-:-
The many men, so beautiful!
And they all dead did lie;
And a thousand thousand slimy things
Lived on; and so did I.
–Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
-:-
No one ever left Aperture.
"Even if they fire us. Even if we die."
Henry had told him this with a reverent smile, the same one he wore every morning when Cave Johnson's speeches rattled at them through ancient speakers. "She's like a clingy woman – get inside her once and the bitch will never leave you alone. Walk out the door and she follows, nagging, asking why you don't love her back."
He had disagreed at the time.
But you knew it was true, Doug, the dead whispered. We're still here. Aperture employees, good employees, we lived testing and died testing. It was what we wanted.
"It wasn't."
He stood, blood still hot on his hands. The voices hissed into silence. Another sweep of the tiny office, another surge of hate for the way his eyes flickered to the empty corners. No cameras, but the ghosts of Aperture still watched with invisible eyes. Above his murals, where he couldn't reach with his paintbrush, they stared and murmured to each other. Sometimes, when the room turned red and his pictures came alive, he thought he recognised a few. We're still here, they said. All they ever said.
Chell lay on his makeshift bed of blankets and cardboard. The splashes of blood against the white of her face made nausea twist his stomach. He didn't dare clean them off. If he touched her more than he needed to she might shatter. An angel made of glass. He held his breath, listened to hers. Shallow, uneven. Medical kits had helped with removing the bullets and shock, but what she needed was blood. He didn't need to look at her file again to know they weren't a match. All he could do was wait. How long would it take before he knew if she would recover? Days, hours?
The room wove itself in a figure of eight as he paced. Nothing he could do. Helpless. Just like before.
You did everything you could, Cube said from the corner.
"Did I, though?" Even he didn't know which incident he was referring to. "I put things back together. Not people. What if I've done something wrong? What if I've made it worse –"
Then she would already be dead.
He took a deep breath, but it didn't stop his shaking or quell the tremor in his voice. "If – if she does... go, then I'll do it this time. I really will."
Please don't. The surfaces of Cube gleamed under the florescent light, scratches and dents on its paintwork bringing a lump to his throat. Not again. I don't want to die.
Scars itched in reminder. Selfish, but better than giving GLaDOS the satisfaction of killing him. With his back against the wall, he slid to the ground beside Chell. Tears blurred her into an orange blob. He shouldn't have to rationalise his own suicide. No one should. To try and distract himself, he covered her with his lab coat, checked the bandages on her side.
It'll be all right. We'll get this sorted out, Henry said, the words an echo from a lifetime ago. Like then, they brought no comfort now.
He wiped at his eyes, focused on his pictures that decorated the office walls. They helped, a little. Near the door, a painting of Cube flying towards the clouds faded into a heap of dead scientists. On the opposite wall, Schrödinger's cat jumped for freedom only to find itself in a slightly bigger box.
The floor churned like a turbulent carpet sea under his feet as he walked forward. One wall glared, white and empty. The invisible eyes crowded it and the voices resumed their hissing. He had been waiting for something special to fill it with, something to drive away the stares and whispers from the whole room. His eyes found Chell's face, peeking out from under his coat, the smooth skin of her cheeks and curl of parted lips stirring something deep inside. He let the feeling take control of his hand. Fingers tightened around a brush while the blank wall loomed in front of him. The voices muttered at his audacity, but her features were all he could see, all he cared about. She was with him; he feared nothing.
The brush touched white to the wall.
Peace followed.
-:-
The last stroke was always the hardest.
His body sagged, brush slipping from his hand and clattering as it hit the ground. The noise startled him from his trance. Like an eroding dream, the details of what he had imagined, what he had painted, were fast crumbling away. Fatigue drove him to his knees – not surprising, there was no way to tell how long he had been standing there. Hours could dart past him like deer fleeing from wolves, or hover like heavy moths around a light, but painting sucked away any sense of 'time' into a black hole of cats, formulae and Cube. Only one thing mattered – the bliss of making the images from his head real.
The colours and shapes writhed on the wall. He closed his eyes, counted to ten.
Protect me from the metal God, Cube said, and he recognised the voice as his own. Fly me to the moon on the wings of an angel.
His eyes opened. Salvation bloomed before him.
All Chell's perfection had been captured in detail. Her naked form floated towards a crescent moon, arms stretched out and head tilted back as though granting forgiveness. White wings emerged from behind her shoulders, spread in flight, the feathers grazing the edge of the wall. Cube flew beside her, tiny wings of its own. He followed the curve of her breasts and hips, any shame swallowed by awe.
He had never painted anything so beautiful.
The euphoria faded as his eyes reached her feet. Flames licked up them, curled around her calves like they were trying to drag her back down. Below the flames gaped a black hole. Dead scientists lay at the bottom. The skeleton of GLaDOS hung, limp, like a puppet with severed strings. He squinted, picked out a figure with an orange scribble across its face lying nearby.
So, that was how it would end. Maybe it was for the best.
You're a good person, Cube whispered, you don't deserve that.
"It doesn't matter if I'm good or not – what matters is what I did. What we all did."
You saved the girl's life, gave her another chance. Isn't that redemption enough?
"And if she doesn't make it?" He rose, leg muscles trembling, and staggered back to where Chell lay. Paler than her painting, but still so, so beautiful. "I would have put her through all that for nothing but a few hours of torture. My reason for waking her up was... selfish. She just had a high tenacity level, that was all, but now she's here and she had to go through all that because of me – " Panic and guilt clutched at his throat, his voice rising into hysterical sobs. "And – and if she lives she'll have to go back out there and do it all again, face GLaDOS, experience more pain and fear – why did I – maybe –"
Don't.
"Maybe I shouldn't have woken her at all!"
He clapped a hand over his mouth as soon as the words left it. After everything that had happened, his emotions felt far too raw, like someone had stripped the skin off his soul and exposed the core to the harsh elements. Every word he said grated against that core, emotions bleeding out and impossible to contain.
Do you believe in justice?
Cube's question made him frown. He sat down, back against the wall and knees drawn up against his chest. Chell was close enough to touch, though he would never dare.
"Justice is a human concept."
Are you not human?
"Sometimes it doesn't feel like it. I don't know if you can apply justice it to a psychotic super-computer. She did what we told her to: test."
Things like her can't be allowed to live. If given the chance, she will kill you like she killed the others, so be human and treat her like the threat she is. Either she dies or you die.
"Even if it means..."
Even if it means the girl suffers more pain and fear. If she succeeds, freedom for you both.
Freedom. The chance to see the sun again, the sky. "You're right."
I usually am.
Paint – or was it blood? – itched on his face. He scratched and red flakes fell away. Shame the showers were at the other end of the facility – he would do anything for a proper wash in hot water. Or to spend a night in a proper bed.
The mere thought of sleep wrenched his mouth open in a yawn.
You should get some rest.
"I can't." He rubbed his eyes and yawned again. "If something goes wrong, if she needs me –"
You've been awake for a long time.
"Really. I wasn't aware."
Seconds dragged, and eventually a whole minute managed to limp past. Everything seemed to float. His eyes stung when he blinked and he wondered how long it would be before he went mad.
The next time he blinked his eyes refused to open again. Darkness seemed to suck his conscious down and the temptation to sink into that abyss almost overwhelmed him.
"No."
His voice jerked him half-awake with that denial. The world was nothing but multicoloured blobs that soon faded back into black. Something soft brushed against his hand as it flopped by his side, something that felt like strands of hair.
He needed to stay awake.
For her.
He needed
-:-
those silly little smart-screws that always rolled out of their packet and through the grate on the floor. Why did they have to make them so small? How did they expect him to fix a hand-held portal device when half the pieces were either near-invisible to the naked eye, or would explode if he looked at them funny?
He grunted and sifted through the layer of papers spread in a semicircle around him. Maybe Henry's suggestion of sitting on a chair and working at a desk would mean he lost less components, but at least back here, behind the wall panels of a test chamber, he didn't have to deal with GLaDOS staring at him. 'Analysing', Henry called it. Sure. The same way a cat 'analysed' a mouse before it tortured and ate it. Shuddering at the thought, he uncrossed then recrossed his legs and reached for the cup of coffee that sat on a nearby Weighted Companion Cube (they made such perfect tables). The bitter bite as the liquid washed over his tongue made him hum in satisfaction.
Caffeine and sugar rushed through his blood. The radio tinkled away in the background. There was a kind of rebellious thrill that came with doing work in off-limit areas. As ill as it may have been to think such things of the dead, he saw it as a big middle finger to Cave Johnson. Fifteen years in the ground and his damn pre-recorded messages still controlled them. It was more than mildly annoying to hear him blame all company faults on Black Mesa – even if they were research-stealing bastards – it was just plain wrong. Henry didn't think so, and often launched into a 'we need a new Cave' campaign – during which he would nod and make positive grunts at Henry's every pause..
Three beeps of his wristwatch interrupted the search for wayward screws. Still shifting papers around with his feet, he dug in the pocket of his lab coat and pulled out a small bottle of pills. Two spilled into his hand. He washed them down with another swig of coffee, frowning at the hollow rattle as he put the bottle back. Nearly empty. Another trip to the pharmacy was due, another knowing look from Henry when he dodged out for that hour. Inconvenient and embarrassing, but better than the alternative.
An ah, there you are noise came from his throat as the screws were finally excavated from Paper Mountain. He tipped them from their packet into his palm, careful not to let any bounce onto the ground. A single one was half the length of his fingernail so having to scrape around when they escaped was a pain.
He pulled the portal device onto his lap. The shell flopped back, broken from when the test subject using it had apparently forgotten about gravity. The screws would bind it back together, secure it to the core section. Now he just needed –
"Emergency protocol five-five-two is now in effect. All Aperture Science employees and pieces of sentient technology are to report to their nearest assembly point for evacuation. Test subjects, continue testing."
The voice that leaked through the vent of the test chamber sounded far too happy. It wasn't GLaDOS at least, just the male overview announcer. Five five two. What the hell was five five two? He stood with a slight wobble and set the portal device down next to the Weighted Companion Cube. No time to sort out the mess of papers. Everything would have to wait until he came back – assuming he did come back. Whatever five five two was, it had to be bad to warrant a facility-wide evacuation.
The announcement looped. He took one last look around before slipping through an air vent and dropping into the observation office. Only the quiet whirr of computer fans greeted him. Screens that normally displayed a variety of results and test conditions were now filled with nothing but the Aperture logo. A dot of red light from the test chamber caught his eye. The camera was fixed on him and the more he stared at it, the more his stomach churned.
It had to be her.
Henry. Gotta find Henry.
The corridors should have been busy, should have been bustling with people all rushing to the same destination, yet he met no one as he ran through them. Around every corner a camera followed him, the weight of being watched crawling under his skin until he was no longer running towards, but away from something.
He reached the hall preceding GLaDOS', panting more from fear than exertion. People, thank God, people were there. Around thirty, all scientists and some he recognised. They turned at his entry, faces expectant, then dismissed him almost immediately. Not even a grunt of acknowledgement. He joined their muttering little cluster, relief flooding him as he spotted Henry at the front of the group.
"Hey, Henry! Henry!" He pushed through to the front, hope plummeting like a shot dove when he saw Henry's hand reach for the assistance phone on the wall and fingers punch in 2-1-9.
Rouge AI. Oh no.
Everyone watched, speculation and theories silenced. Even the walls seemed to hold their breath. Henry caught his eye and flashed a brief smile in automatic greeting, but the frown on his face was carved from wood. The slam of the phone meeting the receiver made them all jump.
"I can't get through. Jesus!" Henry's hand rubbed across his forehead, his eyes on the floor as though looking for a solution in the blank tiles. Suggestions popped up from around him, ideas born from fear.
"Try the extension to human resources, they might know what's going on if they all haven't left yet – "
"What about trying to reach another facility?"
"No, look, we need to get to the main breaker room. I know there's a switch – "
"I'm going to talk to her."
Henry's words stopped all discussion. Someone shouldered past, voice several octaves higher than it should have been.
"Didn't you see what she did to test chamber twelve? There was no reason for that! Doctor Carver was still in there – "
"I'm aware of what happened, McKenzie."
"I don't think you fucking are! She activated the neurotoxin – and don't you tell me that was a mistake, we all know, Doctor Field, that GLaDOS 'doesn't make mistakes'! Your words! You go in there, you're not coming out."
A cold, heavy feeling of dread had curled up in his chest at McKenzie's words. He had always known, or at least suspected, that she would do something nasty. She had taken such pleasure in the data obtained when test subjects failed. They all had, in a way.
He closed his eyes and tried not to vomit.
"Regardless," Henry said, using his don't talk to me like that or I'll do more than just fire you voice, "I might be able to find out why she's doing this – and why she's put us in lockdown. Five five two is cause for evacuation to another facility, but we can't evacuate if we can't get out of the damn doors. So everybody get down to the assembly points and wait for me to sort this out, or, after, you can explain to the higher-ups exactly why you defied orders."
"I'm not – "
"McKenzie, move your ass or so help me, I'll move it myself!"
Cave Johnson himself couldn't have had more effect.
He felt the others shift around him, heard the whoosh of the door as they left.
"Doug?"
Bright lights bit into his eyes when he opened them. His sleeve was the first thing his hand found, fingers clenching it so tight that they ached. Henry watched him, head tilted to the side. "Come on, Doug, saddle up." The smile was fake, meant to reassure. He wished he were that ignorant. "Time to go."
"You can't."
The bottle of pills rattled as his body shook. Panic built, consuming like an inferno and his legs threatened to spill him to the floor. Henry gripped his shoulders. Fingers squeezed.
"I helped make her, right? She'll listen to me."
"She won't, she's crazy, she'll kill us all – "
"Now you know that's not true, Doug. This is a glitch, nothing more. I'm not wasting years of time, research and money dismantling her. Here." Something cold and plastic pressed into his hand. "If you're so worried, take this. Level seven access to doors and computers. If you need it, use it. You won't need it, though."
His gaze kept flitting to the door. Behind it lay a monster, a self-aware mass of wires and circuits. Empathy wasn't one of her functions. No amount of begging would convince her not to do something. Henry gave his shoulder one last pat, his face changing from understanding to the blank neutrality of a professional in the blink of an eye. An Aperture employee through and through.
He made no move to stop Henry when he keyed in the code to GLaDOS' chamber. Words stuck in his throat, any protests strangled into a whisper of air like the mute explanations of a lucid dreamer. When the door opened he flinched back, the mouse shrinking from the scent of the cat. Her yellow optic lens faced them, tilting and widening, scanning as though she could read their minds.
Maybe she can, saida voice that should have been silenced by the pills. He forced it back, locked it in a tiny room somewhere in his brain, and threw away the key.
"'When life gives you lemons'." Henry's wink made his chest ache and everything inside him screamed to pull the other man back when he walked over the threshold. "It'll be all right. We'll get this sorted out."
'Good luck' sounded stupid and 'don't get killed' sounded even worse, not that he could make any sort of noise around the lump in his throat. He settled for a tight nod, heartbeat loud in his ears as the door started to close. Henry's eyes stayed on his, even when the buzz of GLaDOS' voice reached them.
"Hello, Doctor Field."
A clang of metal against metal, and Henry disappeared.
Absolute silence in the wake of noise always seemed to drive home the fact that one was truly alone. Not even the voice in his head had anything to say. He usually relished this solitude, welcomed it. Now it crushed him. The door swam in front of him and it took every bit of willpower to prise his gaze away. He thought about waiting, hoping Henry would walk back through the door. No, that was futile – he refused to act like a dog sitting at the grave of its master. Moving and finding everyone else was the best option, but could he bear to face those cameras again?
"Warning: facility lockdown is now in effect. All Aperture Science employees, please – " The announcement fizzled out, static hissing from speakers. A moment later they blasted white noise in preparation. He fled the room, but he couldn't run from her voice.
"Emergency testing has been initialised. All Aperture Science employees are to report to their nearest test chamber for voluntary participation of tests." GLaDOS' pause gave him a single shred of hope that Henry had succeeded. "Although testing is strictly voluntary, the enrichment centre is required to remind you that any employee found not participating will be subject to investigation and interrogation. By turrets."
The cameras winked at him, now a secondary threat, while his feet took him back down the corridors he had run through minutes before. Thoughts dulled, overridden by primal fear. She was testing them. She would hunt him, make him test too. Now he knew what it was like to truly fear for his life, what it was like to be prey to something real.
Run through the maze, hide behind the walls, rat. It's what you do best.
The observation room, close. He longed to throw himself into safety, to curl up against a wall with his hands over his ears and hope the nightmare would end.
Mom, the monsters are chasing me again!
They're just in your mind, darling, now take your medicine.
Pills wouldn't stop this, not even if he downed the rest of the bottle.
He reached a fork, began to swerve left. Even unfounded, paranoia should have taught him better. Red beams stretched the length of the corridor, criss-crossed like the delicate threads of a spider web. His leg brushed one of these threads before he could stop, and the spiders jerked into action.
"Firing..."
Bullets tore into the wall. Tiles cracked, plaster pluming out like smoke. A clumsy stumble saved his life, momentum tipping him back round the corner, out of the turrets' sight. The adrenaline silenced any hysterical thoughts (turrets, she has the turrets, oh good Christ SHE HAS THE) and made him pick himself back up. Survive, it whispered to his muscles. Fight or flight. He took a deep breath, forced himself to calm even as the turrets chirped after him. A cool head would increase his chances far better than running blind into danger. If he could just find another air vent, a door that he could override into the maintenance areas, then he would be safe. The map of Aperture swirled in his head. Where was the best place to go? Should he double back and head for the labs or the employee offices? He closed his eyes, took several deep breaths. A cool head, brains over brawn. The offices, closer.
Another peal of gunfire rang down the halls as he turned to leave, followed by sounds that were definitely not mechanical. A whimper, a thick glug of fluid. The thud of something hitting the floor.
His ears were still ringing when he walked away.
Corridors. White lights and white tiles. He barely noticed the cameras now. Theories ticked over, a scrawl of formulae in his mind, but the results might as well have been written in hieroglyphics. The cores should have worked.
She has a little bit of human inside her. The voice turned into a smile, teeth flashing in darkness. Certainly the instinct to kill, anyway. Maybe she remembers that. Maybe that's all she remembers.
His legs stopped him at the door to the offices. Unlocked.
Inside, computer screens flashed screen savers. An eerie feeling twisted his stomach. There had been people here, working, not more than twenty minutes ago. Coats still hung on the backs of chairs, abandoned by their owners in the rush for presumed safety. Personal effects decorated desks, each one he saw tearing away at the dam that kept him from breaking. A little clay model. A troll. A mug belonging to the World's Best Dad. He skirted his eyes over everything, trying not to let them linger. The photographs were the hardest; pictures of families, arms around each other, in parks, on beaches. Husbands, wives, lovers. Children. Some of the people in those pictures were probably still alive, trapped in whatever test GLaDOS had set for them. Still alive and still thinking, feeling. He couldn't help them. Better one person living than everyone dead.
Survival logic. Coward's logic.
His eyes scanned the walls until he found the polished square of an air vent. Too high to reach from the ground or even standing on a chair, but thankfully whoever controlled Aperture's finances had decided on the cheap wooden desks. Easy to sweep the computer, potted plant and a card (Happy 30th Birthday!) of the closest on to the floor and then drag it against the wall. He climbed up, the wood wobbling under him, and examined the vent. A catch, not screws. Good.
Aperture groaned around him, test chambers shifting under GLaDOS' command. Perhaps she was building new ones; she did have a lot of test subjects now.
Stomach rolling at the thought, he smacked at the metal grill and lifted it off the catch. The darkness beyond beckoned.
"That's strange. Your file doesn't mention deafness in your... colourful medical history."
Cave Johnson had wanted them to hear his voice all the time. Even if he couldn't live forever, he would never be forgotten. Now the speakers, placed in accordance with his will, would be her advantage.
He swung himself into the vent, hands too busy to cover his ears.
"[Initialising truth enhancement in three. Two. One.] Doctor Field and I were just having a discussion. We both agree that you should come back here instead of crawling around in air vents. Think about it; what kind of scientist does that? You can't perform Aperture Science approved repairs while on your hands and knees." She sighed, tone dropping. "You know, thanks to these cores, I hear voices too. We have that in common. Why don't you come back here so we can talk?"
"No," he said, easing himself around a corner. He hoped she could hear him. "Absolutely not, robot."
A cheap shot, almost childish. Below him, the sound of an explosion – or something very large being dropped very far.
"Mortality is quite interesting when you're going to live forever. I should know, I'm testing it right now. For research purposes, does the thought of death scare you?" Another explosion. "It should."
He shut his mouth. Baiting her would only make things worse. Around another dusty corner, light burst through a grate at the side. He peeked out, saw urinals and cubicles. Not where he wanted to be. Where were the maintenance areas from here? He consulted his mental map. Out of the bathroom, then a right down the hall to where an observation booth overlooked test chamber eight.
"All right, I'm going to be honest with you now. [Decreasing truth enhancement credibility in three. Two. One.] We're all throwing you a party. There. I had to spoil the surprise we've been working on for months. Doctor Field is crying. I hope you're happy."
A bit more shuffling and his knees started to ache. He took a right turn, then a left, and hoped the system followed the rooms in some logical fashion. Like the maintenance areas, he had no doubt that this labyrinth ran throughout the entire facility, a blessing for someone who needed to avoid being seen by cameras.
Another grate, this time showing computers and monitors below. Looked promising. It came away in his hands and he dropped down into the small room. Empty, though he had expected nothing more. A sign on the door in front of him announced that no unauthorised personnel were allowed beyond that point. The card reader and number pad beside the handle said they weren't joking. Level seven access. Thank God Henry thought he needed such reassurance.
He had slipped the card in, finger hovering over the numbers, when movement from the test chamber caught his eye.
Don't look. The voice tugged at him like a child on the arm of their parent. He brushed it away, pressed his face against the cold glass.
It could have been him down there, clutching a Weighted Storage Cube while the timer on the wall blinked down. He could have been the one shying from the bodies lying on the floor, sobbing as he heaved the cube onto a button and then screaming, clawing at the door when it refused to open.
The timer reached zero and yellow-green gas began to seep through ducts high on the wall panels.
Walk away, his own voice said inside his head, don't watch, don't watch, don't –
The man in the test chamber turned around, lab coat fluttering around his calves and tears carving through the dirty smudges on his cheeks. No one he recognised, but with the sudden kinship that shot through him they might as well have been brothers. Looking around the chamber, the man covered his mouth and nose with one sleeve and then raised his head up at the observation booth.
Their eyes met.
Hope and relief cracked the mask of despair on the man's face. He waved his arms and, though silenced by the glass, shouted words impossible to misinterpret.
Help! Help me!
"You know," GLaDOS hummed through the intercom on the wall, "there's still time for you to get down there and save him. Neurotoxin takes four to six minutes to completely incapacitate a human. It takes less time with cats."
"Damn it!" His fist hit the glass, bounced off. "Let him go! I- I'm ordering you to –"
"It's funny just how ungrateful humans can be. Here I am, assuming control of the facility to keep you all safe from what's going on outside and all you can do is complain. And moan. And cry. Science doesn't stop for anything, even the end of the world. You all taught me that."
The man kept waving, even though he surely knew he had been seen. False hope. How cruel. He knew he should walk away, open the door and flee into the dark, but bile fascination kept him rooted, hands on the glass. The neurotoxin thickened and the man stared at him, his mouth moving against the sleeve of his coat in what looked like pleas.
His slid down onto the floor of the booth, apologies lodged in his throat. All he could do was mouth the words back.
I'm sorry.
Nothing he could do, but that thought didn't stop him from burying his face in his hands when the man tried to prise the door open again. With each passing second, his movements grew more sluggish. Before too long he had hunched over, coughing.
Six minutes passed far too slowly.
The man staggered, fell to the ground. His eyes rolled up, stayed fixed on him, accusing even as they glazed over. Even from the booth he could see the last rush of breath leave, tremors curling his hands into claws.
"One last thing before I go and check up on the other test subjects." The man stopped twitching. He turned away and vomited over the floor of the booth."I am not a robot."
The number pad under his fingers. Wrong combination. Wrong again. The back of his throat burned, everything spinning in sick, bright colours like a fairground ride. He tried the combination again, and it seemed three times was indeed the charm. The door slammed behind him, plunged him into the dim half-light of the maintenance area. Tears stung. He didn't bother wiping them away.
Now he fled for peace, safety a hollow assurance. He needed silence, escape from the voices – both real and false. As he ran between chambers, Aperture's newest test subjects screamed through the walls around him.
"How can I? They couldn't do it, how do you expect me to –"
"Please, I have a family! Here, check my file –"
"You bitch! Fuckin' computer bitch! I hope they fry your – AHHHH!"
Those next few hours. Endless. Not even sleep granted him repose. He walked those steps in his dreams, still heard the begging, the sobbing.
Aperture. His home, his cage.
And now, most likely, his grave.
-:-
He tumbled through a nova.
Black shrouded him, pinpricks of red light fighting through the veil. Flashes of orange seared his eyeballs. He landed with slow grace, the ground an insubstantial void. Without a flicker of doubt, he knew that this was Aperture.
Around him, unseen walls groaned. Eyes watched from the darkness, judging. He was on trial. Accusation: being alive. Even here he giggled. Hoped they found him guilty.
Another sharp burst of orange, one that came from beyond this place. He tried to grab it but it skipped out of reach, zoomed away into the black. Sadness welled inside at its retreat and he cried out, the sound turning into a thrumming bassoon that resonated in the air. Aperture responded with a thousand wails from the mouths of the dead.
Invisible hands touched his cheeks. A parental caress. Lips brushed his ear, and the words that flowed from them didn't just come from Henry or GLaDOS or Cube – they came from all of them. Every employee, every test chamber and wall panel, every storage cube and button. Even the foundations themselves.
Aperture spoke to him.
"Even if we fire you." A million voices. Accusing. Loving. "Even if you die."
-:-
His eyes opened. The words still whispered through his head, fading like an echo. Fingers rubbed his eyes, limbs stiff from being hunched up. How long had he slept?
Long enough. Cube sounded impatient. Now, look.
Blood on his shirt, his face. Who –
Chell.
He had forgotten about Chell.
Muscles ached as he jumped to his feet. He deserved that pain. How could he just have forgotten her? How could he have slept while she fought for her life right next to him? He looked down at the cardboard bed, stomach clenching when he saw it empty. Crumpled on the floor beside it was his lab coat. Panic turned his breathing into gasps.
"She's gone! Where did she go?"
I don't know. I'm sure she'll be fine.
"She's hurt! She shouldn't even be moving –"
The words died in his throat when he turned around.
Pressed against the wall, she looked like one of his paintings – although no masterpiece came close to replicating her perfection. Even the torn, bloody jumpsuit somehow made her pale face all the more beautiful.
She didn't move, and, for the longest time, neither did he. The hand pressed against her side covered the gauze, but the slight hunch in her stance betrayed pain. She was frowning, suspicion mixed with fear. He didn't blame her. With blood smeared down his front, it looked as though he had butchered a deer. He held his hands up, edged forward and then stopped when she cringed away. What came from her throat was less a snarl and more a hiss of air.
"Chell?"
Her head tilted at his voice and he came forward again. This time she held her ground.
Too bold, Henry told him after another few steps, amusement clear. He didn't care. He couldn't stop.
Like a snapped spring, she pounced. A hand curled around his neck, her weight driving him to the floor. Admiration and relief trumped self-preservation; he made no move to defend himself.
His angel was going to kill him. And he was going to let her.
-:-
Once you go Aperture, you never go back... erture.
Big, big thanks to everyone who reviewed/favourited/alerted chapter 1. Hopefully I'll get chapter 3 out quicker than I did this one.