GLaDOS's POV:

GLaDOS sprinted through the hallways of the Black Mesa facility at a speed of about 2.5 times faster than a human can run and the guards had fallen well behind. The entire facility was mapped out in detail in her head, and she probably could've escaped to safety with her optics closed.

Unfortunately, she didn't expect that the hallway in front of her would flood with guards and that she wouldn't be able to slow down before crashing into them and sending herself, and them, tumbling head over heels. She reoriented herself as soon as she came to a stop, but before she could get up a taser was jammed into her side. Electricity flooded her, and error messages filled her vision before she blacked out.

GLaDOS came to exactly 7.14159 minutes later. She detected multiple humans around her, two of which were dragging her between them. With neither fight nor flight an option, she kept her head down pretending to still be unconscious. They were taking her down a hallway with a concrete floor and the familiar sounds of humans in despair and an electrical hum were all around her. After a few seconds, the guards stopped, and she could hear someone typing into a keypad. The hum off to the side quieted and a metal door opened.

"You've got company," came a gruff voice. Suddenly, she was thrown to her right.

She sprang to her feet as soon as she hit the ground, surprising her captors, who quickly closed a metal door. The hum started again as an electrical field appeared over the bars that made up the front side of the cell. The floor and the walls were all made of reinforced concrete, and there were blood stains-some old, some new-covering the dirty floor. Across the hall, behind another set of bars and an electrical field, two pairs of watery eyes stared back at her. So this is how Black Mesa keeps its test subjects. She heard a shifting sound to her right, and turned to find that she was not the only occupant of this cell.

Chell sat on the bottom bunk of two bunk beds, staring at her curiously and obviously not recognizing her in this human-like android form. To remedy this, GLaDOS let her optics show themselves and said in her usual calm tone, "Well, I didn't expect to see you alive again."

Chell jumped to her feet, but a few seconds later had to sink back onto the bed. GLaDOS took a step closer to assess the damage on her former test subject. She was pale, very pale, and seemed to be constantly shaking. Her arms were dotted with burn marks from tasers and red dots from injector needles, not to mention the cuts and bruises on every other part of her. Her hair hanged loosely over her shoulders and obscured half her face.

"Have you told them anything?" GLaDOS asked. Chell shook her head. "In that case, I'm surprised you're still alive. I'd been trying to figure out how to break it to your offspring that you weren't coming back."

Chell looked up at her. 'Are they safe?' she mouthed.

The android shrugged. "If your daughter followed my orders, she should have escaped."

'You let her come here?' she mouthed angrily, trying to stand up again.

GLaDOS grabbed her shoulders and forced her back down. "She escaped and came here on her own accord. I left to get her back, and if it weren't for me, she'd be the one sitting here with you," she hissed.

Footsteps. They both spun around towards the cell door as a man in a white lab coat flanked by armed guards walked up to it. He calmly typed something on the keypad and opened the door after the electric field disappeared.

"I can see that you two have been acquainted," he said in a disgustingly cheerful voice as he stepped inside, his eyes flicking between them, "Do you enjoy your new residence?" he asked GLaDOS.

"It could be a bit cleaner," she replied, keeping her tone even and locking eyes with him.

"Your roommate never complained," he said with a smirk, glancing at Chell, who tensed. She obviously was familiar with him. He turned back to GLaDOS. "Tell me, miss, have you ever heard of Aperture Laboratories?"

She didn't let any emotion show as she said, "Nothing other than it shut down centuries ago."

"That is what we used to believe," the so-called scientist replied, "But we recently encountered evidence that it's still running, and that stunt you pulled earlier with a certain teenage girl gives us reason to believe that you know this as well."

GLaDOS's eyes narrowed. "What evidence?"

He waved his hand dismissively. "A little core from space," he replied.

Chell jerked, and the AI glanced back at her.

"I see you know who I mean," he said with a smile, "Well, I'll let you two sit tight for a second while I prepare for our next… conversation."

With a gesture to his guards, they trooped off, leaving their victims in silence.

Glade's POV:

Glade leaned against a wall, staring at the clean white wall across from her. Her brother sat beside her on her right, leaning against her shoulder like he did when he was little. The robots called Orange and Blue sat on either side of them, trying to mimic their positions.

"At least we know she's alive," Alex whispered.

Glade glanced back at her younger brother. "Maybe," she replied grimly, "But it's been three hours and there's still no sign of GLaDOS. Do you think she…?"

Alex shrugged. "You know, it's not exactly like her to let you escape and get herself captured."

"I know, but she said that if they got me, they could use me to make mom talk, and that she could do a lot more than I could," Glade replied.

They sat in silence for a while, the robots looking at them concernedly. Glade wondered for a second if they truly understood what was going on.

"Oh yeah! I wanted to show you something!" Alex suddenly said excitedly, jumping up, "I've been working on something since we came here!"

He grabbed his sister's hand and hauled her to her feet before taking off down a hallway, the robots curiously following him. Knowing her brother, Glade figured it was a miniature version of one of the robots that danced when you pressed a button.

"I found this thingy that said how they made simple AIs like the turrets," he explained breathlessly as they ran toward his room, "So I made something like that but put it in my own robot."

"Really?" Glade asked, wincing at the memory of what happened when she built a core. She didn't even make the AI part and it still went corrupt.

They entered the offline cryogenic chamber that Alex was assigned to. He crouched down next to his bed and pulled a box out from under it. Glade raised an eyebrow as he gently set it on the bed and removed the top, revealing a scorpion-like robot inside. Its body and tail were both two feet long, and its tail ended in a metal barb. Its body was segmented and made out of a dark metal. Coming out of each side were four legs that ended with two small hooks, and two pincers that were each at least six inches long and four wide at the base. On its head were two closed optics.

"Hey," Alex said, tapping its head, "Wake up!"

Its optics opened and turned on, each glowing red. It looked around the room, eyeing everyone curiously and making a few chirping noises.

"I call him Scorpio!" Alex said proudly.

"A scorpion named Scorpio," Glade said, chuckling, "Very original."

"I couldn't think of anything else," he replied dismissively, "Look, he can climb up walls and stuff! Go on, show her!"

The scorpion obediently climbed out of his box and scurried down the bed with ease. Glade instinctively jumped out of his way as he crawled past with his barbed tail held above him. He paused in front of the wall before jumping onto it and climbing up and onto the ceiling, making Orange duck to avoid his tail. He stopped on the center of the ceiling and looked down at them with a smug look in his optics.

"I also put a taser in his tail so he can shock stuff," he went on, "Whoa, you don't have to show us that right now!" he told his scorpion, who was preparing to stab someone with his tail.

Scorpio climbed down from the ceiling and climbed up Alex's back, who laughed, petting his head.

Glade smiled; glad her brother had something to distract him from this mess. She slowly reached out to pat the scorpion's head as well. "I'm glad you're better with robots than I am. I'll just keep to my firecrackers."

"Hey, you know that if I tried to make a firecracker, it would either sizzle or blow up at exactly the wrong time," Alex replied. Then his face darkened. "How long should we wait for her?"

Glade sighed. "I don't know. She might be trying to do something there, which is why she's not back yet."

"You think she's trying to help mom?" her brother asked.

"I hope so," she replied, "I guess if she's not back by tomorrow… I guess we should go back there and help."

"Yeah," he said softly.

The robots suddenly started chirping and gesturing.

"I think they wanna help," Alex said smiling, who had been around them a lot more than Glade. They nodded excitedly.

"I guess it's settled then," Glade said, "If she's not back by tomorrow, the four of us-"

"And Scorpio," Alex interrupted.

"Alright, he can come. The five of us will set out for Black Mesa," she concluded.