-:-
There are faces that come to me
In my darkest secret memory
Faces that I wish would not come back at all
-Johnny Cash, Like a Soldier
-:-
"Doug… are you there? I- I know you're there. You have to help me – she's kept me alive, but I'm not sure for how much longer. If you come in here, you can save me, then we'll take her down. Doug, we can end this –"
Anglerfish attracted their prey with bioluminescence. Pitcher plants relied on bright pigment and nectar secretions. GLaDOS liked to use her own methods of trying to lure him in.
"How mad does she think you are?" Henry tilted his head at the speaker in the wall when they passed. Blood trickled from his nose. Doug looked away, then down at his feet. He counted his steps as they clinked on the metal grill of the floor. Henry's didn't make a sound. The world tilted, warped around, and then sprung back. Another speaker spat static up ahead.
"Doug, help! Quick!"
When Henry laughed, threads of Cave Johnson's deep chuckle wove through his voice. The clipboard and pen in his hand appeared out of thin air. "I don't sound like that, do I?" The nudge Henry gave his shoulder went straight through. "You think I sound like that?"
Fifty-four steps. Fifty-five.
Cube stayed silent in his arms.
He wondered what Chell was doing. Maybe she had found a way to the surface. Maybe she was trapped in another test chamber. Maybe she was dead. He looked at Henry out of the corner of his eye. The bullet hole had stopped leaking. Blood and other fluids crusted in a line down Henry's white coat.
"Why did you have that gun?"
Henry's pen became a pistol in his hand. "In case of emergency," he said, placed the barrel to the wound, and shot himself again.
Hands trembling, he looked away. "You should have shot me first."
"Don't pretend you want to die." Something in Henry's neck clicked as he turned his head. The mist in his irises had spread, coved his eyes in a white film. The bullet hole seemed to flex, then rotted around the edges, became a little wider. "You're like a little cockroach, aren't you, Doug? You haven't starved to death, GLaDOS couldn't kill you – fuck!" He laughed again and this time the blood spurted from both nostrils, turned to dust when it landed on the floor. "You couldn't even kill yourself properly! Failing at suicide, now that's really something. Let me tell you, you might be good at fixing things, but you were stupid enough to cut across, weren't you? Not nearly deep enough. Should have cut down. Should always cut down. And deep"
His body shook, every protest and denial dying on his tongue. He didn't want to die. He did want to die. He should die.
Chell.
Cube spoke so quietly he wondered at first if the word had simply been the sound of a piece of discarded metal hitting something far away, or the peep of a nearby turret.
She's here, Doug. She's real. She needs you.
It was so hard to keep anything solid in his head. Chell's face melted into Henry's, into Cave Johnson's. Her soft hands became metallic pincers, and her eyes turned yellow, rolled together into a single optic lens. He squeezed Cube in his arms.
"I can't do this, I can't –"
Henry raised his eyebrows, his skin now a pale grey. "We're not that far now, Doug," he said, sounding for all the world like a parent encouraging their child to walk, "just a little bit more, and it'll all be over. Won't that be nice?" He grinned and several teeth fell out, vanishing before they hit the floor. "Now, move."
His feet dragged him along, up stairs and across walkways that spanned the yawning abyss of Aperture. Henry glided beside him, wraithlike, whistling something that sounded like 'Blue Moon'. Whispers from the walls accompanied him like an invisible choir. Through the speakers, Henry still howled. Had he screamed before he pulled the trigger, or was GLaDOS just replicating his voice?
Three hundred steps.
Three hundred and one.
Everything wobbled, wavered. He grabbed the handrail and hunched over. Nausea slimed at the back of his throat.
The man at the end of the walkway watched.
"Even at the top, even at the very bottom. We all die." Henry said, perched on the railing. "Why should you be any different?"
The man at the end of the walkway watched.
Doug fell to his knees, fingers clenched into the grill. He squeezed, felt the cold, the bite of metal. "If we all die… then so can GLaDOS." He couldn't see Henry's smile, but sure as hell felt it.
"She builds herself out of herself. Any flaws are repaired with a single thought and any defects… well. You can't rip that thing out of your head, can you?"
"Not for lack of trying." The rail made a nice little support for him to haul himself to his feet. In front of him, Henry blurred. "I… don't care what you think. You're not even real."
"And memories are?" Henry waved a hand at the man at the end of the walkway.
"Memories happened."
"I happened. Besides, you're the last one left. If you see me, who's to say you're wrong? Tree falling in the forest, and all that. If I'm wrong
then why are you following me?
Next to the man now, Henry beckoned him forward with one withering arm. Is it your self-destruction, are you finally tired of being alone? I could quote you a thousand studies on human social interaction. Studies that you already know. Talking to ghosts isn't the same as being with living people, is it?
Aperture spun past, lights and white walls. "It's almost as terrifying."
Cave Johnson stepped from the last painting hung in Aperture's lobby, slipped through Henry's skin. Paper-thin skin clung to his bones, veins raised like ropes wrapped around his hands. Tufts of white hair looked like they could fall out with a single brush. Mortality. Decaying organs and bones bound in skin and cloth, kept alive by just a spark in the brain.
"You ever had a pet, kid?" The pen became a cigar. "Like a dog, maybe a little kitty?"
He dragged himself closer. The other man's lab coat was smeared with blood, obscuring the name on the ID tag hung around his neck. Dead eyes stared at him. Fingers trembled. His mouth opened, formed the words help me.
"You ever seen 'em about to die? When they stop eating, and they just go and curl up in some corner, or under the stairs? They got the good grace to know when to damn well quit. To stop."
The man without a name watched him. Aperture watched him.
"People – now, people… God, they want to live, don't they? They find out they're dying, and they just…" The cigar fell to the floor. "She… she promised to look after things when I was gone. Did I make her? Did she want it? Is she all right down there, in her little shell? Does she know who the girl is?"
He walked away from both of them, Cube crushed to his chest.
We can still make it out, it said, voice faded. We can still escape.
"I'm going to."
A speaker fizzed. GLaDOS purred.
"Think about this: your actions have led to the deaths of eight hundred and thirty-three Aperture Science test subjects. I only killed five hundred and fifteen employees. So, who's the bigger monster here? Perhaps I should take out your brain, defective as it is, and place it inside a mechanical test droid. You'd be the perfect killing machine." He couldn't decide if her sigh was of longing or resentment. "Nothing is as good at killing as a human."
He wasn't even aware of pressing the button. A headache bloomed and the words forced themselves from between his teeth. "We're better at taking things apart."
Her reply was lost when Henry slid in front of him. Shrunken in his head, his eyes looked like two dried grapes. "That's enough. No more waiting, Doug, I want that report by yesterday."
"Yes, sir." His hand found the wall, slid across when he walked. "One more flight, right? One more level?"
"One more," Henry said as blood dripped from his sleeve, his ears.
"Hello? Hi! Is someone- someone out there? Anyone?"
His breath stopped. A door fuzzed into existence to his left. That voice wasn't a ghost.
"I don't want to interrupt or anything, it's just that I've been stuck in this room for ages." A small laugh. "Getting a bit bored, to tell you the truth. Haven't seen a soul for a long time. Do you – do you want to open the door?"
The voice was familiar. He swallowed, tried to ignore the trembling in his hands. Another survivor, another man. Another living person. Henry met his eyes. Maybe another survivor. He cracked open the door. Musty air whooshed into his lungs. He put his mouth to the crack.
"Are you alive?"
Silence from the room, then: "I… think so. I hope so. I just checked. I feel alive, but then again, who really knows, right?"
"Are you real?"
"Um. Bit of a strange question. Yeah. Pretty sure I'm real. Let me just… yeah. Yeah, I'm real. Are you coming in? I promise not to bite." The man let out a chuckle. " I can't, but- ah, you know what I mean."
He took a deep breath, heart pounding. Another survivor! His brain kept yelling, another one! Maybe more than one! One sharp push, and the door opened.
He stared.
Kept staring.
Attached to a rail, the sphere stared back, the bottom half of its blue optic lens closed as though it was smiling.
"Hello!"
He turned around. Closed the door.
"Hey – hey! Come back! Please? I'm sorry if I… if I scared you. I'll try to be less intimidating if you want. I think I saw a blanket in here somewhere… if I put it over myself, will you come back in? No? What if I hid behind one of these crates – or I could wear a mask. Do you have a mask?"
Cube fell to the floor. The door was against his back. He slipped down it, nails curling against the floor. A sob hitched in his throat, then another. His hands came up as the tears stung. No survivor. Just a sphere. Alone. Still alone.
Alone on an Aperture Science-approved sea, said Cube, pick me up.
"A-are you crying out there? I didn't think I looked that bad. I haven't seen a bloody mirror in forever, though. Maybe I'm hideous. Hm." Now he just felt guilty. Henry glared, jerked his thumb at the corridor. Doug sighed, picked up Cube and stood up. From behind the door, the sphere still nattered on.
"Look – don't want to rush you or anything, but I do have a fairly important job to do. Very… very important. Was going to be down in manufacturing, but that didn't exactly work out. Lot of people have a grudge against me. For some reason. I dunno. Crazy. Anyway, I'm supposed to be in charge of all the suspended test subjects, but this bloody management rail's stuck. Can you… can you come in here, help me out?"
"Don't help it," Henry said, and one of his eyes turned to dust, left a black pit in his skull. "It's a waste of time. We have more important things to do than look after an idiot sphere."
Doug turned back towards the door. He licked his lips, heard Henry snort behind him. "You're the intelligence dampening sphere."
"Oh." The sphere seemed to consider this. "Am I? What's one of those, then?"
"You were made to –" Slow GLaDOS down. "You were made to take care of the test subjects. Yes."
"Brilliant! So, what say you help me out?"
He opened the door, tried to stop the disappointment from rising again. Alone, with a ghost, a cube and now an intellectually-challenged sphere.
"That's better! See? I'm not going to hurt you. We're not all… not all violent psychopaths, not like her, anyway. I don't have any neurotoxin, or any turrets. Nothing. Not a sausage. You know, if you give the ol' management rail a smack with something, I think I can wriggle free. Try the cube there."
Cube's offence rose like a wave of hot, prickly air. Hey!
"Hush. We might as well help it. We can ask if it's seen her."
"Ohhh…kay." The sphere tilted and swung back on the rail. "You're talking to yourself there. Not really a good sign, is it, that? Is there… some sort of senior engineer you could get to help me out? Do you have the proper qualifications for this – or, or, there's health and safety to think about! You might get a chunk of cube in your eye, and I definitely wouldn't want that –"
Cube hit the sphere, then the attachment to the rail, with a metal clunk.
"Ow!"
Ow!
"Sorry." He picked cube up, dusted it off. "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine. I think you fixed it." With a rattle, the sphere slid across the rail. "Weyhey! You did it! Ah, that's brilliant, that is. Great. Thanks for that."
"Have you seen another human? A woman?" The world tilted again. Henry's anger blazed inside his head, a writhing mess of yelling that ranged from 'c'mon, Doug, got stuff to do', to 'you useless fucking shit, move your ass! You think you're getting paid to stand around and talk?'.
"Another human? Ah… no. No, not for a good couple of months. Remember, I said that? Sorry."
A deep breath blew from his lungs. Maybe Chell hadn't come this way at all. "If… if you see her, can you tell her… No. Wait. It doesn't matter."
"Right! If I see a woman, tell her 'No, wait, it doesn't matter.' Got it. Anything else?"
He opened his mouth, then closed it again. "No. It's… thank you. Goodbye."
"Oh, you're leaving?" The sphere clanked across the rest of the rail, then back again. It stared at the floor. "Thought we could maybe hang out, you know, just relax in here for a little bit. I mean, I said I got a job, but I don't think a couple of minutes are going to matter that much, are they?"
"I have something I need to do."
"Oh."
"Sorry."
"Yes. Well. If you see the guys who are supposed to come and dust my nuts and bolts, tell them they're late, would you?"
"…Sure."
The air crawled thick over his skin when he shut the door. Henry had made that sphere, GLaDOS's supposed conscience. How well that had worked out. It added half a picosecond to the inhibition of her lethal abilities, but killing them all had been a mixture of a brilliant and a terrible idea.
Besides, you can always ignore –
"C'mon, Doug. We're so close now, so very close."
your conscience.
He took one step forward, looked at Henry, his bullet hole decaying and leaving his skull shining under the lights, and then took another.
-:-
She ran a diagnostics scan across her system for the six thousand, seven hundred and ninety-seventh time that day. Nothing abnormal, as expected. The surface scan revealed a family of skunks, several mice, a few rats, and a synth tripod creature, along with several… not-humans. She magnified in on the tripod. Three sets of blue compound eyes scanned everything and the legs moved the creature along with all the grace of a deer. Interesting. A machine, but not a machine. What kind of tests could she make for such a creature? Perhaps some sort of timed jumping maze, or maybe test its resistance to neurotoxin against that of humans.
They tramped closer, the not-humans twitching their guns in all directions and the tripod crushing the undergrowth. Their boots stamped against the tarmac of the parking lot. The tripod yowled; a deep, resonating noise that sounded like a mechanical whale.
Half of her watched. The other half –
"Not much further. The whole- is the sum of the parts- squared, multiplied, subtract the human element, divide by the times you watch someone die –"
If she could roll her single eye, she would have.
The human male was a minimal threat. He could forage for beans and water all he wanted, ultimately his own mind would kill him, or a lack of vitamins, proteins or calories in general. Six hundred calories was the limit. The male was consuming slightly less than that, five hundred and fifty-three, (according to the daily mean average and rounded to the nearest whole number) if her calculations were correct. They usually were.
The female, though…
It took three picoseconds to access the camera of the test chamber. The test subject was using the Aperture Science Hand-held Portal Device to move a Weighted Storage Cube across a room. As GLaDOS focused on her, the subject shot a portal at the ceiling, then one at the floor. She picked up the cube and let it fall into the portal on the floor. It fell through the one on the ceiling, then back through the one on the floor. Again and again. GLaDOS accessed the communicator for that test chamber.
"You know who else enjoys repetitious movement and bright colours? Infants. Maybe I should paint rainbows in all the test chambers. Who knows, perhaps it would help you solve the tests faster."
The female's lips twitched down, and her eyes narrowed at the camera. A hostile response. Almost enough to make her euphoric testing response twitch.
On the surface, the tripod and the not-humans had moved on after poking around the entrance to Aperture. She would have to devise some sort of trap, some way of luring some of them down there. Maybe there was a way to tap into their radio waves and send out a distress signal. Her audio detector picked up more words from the maintenance areas.
"All those eyes. I can see them in the walls. Did I paint them, Henry? Are they watching us – STOP staring at me!"
She called up the electronic personnel files, made a small addition.
Increased dialogue during schizophrenic episodes at the rate of three words to one. Fixation with eyes and being watched – typical delusion for paranoid schizophrenics. Also highly accurate.
If only she had asked Doctor Field to install cameras behind the walls while he hooked up the pipes for the neurotoxin.
"What's down there?"
She buzzed a sigh, turned off the external cameras. The male could chatter to himself like a senile simian all he liked, she was the one who had to do all the work around the facility and keep track of the test subject. There wasn't even much time to work on the Arial Faith Plate. GLaDOS ran another diagnostic scan. Six thousand, seven hundred and ninety-eight. Everything clear. Back to the test chamber.
The empty test chamber.
-:-
"What's down there?"
You know what. Henry's voice rasped inside his head. He turned to look at him. No lips, no tongue. Skin clung to bones by dried blood. Empty eye sockets stared at him. If he had his paints, he could give Henry some nice new eyes. Maybe green, or yellow.
"The beginning."
And the end.
He peeked over the rail. Down, down, down, further than he could see, down until the end was a pinprick of black.
Old Aperture. Now he knew why they were up there.
Can you hear them? Henry glided over the rail, hovered in mid-air over the pit. The beginning and the end, all waiting for that final piece. It would be selfish to deny them, don't you think? How are they supposed to rest when you keep giving them life?
"No one cared about me." The pit gaped, blinking camera eyes staring up at him. "No one. I was just that weirdo who couldn't eat in front of people, couldn't talk to anyone I didn't know, liked to work behind the walls instead of hanging around in the labs. I lied when I said I had too much work to do when you invited me to your house for dinner. It wasn't because I hated you, it was because I couldn't." In Henry's hand, the gun reappeared. "You knew I was lying. You didn't care enough to push me."
Now it's my fault? Henry's body swung from side to side like a cat's tail.
"No." It would be useless to assign blame anyway. How did you punish the dead? "I'm just saying that I don't think they're waiting for me."
We were all part of this. You too. Your place is set as much as mine was.
"Part of something bigger."
Exactly.
No! Cube squealed in his arms. Don't listen to him, he's not real, he's –
Henry darted closer, glided through the air like a snake. Doug, he said, and turned his rotting head towards him with a creak, this is where you have to let go of the past. You can always kill your conscience.
His arms came up, placed Cube on the rail. Henry hissed approval through a hole in his throat, and when his desiccated fingers touched the sleeve of Doug's lab coat, he swore that he could feel Henry this time. Not a ghostly wisp of touch, but the tips of bones poking into his arm. He swallowed and let his eyes graze over Cube, all the scratches and dents, scorch marks and paint. The back of his hand stroked over one of the hearts. A companion cube in every sense of the word.
Do it now, now, now, Henry growled, his voice thumping in time to the throbbing in Doug's head. He wasn't strong enough to resist. Now, now, now, nownownownownowNOWNOWNOWNOW –
He gulped air. A sob. "I'm sorry."
I love you.
Always had, always would. He pushed, tears in his eyes.
A long, long time of no noise. Then one final thud, so faint it could have been the beat of his heart. Nothing in his head, no voice, no sense of Cube. Nothing there. Alone now. All, all alone.
You're in Aperture, with us. You've never been alone. Henry glided back to the middle of the pit and held out his hand. Chell appeared in his mind, no blood or bullet wounds, but exactly how he had painted her – wings curving through the air, skin flawless. Perfect.
A test subject, a worthless thing, lower than a Weighted Storage Cube. Don't worry about her, she's part of us too. You'll see her again.
"Wish I could have… told her some things. I could have helped her more. Told her about –" his voice wobbled and he almost fell again, "everything. The past. You think I'd feel better if I did?" He let himself sag forward, hips pushing against the rail. "I'm tired. But she's stronger, and she can do it. She'll end this. Once and for all."
No. A human against GLaDOS? A broken human against GLaDOS. You knew her more, but even you couldn't stop her. Don't feel too bad. This was never your story in the first place. The decay shrank Henry, turned his clothes to dust, apart from his lab coat. This isn't a punishment, it's a reward. You fought for a long, long time, but now you've earned a rest. A chance to stop.
"'And never a saint took pity on my soul in agony.'"
Don't be melodramatic. No one'll play dice for your soul.
"I think I've earned the right to be melodramatic." Palms pressed against his face. He stepped onto the bottom bar of the rail and looked over the edge again. "Long way down."
Oh, it's not as far as it looks.
Up another bar. The top one dug into his shins. Henry's groan sounded like the chambers of Aperture shifting. Gravity tugged at his upper body. Even that hated him. "It feels like it should be… more than this."
You want a choir, maybe some dramatic explosions?
He opened his mouth to reply, but a flash of orange shut it. Chell stared at him from across the pit, her eyes wide.
No. Not here, not now.
Better hurry up, Henry said. She'll think she'll be saving you when we both know it's the cruellest thing she could do.
On the edge. She stood, the distance between them impossible. He reached for her. She reached for him. And then Henry's voice in his ear, in his head.
"Cut down." Cut deep.
He swung himself up, over the rail, on the other side now. Aperture beckoned. Back to the beginning. The abyss pressed against him. He stretched his arms out, fingers spread.
Look, I have wings too.
Her eyes. Her hand reaching out. That was how he would remember her.
No regrets. The world tilted. He let himself fall.
Somewhere, GLaDOS sang quietly.
A/N: I think you've all waited long enough.