A/N: This was quite fun to write, really. I've long-meaning to do something with a Party Escort Bot; a good chunk of the idea for this came from an article I read where the bot was meant to be following you around in the second half of Portal waiting for you to assume the Party Escort Submission Position. I swiped GLaDOS' quote from the second game; I found it just fit better than anything I was able to come up with.

11. Party
Summary: Thank you for assuming the Party Escort Submission Position.
Genre: General
Characters: Party Escort Bot, Chell, GLaDOS
Warnings: None

"Thank you for assuming the Party Escort Submission Position."

As Aperture Science ran across hard times and bankruptcy in the 1980s, they began searching for positions they could replace with robots and AIs, which didn't request higher salaries or better working conditions. One of the first to be phased out were the Party Escort Associates, who would collect testsubjects after completion of their tests and deliver them to their party.

Now, these robots had rather simple design compared to some of the more humanoid robots; they more-or-less resembled a personality sphere (essentially a large, mechanical eyeball) placed inside a sturdy frame which provided their arms and legs. Many of them were scrapped cores that didn't survive the GLaDOS project.

The particular bot we're concerned with, unit number #3474, was just your average Party Escort Bot, just doing his job of collecting the testsubjects when the Management requested him to and delivering them to a special room for their party. If he had been programmed with an actual personality, he may have eventually come to question why the Aperture Science Celebratory Party Annex and Cake Dispensary had the smell of burnt, melting flesh. But he was little more than a set of preprogrammed directives, doing nothing more than what his code told him to.

One day, the Management requested #3474 to collect a testsubject for her party, a party in honor of her tremendous success of completing all 19 testchambers.

Her name was Chell [REDACTED].

#3474 briefly thought that he had never seen such a name before, but any semblance of independent thought was quickly quashed by the directives. He followed the testsubject throughout the maintenance areas of the facility. Although the Management continually admonished him, telling him to just take her, he ignored it; his programming told him that he had to wait for her to assume the Party Escort Submission Position.

Once, she had caught a glimpse of #3474. He was unable to identify the brief, fleeting look of terror on her usually-stoic face. But she didn't assume the Party Escort Submission Position.

After a while, he lost track of her.

"Your failure hurts me more than it hurts you," the Management said. "You know who it doesn't hurt? Well, me. That was just a figure of speech. The important point, though, is that it doesn't hurt the mad woman planning to kill all of us."

Of course, these words were meaningless to him, as well as the threats to throw him into the incinerator, crush him, destroy him, and take away his cake.

After a while, there was an explosion and the Management went silent and #3474 detected that the Aperture Science Celebratory Party Annex and Cake Dispensary had been destroyed. At the same time, as he climbed over a pile of rubble, the testsubject had assumed the Party Escort Submission Position.

[If the Aperture Science Celebratory Party Annex and Cake Dispensary is not available, please escort testsubject to an Extended Relaxation Chamber.]

He walked up to her, taking her by the arms. "Thank you for assuming the Party Escort Submission Position.