A/N: So, sorry for the long wait! Please forgive me. ;n; I've honestly been playing Halo: Reach for the good majority of last month. So sorry, for real. Actually, go ahead and flame me if you want, I deserve it. xD Anywho, here's chapter 3! Feedback is always appreciated, tell me how I'm doing, what I can improve on, etc. (:
By the way, the other little girls' names that I mentioned in here are actually ones that can be found on the other science projects. I could make out all of the names except for one, so if anyone knows what the last name is, please tell me. So far, I have Jessica, Alix, Lauren, and Katherine. The other name that I can't make out kind of looks like it starts with an 'R', but if anyone can tell me what the last name is, that'd be a really great help. Anyway, enjoy!
Portal & Portal 2 (c) Valve
Chell sighed as her and her father walked back down the hallway. "How about we work on that science fair project?" Cave said with a smile at his daughter. The little girl nodded with a slightly forced smile back at her father. She felt a bit at fault, though. When she'd held the robot, the machine actually seemed like she was...well, happy. When she had to go, she couldn't help but notice that the robot seemed slightly sad, maybe even angry that she was leaving. It was probably just her imagination, though, so the girl simply shook it off.
Chell's father and herself entered a large room, a red plush carpet on the floor, the walls a warm honey-gold color that made the room seem homey. There were vintage chairs with clawed feet and buttons on the back and seat parts of the chair. Ignoring the furnishings of the room, and moving to the people were people that Chell had seen rarely at Aperture, other children that needed to come to work if their parents didn't have a solution as to where their child would be while they worked. The parents in the room weren't really with their children, rather catching up with each other in a different part of the room while the children worked on their science projects.
"Chell!" the girl turned to see a girl about her age come toward her, throwing her arms around the girl in a hug. The girl's hair was dark, like Chell's, but shoulder-length and tied into pigtails. Her eyes were a hazel, green on the inside and a small ring of brown on the outside, Alix. Another girl came up beside her, Jessica. Jessica had golden-blonde hair that went down well past her elbows, her bangs pulled back from her face with a ponytail on top of her head. She had bright blue eyes, like ice, which was exactly what her personality was like. She wasn't nice at all, she was like one of those popular kids at school that always acted like she was smarter and better than everyone else. Two other girls stood behind Alix, on either side of her. The one on her right was Lauren, on the left was Katherine. Lauren had deep auburn hair that was in a ponytail hanging at over one of her shoulders and emerald green eyes, Katherine had bright brown, almost blonde hair tied in a single braid and dark brown eyes. Everyone was happy to see that she'd made it, except for Jessica, but she was never happy, really.
Chell smiled in response to the girl's hug with a nod as she hugged her back, taking note of what looked like some sort of camera in the corner that was hanging from the ceiling, almost like a small pod with a red eye at the end that was indefinately looking at her. "Well, c'mon! You have to start on your project! And it has to based around nature! It's 'Energy and Nature'!" the girl said, her smile unmoving. It was obvious that she was happy to see Chell, they were actually best friends, they had been since they met. Mr. Rattman actually introduced them one day, and they became instant best friends. They never spent all that much time together, though, because of their parents busy scheduals. Alix's mother actually worked at Black Mesa, her dad at Aperture. Even though their work wasn't a good mix, they hadn't split because they loved the family that they had. But they were smart people, not trading off secrets of their companies to one another.
The girl with Davy's gray eyes looked around the room once again, seeing that everyone's projects were already started, except for her. There were potatoes at every one except for one, which had an almost-finished paper mache volcano, only needing to be colored. All the others had potatoes connected to something with wires, some with clocks, a light, there was even one connected to a circle that was like a scale model of a portal. Chell nodded to Alix, "I better get started, then," she said. The girl grabbed a large gray poster board, along with some white cut-out stars and some black cut-out letters with a few more pieces of black and white paper. She went to a bucket of crayons, grabbing a black, brown and yellow, along with a number two pencil and a glue stick. The child hurried to her table to start on her project while her father went to talk to the other children's parents.
She took the large poster board and folded it into threeo parts, the two on the end smaller than the middle part. The brunette took the black pieces of paper and her glue stick, putting the glue on the back of the paper and pressing it to the middle part of the poster board once she knew she put enough glue on it. She did the same with a slightly smaller white piece, placing it over the black. The girl took two long black pieces of paper and put glue on those, then putting them on the smaller sides of the poster, putting smaller white pieces on them after that. Chell situated herself so that her legs were under her, giving her a bit more of a boost to be able to write at the top of the poster board that was laying on the table, practically finished. She decided to write on the far right part of the white paper first. She put "MateriaLs" on the top of the long white strip, writing the things she'd be using under it, "Nail, Potato, Penny, Wires," and "Something Electrical". The girl drew a squiggly line with the black crayon, then did the same with the brown crayon, under the first. Wires, check. She drew an oval with the brown crayon under the wires, coloring it in and taking the black crayon again, drawing a smiley face on the oval. Potato, check. She drew a small circle with the brown crayon, putting a black smiley face on this one too. Penny, check. She took the black crayon again, drawing a 'T' tipped by the penny. Nail, check. She went under all the pictures she'd drawn, taking the back crayon to the paper again, drawing what looked like some sort of bin, the Aperture Laboratories logo on the middle of it. She moved the crayon to under the bin and wrote, "Special ingredients from Dad's work" in small letters, sitting back with a simple smile at the majority of work she'd accomplished in such a short amout of time.
Chell went a little farther down the white paper, "Procedures" she wrote with the black crayon, putting upside-down hills under the word like she had done with the first. She took the number two pencil, holding it gingerly as she thought of what to put under the section, how you'd make the potato clock she would be making shortly after she finished the poster. She began writing, the small words scrunched together to be nearly impossible to read, except for the one that wrote it. Once she finished writing what to do to make a potato powered clock, she took the black crayon again and drew a circle with two legs on the bottom of the shape. She drew a line gone from the middle of the circle upward, and another pointing to what would be able one o' clock on the drawing, adding quick lines to show the other numbers around the hand-drawn clock. The brunette took the brown crayon again, drawing another oval and putting a T on the colored-in potato. She drew a squiggly line from the nail to the top of the clock, the wire that connected the two to create power.
The five-year-old looked her work over, nodding to herself. She glanced around the room again, seeing a few of the girls chatting, a few others working on their projects again so they could finish it. The girl turned back to her project, putting her attention on the left part of the gray, black and white poster. She used the black crayon again, writing "Odservations" on the top of the white paper, putting a half cloud under the word again. She took the pencil, scribbling in her barely-readable handwriting what she had observed with the potato clock. After she wrote that, she took the crayon again, drawing a black magnifying glass under the squished paragraph, more than enough room left on the other half of the paper. She went farther down the page and wrote "data" with the crayon again, putting the same mark under that word as she had done with the others. She took the pencil and began to put what she had gathered from her project with the potato clock. After she wrote the two about three-sentence paragraphs, she took the black crayon and drew a square under them, making horizontal and vertical lines inside of the shape. She drew a line that went up and down on the graph, showing a sign of good progress in the table.
The little girl looked at what she had done so far, seeing that she only had the middle to finish. She nodded to herself, "This should take long, then," she mumbled quietly as she looked up at the clock that hung on the wall. It'd only taken her about ten minutes to finish the two sides, drawings and all. She sighed and stood on the chair she was in, stretching out before she grabbed the glue and a white paper star, applying glue to the back of it and sticking it on the right side of the paper, in the middle of the right part of the paper, between her drawing of a bin and 'Procedures'. She did the same with another star, on the left side of the board above the word 'data' she had down. She continued putting stars on the paper, on the corners of the rest of the sections, includind on the middle one, too.
She sat back down, starting work on the middle section of her project's poster. She put "HyPothesis" on the top left of the paper. She went to the right of the word and began scribbling words again, "Connected to the small device.." she finished writing, drawing a lightbulb to the right of her caligraphy. She took the unused yellow crayon and colored in the light bulb, putting little lines eminating from the bulb to show that it was working. The girl took the black again and drew another clock, this one with all the numbers and the hands pointing to about 11:45 with a wire going from the top of the clock to a nail. She drew a potato, half of a penny sticking out of it, along with a nail. Both items had wires connecting from the potato to the clock, indefinitely the route that the electricity would take to make the circuit work completely for the project. She took the pencil and moved to under the picture, writing "ConcLusions" there. She wrote about four sentences there, one on top of the other, the first one a little bit crooked. She put the pencil down after she had finished writing the words and took the glue stick again, opening the lid and taking the black cut out letters that she had took for the poster, flipping them on their backs and putting glue on them, careful to put them on the poster before the glue dried out. E-N-E-R-G-Y, she finished the first word and went to the next to, O-F T-H-E. She took the first letter for the next word and putting it below the first three words, F-U-T-U-R-E. "Energy of the Future" the girl said to herself, smiling at her handi-work. The poster was completely done, except for one little part. The girl took the black crayon one last time, in the corner writing "by Chell", her name in large letters in the bottom right corner of the middle paper, showing that it was her poster.
Chell got out of her chair, setting her poster upright on the table before taking the crayons, pencil and glue back to where she had got them from. She looked around the room for the other items she'd need for her project, spotting a table with wires and different items. She took the largest potato, two wires, a penny, a long metal nail, and clock. The girl went back to her table around the corner of the hall, setting down her items on the table. She took the wires, tying the end of one to the length of the nail that she'd put into the potato, tying the other end of the wire to the clock. She did the same with the other wire and the penny. She looked at the project, nodding to herself. Perfect.
The brunette looked up again, noticing that everyone else was either done with their projects, or very near done. She tilted her head slightly, confused a bit since she'd finished her project before the others had finished theirs. She shrugged it off and went back to her father, tugging on his jacket to get his attention. "Dad, where's mom?" she asked, confused. She hadn't seen her since they split up earlier that day.
Cave looked down at his daughter with a smile, taking himself from the conversation he was having with the other parents to talk to her. He bent down, getting almost level with the girl, "Mom didn't feel good, so she went home. She said she'd meet us later." he answered. Chell raised an eyebrow, but didn't question him further, going back to sit where her project was. The girl shook her head and stared at the ground, trying to ignore the bad feeling she had in her gut, knowing that something wasn't right. She looked up again, seeing the parents come in and get their children, going for the complementary test chamber tours of the day. The brunette's feeling got worse, hearing about the tour and seeing how excited everyone was about it, but she nodded to herself and put a smile on her face, her facade to lie and say she was fine.
Chell followed her father as they entered the first room. It wasn't actually a test chamber, but a room for a 'lab rat', from what the people doing the testing had been called, time and time again. The brunette looked the small square room over from the outside, seeing a small flicker of blue on one of the walls, walking over to see what it was while the others went ahead, un-noticing the blue oval already far behind them as they continued to the next room with her father. She walked through the blue oval, entering the small room she had been looking at before. The girl turned around to see an orange oval - no, a portal - behind her. She looked at it in confusion, so the portal ended up in here, huh? She turned back to the things that were in the room. A toilet, a stand with a cup, a chart, and a radio playing a relatively happy-feeling toon. She looked at the rest, which was just walls, floor, and some type of bed that, from what she'd heard around, put the test subjects in stasis. Chell heard a noise, sounding somewhat like a whoosh than anything, flipping around to where she'd heard it, seeing the orange portal was gone. The little girl ran over to where the portal had been, banging on the plain white wall that was in its place. She looked around, beginning to panic; how was she supposed to get out? How long was she going to be trapped like a lab rat?
The brunette staggered on her feet, nearly falling over. She managed to support herself against the stasis pod that was in the corner, climbing into the pod in an attempt to not fall. Her breathing became slightly heavy. Why was she feeling so light-headed? Why was she so tired? The little girl looked around the glass walls again, seeing outside of her cage. She noticed an item hanging on the wall, it looked like some sort of camera. It was like an oval pod, one end cut off to have a red eye of some sort looking at her from the end that wasn't connected to the wall by a black piece of metal. The child only paid attention to the little things because she didn't want to think about the things at hand, how she was trapped in the room, how she'd probably never see her parents again, how her mother had "gone home sick", according to her father (which was a huge lie, she knew). The child didn't think much anymore, her eyes drooping as the top half of her body swayed from sitting up in the pod. The girl layed her head on the pillow that was in the pod, a feeling of heavy sleep ready to take her away for the time being. Chell didn't fight the urge to sleep, taking the one teddy bear that she'd found on the floor a little bit earlier into her grasp and hold it tightly to her while she began to drift off.
Only for a few minutes..
A/N: Gosh, that's practically a whole chapter just on Chell's science fair project! XD
Why do I go into detail so much? o.e
Anyway, if you would, please review. I want to know if I should continue this (since I've been so lazy and I don't start the chapters until like...3 days before the next month), otherwise I might drop it once I get it to a spot where I think it's fit. I was actually thinking of stopping it last chapter with Chell and GLaDOS like that, but I didn't 'cause of all the people who (from what I can tell) like this story. .
Anyway, please review, I want to know what I can improve on and such. ;u;
EDIT: By the way, school's started for me again, so don't expect updates very quickly, especially with having to cram Algebra into my head (when I epically fail at math) while making time for my friends so they don't think I hate them. But! I did play Portal and it was definitely an awesome game, aside from how short it was. First time going through (without knowing what to do) only took me about 2 hours. But I hope you guys have patience with me and this story. For the time being, though, it'll probably be put on haitus until I have more time and less stress. I'm actually not going to be in a sport this year because of the coach for Danceline and because I'll be stressed enough trying to gets A's in all my classes to make my parents proud for once. But, yeah! Favorite, Review, other stuff. Do whatever you want to! (Aside from taking my story ;D )