Chapter 3: Let the Games Begin
Chell stumbled out of bed, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. It was chilly in her room, and she wrapped a blanket around her shoulders, shivering. She ought to get dressed, but she knew she would be testing in an hour, and she didn't want to put clothes on, only to change into her jumpsuit later. Instead, she pulled her hair into a ponytail and pulled open the door.
GLaDOS was waiting right outside, her nose practically against the door, with a manic grin on her face. "Good morning!" she said, her voice slightly more high-pitched than usual. "I've-devised-seventeen-new-tests-in-the-time-it-took-you-to-wake-up-and-they're-all-incredibly-dangerous-and-probably-deadly-let's-get-started!"
Chell stared, more than a little alarmed. She'd never seen GLaDOS like this, and she was a little frightened. Before she could decide whether ask what was going on, though, GLaDOS had grabbed her arm and was pulling her toward the testing entrance. She walked right past the door which should lead to the elevator and marched into another room, containing another elevator. A portal device sat on a shelf to the left.
"You're-going-to-Test-Hub-Beta-today!"GLaDOS said excitedly. "These-tests-will-require-the-help-of-another-test-subject-so-you'll-just-have-to-wait-I'll-go-get-him-now-be-right-back!"
She turned and hurried away. Chell stared after her, then stepped out to change into her jumpsuit, put on her LongFall boots. Just as she was picking up the portal device, GLaDOS ran back in, dragging Wheatley behind her.
"You'll-have-to-figure-out-these-puzzles-on-your-own-I-have-a-new-device-I-have-to-start-working-on-right-away-so-if-you'll-excuse-me," she said, and shoved them both in the elevator.
"Wait! Nonononono wait!" Wheatley cried as the doors started to close. "I haven't got those boots, if I fall I'll probably die, wait, you can't send me down there like this, wait!" The doors shut and there was time to see GLaDOS give them a manic grin before they descended and she was out of sight.
The elevator let them out in the test hub, where walkways led off to the testing tracks. Chell walked into the center of the room and looked around. On the wall above her, a screen displayed the names Chell and Wheatley, with more information below. The door just to the right of the elevator was labeled 1.
"I guess we...we'll start there," she stammered, and nodded at the door.
"Brilliant," said Wheatley with a sigh. "I've got no portal device and no falling-protecting boots. Look how useful I am."
Chell frowned. "It seems odd to me. Sh-she'd have given you a portal device if you needed one for the tests, but if you don't have one, I don't know how you're useful."
"Oh, thanks," he said, annoyed. "Much appreciated."
She laughed. "Didn't mm—mean it like that."
They stepped into the elevator and descended to the first chamber. The doors opened and Chell stepped out, already assessing the chamber. There was a large platform for them to stand on, which dropped off into a pool of acid ten meters down. She could see now why Wheatley hadn't been given a portal device: there was one on a pedestal in the center of the room, too far away from their platform to jump to.
"Oh," said Wheatley, seeing it. "So, ah, that...that would be my portal device, wouldn't it? Brilliant. How, um, how are we going to get it?"
"I'm thinking," she said, staring around the room, taking in the light bridge on the other side, the few surfaces she could put portals on, the platforms and buttons on either side of the room, the emancipation grille on the left side, the metal grate on the right.
"Right," he said. "I'll...just shut up now..."
He hummed softly to himself as she studied the chamber, but of course, he couldn't stay quiet for very long. "What do you think of the new facility, by the way? Pretty fancy, isn't it?"
She nodded and fired the portals to continue the light bridge on their side of the chamber, though it required some maneuvering to get a portal around the emancipation grille. "You need to press that button," she told him, pointing to the left platform.
He looked a little sullen. "Alright," he sighed, and stepped onto the light bridge. She waited until he was safely on the other platform before moving the portals so that one was on the ceiling above the right platform. Wheatley pressed the switch, and a weighted storage cube fell onto the platform beside him.
"What now?" he asked, sounding tired.
It occurred to Chell that he might have wanted more of an answer to his question. "Put it through the portal," she said. "It's going to fall, but that doesn't matter." As he did so, a little reluctantly, she added, "It's pretty nice. The facility. Too clean and...efficient?...in some parts, but I like it."
He was smiling again when he turned back to her. "Well, you get used to it, I suppose. How about your room? Is it comfortable?"
"It r—re-reminds me of a cryostasis chamber," she said, shuddering a little. "But yes, it's comfortable enough."
She moved the bridge back and crossed to the other side, then changed the portals again to drop down on the other side of the grate.
"You can get some other stuff for it, if you want," he said. "She'll let you. I think. Probably. Make it less...relaxation vault...like, yeah? You know, a...chair, or different art, or a mirror, or something. If you want."
She set the cube down carefully on one super button, and stood on the other; two platforms lifted up out of the acid to form a walkway to the portal device. "You think she'd just let me go get things?" she asked, and laughed as she pulled the bridge over for the third time. "Cross over and pick up the portal gun."
He crossed the bridge and warily stepped on to the walkway. "Well, she might," he said. "She lets us leave, sometimes, to go get coffee or whatever. And you must've seen the stuff in the break room, right? We, that is, the cores, not me but the other ones, they got a bunch of stuff, blankets and pillows and cards and things. Still haven't learned to play cards, maybe one of them should teach me." He hesitated, then snatched up the portal gun and jumped back as if expecting a trap.
"There's no need to be frightened of the pedestal it won't hurt you and can in fact not move that test took you much longer than I expected and that's the easiest one well you'd better hurry up because I'm already devising new tests for when you're done with these ones!" said the voice of GLaDOS above them, still talking fast.
"What's wrong with her?" Chell asked quietly as she walked back over to the center chamber.
"She's, ah, had coffee," Wheatley said.
Chell blinked. "She had coffee yesterday, too, and she wasn't like this."
"Well, I think she's also had about six cups," he added.
She laughed and fired her own portals to place the light bridge. "When you get over there, I'm going to move the portals and you'll have to put your own where I had them," she explained. "Then we can just cross over to the door."
They finally completed the test and stepped through the door, to be greeted by an extremely sarcastic, "Oooh, well done! I'd-like-to-inform-you-that-you're-being-timed-on-these-tests-by-the-way-you-did-terribly-my-cooperative-testing-robots-would-have-done-much-better."
"Sixteen tests to go," Chell muttered under her breath, ignoring the AI.
By the time they got a break, Wheatley was exhausted. No sooner had the elevator reached the break room than he collapsed into the nearest chair. "I'm not moving for the rest of the day," he announced. "I've been turned upside down and left-side-right and practically inside out, run through tests like a mouse, had things dropped on me, fallen, jumped, nearly gotten crushed, or fried with bloody lasers, and I am not doing one more test. Not today, not tomorrow, not for the rest of my life."
Chell gave him a look. He blinked, and a look of dawning comprehension crossed his face.
"I mean, not that you're not probably exhausted too," he said hastily, holding up his hands. "I mean, you got dragged into it first thing out of bed, weren't even dressed yet—I guess so, that is, not that I would know, well, obviously, because I didn't see you before she dragged me in there—only, you've, ah, you've done it a lot, haven't you, and I'm, well, yes, it's not so much the running around that gets to me, it's more the not getting a chance to rest, you know?" He laughed nervously. "And, ah, that gravity changes from one portal to the other, which, I mean, maybe you're just used to it I suppose, but for me, see, it's kind of disorienting—makes me feel a bit sick, to be honest, that's the worst of it really, not the, ah, long...ness, because of course you've tested for much longer, and you never even got breaks, back then, and..."
He trailed off as he realized she wasn't looking at him, even though she was listening. She had crossed the room to get a power bar from the table of snacks, but she was smiling at him as she turned back to face him. He relaxed visibly, shoulders slumping as he fell back into the chair again.
"So," she said as she sat down on the arm of the chair. "You...think that she would let me out? Willingly?"
He hesitated. "Well. Probably. Maybe. I mean, she lets us out, sometimes. The cores. She can be a little, ah, reluctant, though. Might not be as easy as just walking out of here. But it's hard to say, she might be perfectly happy to let you go...though you can't be called automatically back to the facility so that might complicate things."
She considered, crumpling the wrapper of the power bar in her hand. "I'm going to try," she said after a moment. "Tonight, after dinner. I'm going to leave."
The door opened suddenly, and she turned to see GLaDOS standing there. "Your-break-has-been-over-for-five-minutes-please-return-to-the-elevator-and-continue-testing," she said, sounding a little annoyed.
Chell got to her feet, threw away the power bar wrapper, and stepped into the lift, bracing herself for another round of grueling tests.
"You too, moron!" GLaDOS added when Wheatley didn't move.
"I'm not a moron!" he protested weakly, but he got up and followed Chell.
They spent the rest of the day testing, breaking only two times before finally being brought upstairs for dinner. Around lunchtime, GLaDOS had started to calm down, and by now she was more or less her normal self—cool, snarky, and sarcastic as only she could be.
"Well," she drawled as they came in. "You two are late. How did it take you so long to get back here?"
Chell lifted her head and didn't answer. Silently, she sat down at the table and waited for dinner to be served.
It wasn't until they were cleaning up that Wheatley leaned over and whispered to her, "Well? Are you going to ask her if you can go? 'Cos, you know, now would be a really great time, I'd imagine. Not that you should listen to me I suppose."
She shook her head without looking at him and handed Intelligence her plate. He mumbled something about frosting and took it. Wheatley followed her, practically stepping on her feet. "What're you shaking your head about? Aren't you planning to ask her?" he whispered.
She signed no at him and shook her head again. She would have explained, but she was determined not to speak and she suspected he wouldn't understand much from her sign language. Instead, she just pointed surreptitiously at the door. He stared at her, utterly bewildered, and she rolled her eyes.
The door opened as she approached and she stepped out into the hallway. Wheatley followed her down the hall to the lobby, which was empty.
"So, you're just going to leave?" he asked. "Without telling her, or anything?" There was a note in his voice that she couldn't place, but it sounded almost afraid. Their eyes met, she looking up at him, and he down at her, and the look on his face was a sad one, partly hurt, partly lonely.
"Yeah," she said, lowering her gaze so she didn't have to see his face as she said it. "I'm just gonna leave. But I...I'll come back. Soon. I promise."
She glanced up, and his face had relaxed, his mouth lifted in a half-smile. "Well, alright," he said. "If you're really coming back, I suppose—not that I would try to stop you, just, I'd rather if you come back, it's really quite a lot less boring for me when you're around. And a lot less pointless errands to keep Her entertained."
"I'll come back," she said, and smiled back at him. "Just want to know what She'll do. And some things to get. For my room. To make it less..."
"Relaxation-chamber-like," he said, nodding. "Suppose I'll see you later, then." He grinned at her. "Good luck, luv!"
She waved as she stepped into the elevator. "Bye, Wheatley."
"Bye," he said, waving back, and watched as she was lifted out of the lobby, up to the surface.
Only when her feet had disappeared above the ceiling did he let the cheerful grin fade from his face and turn to leave the lobby. It looked like GLaDOS had already figured out what had happened, because she was running towards him, looking furious.
"Where is she?" demanded the AI. "Where did she go?"
"She left," he said matter-of-factly. "Gone. She told me she'd come back, there was just some things she had to take care of first. We'll be seeing her again."
I hope, he added silently, and watched as GLaDOS stormed past him into the lobby.
Above the facility, Chell was already running towards the road, pushing through the wheat as quickly as she could. At the edge of the field, she looked back briefly at the rundown shed which concealed the entrance to the Enrichment Center.
She could pretend otherwise, but there was really no point in lying to herself. She knew she would be back sooner or later.
Smiling slightly in triumph, she turned and walked away, down the road towards town.
A/N: GAHHHHH. FINALLY. This chapter took like FOREVER, man. D: I don't even know why this was so hard to write. Chell and Wheatley just didn't want to do anything I guess, ugh. The ending of these feels really forced and I might rewrite it later if people think I should.
Anyways I hope you enjoyed this and it didn't suck too much haha.
DG out.