The test chamber was remarkably silent. Well, almost. Things sparked here and there, and its occupant was...well, She wasn't quite sure what he was doing.
". . . Aperture Science would like to inquire as to why the test subject is—oh, for Science's sake, what are you doing?"
"Uh-h, BEEP, BOOP. Target lost. Searching. BEEP. Can I help you?"
"I must inform you, test subject, that that is not the proper way to handle a turret's remains. In fact, that is embarrassing and disrespectful to the turret you killed. Why are you handling it that way?"
"BEEP. BEEP, BOP. Nope, no test subject here, fellow robot. BEEP. He left. BEEP. Or I shot him. Whichever's better. BEEP. BEEP."
He was standing against the wall, somehow having managed to get a turret's ripped-off faceplate casing and optic for a helmet, and was holding its guns at his sides, for some reason turning side to side. She should honestly be trying to get him to solve the test, but this variable was strangely fascinating to Her. Not even she had managed to cause that kind of destruction to a turret, and her logic never led to this.
Goodness, She may have found a hybrid strain of Moron and Lunatic. That would make two new Moron strains discovered since the beginning of this testing cycle and an entirely new variant of Lunacy.
"BEEP, BEEP. Nothing to see here, go about your robot business. BOOP."
She let a synthesized sigh emit through the chamber's vocal system, "Test subject Jane Doe aka Soldier, please don't imagine that My superior processors allow acceptance for any lunatic flaws in reasoning your organic brain may have. Drop the turret remains and continue testing, or I'll do unto you, as you did unto it."
The Soldier growled, tossing the guns away and picking up the portal device, the 'turret helmet' spinning around loosely on his skull over his crew cut as he stomped on. "This is un-American, robo-woman!" he protested, scowling at the ceiling, "All 'test, test, test' with no objective or strategy far's I can see! These weak sentry robots can barely aim, and are sissy! What kind of opponent is that?!"
"One that opposes you regardless of your opinions. I'll be sure to paint a target on you for a more satisfactory experience."
"And these clothes!" he went on, picking critically at the cloth, "If I'm in a standard military situation I expect to have standard military equipment! Look, anything can go right through this!"
He poked a finger through a bullet hole in the fabric, sneering, "This place is too pansy!"
"Oh, do go on," She drawled, "What is it lacking? I'll be sure to include it ten-fold in the next chamber."
"Everything!" he shouted, waving the portal device around, and if She was capable of fearing this sad little ape and in fact emulating any human organic responses, She might have flinched.
"Armor!" he listed, marching absently to the elevator door, "Guns!" he paused, thinking, "Moving sentry robots that aim properly!
They have legs they don't use!"
She paused, this had suddenly become more interesting by maybe 22.8 percent, She listened in.
"I actually have someone working on the turret problem," She informed him, "A colleague of yours who is much brighter than you.
But really, do go on."
"And explosions!" he rambled, "Maybe have some random sentry robots that explode! And the crates, the crates could maybe have something, like rewards, and don't talk to me about cake again, robo-woman. Pie, pie is a man's reward. Or steak. But have something, a soldier can't always run on guts alone! And...and..."
He glared at the gun, "And proper ammo, not some sort of science-y space-hole stuff, I mean, look—" he shot it at the wall, and a blue ring of light glowed faintly on the white surface, and he sneered, "Boom. That's it. Pretty light show and a fancy-shmancy space mirror."
He tilted his head, eyeing the glowing oval, tapping absently at the solid static surface.
He stood back a bit, "Wonder what it'll show me if I shoot it twice."
She immediately knew that this was suddenly going to go Very, Very WRONG.
"NO! Don't do that, no-no-no-no-no, don't do that, don't—the portal boundaries WEREN'T DESIGNED TO MAINTAIN AN EVENT HORIZON INTERSE—"
Florp.
Cave Johnson, here, for the Aperture Science's Testing Initiative's first official FASQ, or Frequently Asked Stupid Questions.
What?
[REDACTED] you I can't say that, it's what you told me they were!
Oh, yeah? Take it up with the P.R. stooges! If you don't like it, just [REDACTED] redact it.
On second thought, don't redact it, otherwise no one will get anything out of this.
Alright, moving on.
Question: What the hell are black holes?
Answer: Black holes, for those of us who don't have a whole boatload of Science in our noggins, are bits of the most dense and compact matter known to the universe. Like a few managers' brains on the Aperture Board of [REDACTED].
Look, if you didn't want me to say that stuff you should've volunteered to answer the FASQ yourse—
That was not an invitation, friend!
Oh, yeah?
OH, YEAH?!
I am your CEO, pal, and this is my Announcement system.
Will somebody get this [REDACTED] [REDACTED] out of my off—
-please stand by-
Alright, now that the air's a bit less stuffy in here, let's get down to the brass tacks, or whatever tacks are made of nowadays.
Black holes: dense, compact, scary pieces of matter that are a Scientific Hell to work with. But not for Aperture Science.
You see, the creation and containment of a black hole required a process that is too long and complicated to explain in this session, and frankly I'd get too bored and not care enough to tell it to you, but we did it.
Long story short, the creation and containment of a black hole involved the breaking, rewriting, and finding every [REDACTED] loophole our boys in the lab could poke out in the laws of physics and nature.
This got us to create and hire our own branch of Aperture Science Physics Lawyers.
Then those guys needed some Aperture Science Physics Psychotherapists. So we created and hired those, too.
Heh, heh, heh, poor bastards.
So, out of all that, we created the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device, known to the layman as the Portal Gun, just for all those lucky little test subjects out there.
Fun device, right?
Portal here, portal there, bam! Instant Science.
Question: How are the black holes generating the portals from the Portal Gun?
Answer: I don't have the slightest idea, but I heard that they spit self-contained whirlpools of event horizon, however the hell that works.
Hmm, let's see, ah, right.
Question: Portals connect different spaces together, but what happens if you put portals together?
Answer: I don't know, and it's a stupid thing to ask or answer, but the lab boys tell me that, theoretically, since black holes are scary pieces of Science Hell, they have a lot more gravity and condensed mass than the surrounding space. Pieces of event horizon intersecting apparently cause a secondary mirror black hole that feeds off itself. Think of a tiny starving black marble that tries to eat everything and succeeds. However, since it feeds off of itself, I'm told that the window of this thing actually existing will only last for a few seconds, in which case it'll only eat everything within a certain proximity. A sort of natural emergency failsafe. Unfortunately, we don't know that proximity, but definitely that you'd be in it, so that means we'd lose that Portal Gun and probably most of the facility. So while I support the thrill of exploring Unknown Science and finding out what the hell that button does, I'm thinking that this is something best left alone until we find a more cost efficient replacement for the Portal Gun and a decent lot of land somewhere out in [REDACTED] Nevada.
Working on that.
So for now, don't do it.
Don't do it, or I'm taking the damages out of your paycheck.
. . .
Yeah, you're right, scratch that, I'll take the damages out of the paychecks of your next of kin.
So remember, Aperture Science is fun, but expensive, so only ask the FASQ, and don't be the cause of the FASQ!
We have another Aperture Initiative to take care of that for you.
Now get out there and do some Science!
This is Cave Johnson, we're done here.
Slowly, almost as if they were in shock, panels jerkily and hesitantly put themselves where a floor had once been, and waited, as the facility analyzed, recorded, and computed the damage, automatically beginning repair at the nanoscopic level.
"Oh. Dear. God."
A perfect sphere of roughly 1.56 cubic kilometers of facility was gone, leaving only empty space, a perfect sphere of nothing, within the time period of 1.87 seconds.
Of course, since Her processors functioned faster than a regular human brain, it felt like the event had been much longer.
It had been a metallic screech and the boom and thud of displaced air. Machinery was perfectly cut out within this radius, the remains suddenly acknowledged that they were missing some parts and beginning to twitch accordingly.
There were gentle, fizzing, popping sounds as the air in the empty space re-oxygenated causing the twitching parts to spark. These twitching parts removed themselves for repair, as She began to understand what just happened, taking about 1.3 nanoseconds longer than usual.
First it was the simulated fear, then the shock, and then pure anger and nostalgic hatred that made the panels tremble in their places.
They were supposed to be better than her.
That hadn't even been intentional! That had been a stupid monkey's mistake! She would never have done something so stupid. Probably as destructive, yes, but never in the 999999 [Error] she'd been in the facility had she ever done such BAD SCIENCE.
The man appeared on the floor provided, slack-jawed, Portal Gun clutched against his chest. Somehow he'd managed to keep the turret-helmet, how that worked into the Respawn Clause She'd have to investigate later. His stare was blank and unmoving, as was his body, but She didn't want to take any chances.
"That's enough testing for you, you dangerous idiot."
Claws arched out of the darkness to snatch away the Portal Gun, and an elevator began to construct itself to transport him.
"Clearly this wasn't meant to be. At all. It's not Me, or the Science, it's you."
He walked dumbly to the elevator, jaw finally closing, and blinked.
"Your Science points are in the negatives. That is unprecedented, and I had honestly thought it was impossible. Until now. You know, it will be decades before you reach the cardinal numbers again."
The elevator moved, and he swayed gently.
"Fortunately—for you—I'm not demoting you. We must simply find you an occupation outside of the Alternate Test Subject Initiative and away from anything valuable, breakable, and without padding."
His mouth opened, and closed, but his bio-scan analysis showed that his brain had not suffered from his destruction or Respawn. Possibly shock?
He was probably the first human to witness the death of and die by a hyper-condensed black hole and live to remember it, after all.
He was twitching. Brain damage was known to occur through certain levels of stress, but his readings were fine, though the adrenalin levels were steadily rising, as well as his brain activity, especially centered around the occipital and temporal lobes.
He was shaking, and then the empty space was filled with a high roaring whoop of glee.
"WHOOOOO-RAAAAH! Now THAT'S what I call an EXPLOSION!" he was dancing excitedly in the confines of the elevator, She watching with a sort of horrified fascination as a warrior's grin spread across his face, "It was all—it was—the Lady Liberty, Fourth of July, A-bomb, Sun Tzu, sweet American Pie!"
He smiled up at the elevator's ceiling, "Gimme that gun again, sweetheart, and we'll see if I can—!"
"NO."
The elevator shook him warningly, "You are an occupational hazard to Science, so I clearly can't rely on you to do it any more. And frankly, I almost hate you. You still have no idea what you almost did to My facility, do you? Or what you did do to My facility?"
The elevator opened up to a floor where a bunch of claws and cables reared like snakes to strike.
"But that's okay. I'm very forgiving. While you were dead I set up an analysis of what I can expect from you, and some of the results are...interesting..."
He got ready to fight, but was quickly trapped in the cables and dragged to a darker area of the room.
"I can't expect you to help any more in the practical applications of Science, but the theoretical? Well..."
Something silenced his swearing and knocked him out, another robot shaped like the sentry robots but with a yellow eye, and proper legs.
"Let's see how many more interesting ideas you have in that brain, shall we? Congratulations on your promotion, Soldier."
. . .
"Hello, again.
I was just wanted to mention,
If you're confused about whether this promotion is My lightly disguised revenge on you for almost destroying My facility?
Don't worry.
It is My lightly disguised revenge on you for almost destroying My facility.
I just wanted to clear any misunderstanding.
However, don't think I'm doing this just for revenge. I'm better than that.
It just so happens that My revenge also helps to further Science, unlike yourself.
So this helps you help Me help us all.
This redeems your insignificant little existence.
This means we all win.
Isn't that nice?
Now... Tell Me... What else can we do to win...?"