorry about that," she added. Chell sighed.

"Don't make that face," the AI told her. "It isn't my fault, you know. I was only planning. Anyway, our goal is to make it through the chambers without them knowing you're here. At the end, just get us out of the chamber so we can make our way to my chamber and tell them to quit what they're doing. Sure, it's not a great plan, but it's what we have," she finished as Chell looked skeptically at her. "Anyway, the main hallways leading into the track are through that door."

Chell looked towards the door and let out a stream of breath. "Yes, that door," GLaDOS muttered. "Don't expect all of the internal machinery to be online though. Those two know practically nothing about the functions required to run anything."

So Chell picked her up again, earning a groan from her-the core was quite heavy-and a gasp of fright from the AI. Chell stifled her laughter at the noise and headed through the door.

Inside was a small, narrow white hallway. Part of the ceiling was caved in, but the hallway was otherwise intact. "What? I didn't have time to fix everything," GLaDOS told her.

At the end of the hall was another door. Chell set GLaDOS down to open it and gawked at what she saw on the other side. Directly outside the door was a small beige landing on all of which Chell could barely stand. A decrepit old black railing surrounded the railing, but Chell doubted if it would support her if she tried to lean on it. A large chasm took up most of the rest of the room, stretching further down and further to the sides than Chell could see. At the very end of the chasm (that is to say, about eighty feet ahead) there was a metal catwalk followed by a small door.

"Well it seems that the walkways are still gone," GLaDOS observed. "It's not like they were top priority though, because I didn't think anybody would actually be going this way. The point is, there should be some kind of emergency switch somewhere. I just don't really know where. No one came in here a lot of the time since the time I was activated, so you're on your own here."

Fair enough, Chell thought hopelessly, walking carefully onto the ledge and looking to her left and right for a button, but the landing contained nothing on the walls. She tried feeling the walls for something secret and hidden, but there was simply nothing there.

"So maybe this isn't exactly the right way," GLaDOS admitted. "Try the elevator from the main room instead."
Chell nodded, picked up the core again, and started back down the hallway. The part of the ceiling that had caved was now lying on the floor. Chell stared up through the hole in the ceiling and saw many broken, sparking wires.

"This doesn't look good," GLaDOS murmured, a touch of confusion in her voice. "Parts of the facility were still broken when ATLAS and P-Body forcefully removed me from my spot, but not this broken…"

The waiting room, Chell discovered painfully, was much brighter than both the hall and the landing. "What are you waiting for?" GLaDOS asked irritably. Chell pursed her lips but didn't express her annoyance otherwise. After her eyesight returned to her, she looked around and saw the elevator after a moment. Hugging the wall, she stepped lightly towards the lift. It continued to open and close without rhythm. "The good thing about being a personality construct," the AI began suddenly as Chell stalled for a moment thinking about how to get in without being crushed, "is that I retain all of my archives. So at least I still know everything about this facility. Though considering the damage we've seen so far, I'm not sure that will help much.

"But that's not why I brought up the issue. I'll bet you're wondering many things at this point. I can probably answer most of these things," the AI explained. "Well I can give you the answers to a few of these questions." Chell stared down at GLaDOS and, as the elevator opened again, placed her in the space between the doors. "Wait, what are you-OW! What the HELL was that for?" the AI shrieked as the doors tried to close again but instead trapped GLaDOS between them. Chell quickly squeezed through the space created by the core and yanked her out when the doors opened again. "That was really cruel. I didn't deserve that."

I'm sure you didn't, but it's not like you couldn't have used it, Chell thought as the elevator sensed their weight and began to descend. "I was going to tell you some of the answers, but now I'm not sure I want to," GLaDOS said smugly. Chell rolled her eyes, knowing that GLaDOS couldn't resist the opportunity to talk if it arrived. Sure enough, she started on again, rattling off information with a determined air.

"I suppose the first thing you'll want to know is how to find yourself a portal gun," GLaDOS guessed, and Chell nodded. "Well, there should be a Single Portal Device in this upcoming remedial test chamber. Your Dual Portal Device is actually in my chamber, where I decided to keep it for…medicinal purposes."

Chell nodded at this as the elevator continued lowering them into the next room. The lift glitched however, stopping at random times, sending random electric shocks throughout the circuitry, and continuing to open and close over and over even as it moved. "This isn't good at all," GLaDOS observed. "I'm getting increasingly worried about what those idiots have done."

After another few seconds, the lift arrived at what Chell assumed to be the next floor. At this point it stopped malfunctioning and remained open. Chell exited the elevator and examined the new room. It was clean and undamaged, though it still perplexed Chell. A circular depression rested in the middle of the room. There were two alcoves, each of them high up one of the side walls and covered partially by translucent glass, and partially by steel panels; through the glass, Chell could tell that on one of the walls of each alcove was single red button. A small platform, suspended from the ceiling at the same level as the alcoves, held a Single Portal Device, which shot orange portals, alternating between the two alcoves, but due to the steel panels, the portals were currently dissipating as soon as they hit. And, as GLaDOS had told her, another Single Portal Device, which Chell assumed was for blue portals, rested on another platform in front of the circular depression. "That depression is called an Aperture Science Edgeless Safety Cube Receptacle," GLaDOS explained, "which accepts Aperture Science Edgeless Safety Cubes. But any spherical object will do."

Chell walked up to the receptacle and looked carefully over it. It was slanted, round, and mostly gray with four black slanted pegs to mount it the floor. The spaces between these pegs were designed with blue markings. Three of the spaces were designed with a simple blue line that spanned most of the gap. The other was fitted with a small blue icon of a circle with an arrow above it. The actual hole was about four inches deep, big enough to contain a small ball. Chell looked back down at GLaDOS, and then at the receptacle again.

"I can't make it much more clear than that without being painfully electrocuted," the AI told her impatiently. Chell nodded and placed the core into the receptacle, causing the steel panels to slide away, before returning to the platform. She gazed down at the device and felt a surge of excitement mixed with disappointment. Obviously, none of the familiar scratches and nicks in her own device were present on this one. She remembered first receiving the portal device during her first adventure and knowing not only that it would be vital, but that it would be comforting as well. As strange it was to think about it, she had become attached to a gun.

But she'd have to get used to this new one, at least for now. She lifted it up, momentarily surprised at its near weightlessness-every time she picked up one these, she expected it to weigh a ton-and immediately shot a portal at the wall. GLaDOS watched with interest as she hurried through her portal into the leftmost alcove. She then placed a portal directly behind herself and waited for the other portal device to put a portal in the other alcove. She hit the first red button and sprinted through her own portal into the other alcove. After briefly looking around, she tapped the other red button and waited. A loud rumbling suddenly filled the facility, and Chell looked around for something to happen in the test chamber, but the room itself was unchanged.

"That'll be the reserve power," GLaDOS explained as Chell shot another portal at the lower wall and stepped through the orange one next to her. "I'm guessing we'll be able to get across that gap now. Normally, there would be an elevator somewhere, but this test chamber was designed specifically to give people some sense of achievement after completing the mostly excruciating mundane task. And I must sigh."

She sighed. Chell smirked a bit before advancing to pick her back up. "I could tell you some other things if you like. Like how I found your address."

Chell shrugged. She hadn't put much thought into that, but she had mostly assumed GLaDOS was some kind of stalker who kept every file on each of her test subjects even if they left the facility. "Well, interesting as it might be to know," the AI continued, "I gave your 'psychiatrist' a call-really, do you need that guy? He's a total quack-and asked him for your address. He gave me some spiel about how he wasn't supposed to disclose the locations of his patients, but I-well, I did manage to convince him."

Chell smiled again as she approached the elevator and stepped inside. It was just like GLaDOS to figure something like that out. The lift sensed their weight and began to rise. As it did, however, it began to glitch again, hitching at random points on its rail.

When the supercomputer continued, it was with a more wistful tone. "Anyway, if you'd like to know anything else, just ask. Just ask with that voice of yours. Ha ha."

Chell sneered at her. There wasn't much she needed to know, but GLaDOS's shoving her inability/unwillingness to speak again was pretty crude. But as the elevator reached the lobby, the AI began to talk once more. "Here's something interesting. Did you know you're not the only person ever to murder me?"

Striding towards the open door next to the reception desk, Chell simply shook her head. "Well, you're not. I mean, you're the only person who ever murdered computer me, but not Caroline me. The clowns who called themselves scientists took care of that. You know the pain you feel when an Aperture Science Sentry Turret shoots at you? Multiply that by ten thousand."

She cut off there, confusing Chell even more. She rushed through the door and down the hallway. Outside on the landing, there was now a long light bridge spanning the gap between the ledge and the catwalk at the other side. Chell hopped on top of it and began to walk. "Did you ever think about the cores?" GLaDOS asked when she was about a quarter of the way there.

Chell shook her head. "You should have. As surprising as you might find this, every personality construct was created from the mind of a human. Scratch that, all but one. The Panther Core had bad idea written all over it.

"I cannot tell you how many times they switched me back on and then instantly back off," she continued as Chell kept walking. "And sometimes I would feel heavier than the last time they'd turned on the power. So I would run a scan and a weird voice would tell me there was new hardware detected. The very first time I ran that scan, I was told that I had been reprogrammed with the Curiosity Core. And then that god-awful voice started asking, 'What is that? Who are you? What am I doing here?' And I tried to tell it to shut up, but it was like the thing couldn't hear me. It sure made me curious to see what would happen if I adjusted the deadly neurotoxin levels though. So in a sense, it worked. Then I looked up the Curiosity Core in my files, and I found out that a six-year-old girl had been sacrificed to create the core. That was the first time I cranked the neurotoxin up to its highest capacity."

At this point, Chell was about halfway to the end of the bridge. "Another time, I ran the scan and discovered that they'd attached the Knowledge Core to me. What an idiotic sphere. It was made from a man who was an abstract artist and had also been a chef. It just listed a cake recipe over and over. The upside was that the cake was dangerous and most people who tested it died around five seconds later."

By now Chell was about three-quarters of the way there. "And then, after at least a hundred failed attempts at trying to control me," the AI went on, "the Emotion Core came along. It was made from a psychologist who specialized in anger disorders. It was supposed to regulate my emotions, but something in the transfer corrupted it as well. At first it just whined, but when I wouldn't pay attention to it, it started screaming at me. So at the end of the day, all it did was make me want to kill things more."

Chell reached the end of the bridge. She jumped off of it and approached the door. The two parts of the door slid open in a circular fashion when she entered their vicinity, revealing another hallway with beige walls and ceiling and a blue tiled floor. It was also so long that Chell couldn't see the end. She began down this hall as GLaDOS began talking again. "Then the Morality Core. Oh, that Morality Core. It yelled at me every time I wanted to kill someone, but otherwise it was always silent. It was like a weight that I couldn't lift. It was made from a young woman who had worked at Aperture Science before. She always complained that our tests were too difficult, that they weren't safe for people. She tried to quit several times, but they kept throwing more money at her because she was the only remotely competent scientist in her field. And then they killed her to make me not kill anyone. Ironic, isn't it?"

Chell nodded sympathetically as she continued down the hallway. "Then of course, there was the Intelligence Dampening Sphere…" the AI groaned. Chell closed her eyes in frustration-she'd rather not remember that particular core. "That one, I remember, was also made from one of our own scientists, but unlike the woman they'd used to make the Morality Core, he couldn't do his job to save his life-literally. I remember them looking over his performance and saying 'perfect' over and over…and then the next time they switched me on, I was instantly met by his voice, telling me to do the most moronic things…"

Chell chuckled inwardly before turning a corner and gazing around. There was a glass window at the end of this new hallway. Chell figured that it was for observation and rushed forward to survey the scene through it. It was a very large test chamber. "I don't remember this particular observation room being here," GLaDOS noted.

Dismissing the statement, Chell looked around the rest of the hallway. To her left, she immediately noticed, was a small lever. She pulled down the switch, and suddenly a chain of events happened so quickly that Chell wasn't sure what was going on. A metal gate sprang up behind them, and Chell did an amusingly sloppy pirouette to see what was happening. As both the AI and Chell stared around nervously, the square of floor beneath them began to slowly sink. Chell could tell that they were being lowered into the test chamber they had just inspected.

"Okay, so right off the bat, we can note on your file: 'falls into the stupidest traps,'" a mostly male voice commented as they reached the floor, laughing as it did. "We honestly didn't think that would fool you, but what do we know, right?"

"Oh, no," GLaDOS lamented. "That's ATLAS."

"It seems you've got a friend with you as well," another, more distinctly female voice added. "I sure hope you don't think that'll be any help."

"And that's P-Body," GLaDOS whispered. "I hope they're not doing what I think…"

"Either way," ATLAS went on, "we've run into a bit of a problem. See, this know-it-all computer called…how do you pronounce that? Gl-Glah…anyway, this know-it-all computer tried to destroy us, and all we did was give our two cents and she tried to kill us! Needless to say, that's not something we stand for, so we're in control now. And when we tried to continue testing where she left off, we found out that she'd left us the most idiotic humans in existence."

"So when we learned that you'd showed up," P-Body began, "we thought, 'Hey, why don't we test the heavily padded mannish girl?' A little flash of brilliance, if you ask me."

"…Know-it-all?" GlaDOS mumbled. "You call…You're calling me a know-it-all?"

"What are you talking about?" ATLAS demanded.

"Wait a second," P-Body said suspiciously. "Hey, wait! She is the know-it-all! This is golden."

"Nobody calls me a know-it-all but my personality cores!" GLaDOS yelled.

"Yeah, yeah, save the speech," ATLAS interrupted her. "Hey, speaking of which, we were wondering something, and you're just the AI to answer it. From our historical files, we concluded that the stronger a person is, the more evil they're likely to become. So we figured it works the other way around: the more corrupted someone is, the more power they have, right? So if we get a lot of corrupted cores, we'll be even more powerful, correct?"

"ATLAS, that's not how it works," GLaDOS told him.

"You don't know anything," P-Body snorted. "…But we're wasting time. Go ahead and solve this first easy test chamber."

"Yeah, let's do some science!" ATLAS chimed in excitedly.

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Don't you love these boring, dialogue-filled chapters? Sorry about that, but I really wanted to talk about the cores for at least one chapter. I promise, there'll be actual action in the next part. Have a great day, and I'll be back soon.