Glados was furious.
She was furious with her test subjects for running away (again), and furious with herself for not killing them both in the first place.
Her subconscious was quick to make adjustments in the mainframe that set new traps for the runaways behind the scenes while she consciously worked at the problem. They would probably be back to the central chamber, as she had been more than careful enough to seal off all entryways to Aperture long ago. So the only viable way out was through her.
Glados shook with anger and exhaustion, having been connected to the mainframe for far too long now. She had been so ready to be rid of her two new test subjects so that she could get some actual rest. They were guests who had long overstayed their welcome at this point.
Her long hair fell across her face and into her lap, blocking her view of the holographic controls for the umpteenth time, and she smashed her hand through the holograms as she lost her temper.
"Alright! I'm done with these test subjects and I'm done with you," she gathered all her hair into a tight fist, yanked it to the side, and jumped to the ground, grabbing the sharpest piece of broken equipment she could find. She sliced her hair off near her chin and kicked it all into a tube opening in the ground.
"That was long overdue. Now I can concentrate on the more important things here," she was much more satisfied and returned to her seat, feeling a million times lighter.
"Okay, where were we?"
A dozen more mad dashes down hallways and catwalks later, the two escapees found themselves in another facility just outside the enrichment center.
"We found it! This is where the turrets are produced, it seems. Jackpot," Wheatley sounded incredibly pleased with himself. The two peered into a window where a machine quickly scanned a turret and plugged the information into the mainframe.
Outside the little office was a conveyer belt full of new turrets. They went down the line, one by one, and the machine decided whether or not they were good or damaged turrets.
They watched for a minute as turrets went down the line, responding to the machine as it spoke to them.
"Response." A computerized voice demanded.
The turrets would respond: "Hello."
Chell shivered as the little killing machines went down the assembly line to be used in the test chambers.
She did a double-take as a turret was placed in the target on the assembly line for questioning. It wasn't white like the other ones, just a black shell of a turret.
"Response."
"Yeah, how ya doin'?" it asked back. It's voice was male and non-robotic, sounding nothing like the normal childish turrets she was used to. More importantly, the defective turret couldn't fire any bullets. She bit her lip in amusement as it was launched from the assembly line into the incinerator below. Harsh.
"Aw, yes. That's exactly what we need," Wheatley said, a glimmer in his eye. "Okay, so the turret in this room here is being scanned by the computer as the optimal turret template. All we gotta do is replace the good turret with one of the bad ones..." he turned to her to see if his idea was any good.
"You know, that way she can't use any turrets on us in the future. They'll be replaced with the garbage ones!" he grinned at his own brilliance.
"Hey, who you callin' garbage, pal?" a defective turret called out. He was immediately incinerated.
Chell laughed silently and ran down behind the conveyor belt to retrieve a defective turret. His idea wasn't half bad, actually.
Wheatley got the door open to the control center and stood in front of the turret template, another locked door blocking his path.
Chell entered the room behind him after successfully retrieving a bad turret and watched as he pondered this new conundrum.
"It's password protected," he explained.
"Yeah, let's do this!" the defective turret yelled out in her arms.
"Right, so I'm going to hack this door so we can get at it. Do you... do you mind turning around?" Wheatley asked sheepishly. She simply stared at him. "No, seriously. Turn around. I can't do it if you're looking."
Humoring him, she turned around, still clutching the defective turret and her portal gun, then heard a huge crash and the sound of glass falling to the ground. She spun around again to see Wheatley had used a nearby fire extinguished to bust a hole in the glass of the door.
Chell choked with laughter and shook her head at him as he dropped the fire extinguisher to the ground.
"Done, hacked!" he was overly proud of himself.
Chell opened up a portal inside the small template space and shoved the defective turret into the target area. "Locked and loaded!" it yelled in excitement.
Immediately the system started throwing out all the good turrets and replacing them with the defective ones. She was pleasantly surprised that his plan had worked after all.
"If we're lucky, she won't realize all her turrets are crap until it's too late," he cackled with laughter and wiped a tear from his eye, "Oooh, classic."
They high-fived each other with newfound enthusiasm and moved on to their next task.
They descended further down a series of catwalks and eventually ended up at their chosen destination.
Wheatley looked on proudly, "Aw, yes. I knew we were going the right way. A hunch, it was," he eyed the huge structure in awe.
Here they had made it to the neurotoxin generator. Chell hadn't expected it to be so... huge. What had been its original purpose anyway? It was pretty ridiculous that this science facility contained so much neurotoxin in the first place.
She glared at it with loathing... it had been the source of her troubles after all. Then shook her head, it was time to stick to the task at hand.
She joined Wheatley as he tried to gain access to the neurotoxin control center. "Oh my, it looks as if we'll have to hack this door open too. Hold on a sec..." he looked around for something heavy to use.
Chell glanced to the wall on her right and noticed a big red button staring at her. It just had to be pressed. She clicked it and the door clicked open automatically.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING WE DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT BUTTON IS- oh. It's open. Nevermind. Great job, partner!" Wheatley walked into the room, observing the equipment set before them. His elbow accidentally struck a large blue knob and a laser activated on the back wall, stretching across the room.
"Whoops. Anyway, I can finally put my deviation to good use! If I can overwhelm this computer system with my power, it should knock out the generator, right?" he asked excitedly.
Chell shrugged. Give it a go, then.
Wheatley placed both his hands onto the control panel and let loose a shockwave of electrical pulses. The panel was full of shocks and little glass bulbs exploded across it. Chell looked out of the room toward the generator as it produced a horrible screeching noise. It was working...
Encouraged by Wheatley's success, Chell was going to make sure that the generator could never work again.
With a flash of inspiration, she shot a portal at the wall where the laser intersected with it, then ran outside the room to shoot another portal on the wall outside.
The laser shot out from the portal, striking the generator head on, having the desired effect. The generator screamed as the metal tore and it tilted alarmingly on its side.
Wheatley whooped encouragingly from inside the control room and she shot a different spot of the generator where it attached to the ceiling. The cables holding it up snapped in two and the gigantic metal container hurtled into the dark abyss below, taking all the neurotoxin with it. All that was left were some leftover dead cables.
Chell ran back into the room as Wheatley gathered her into a celebration hug.
"We did it!" he jumped up and down, half holding her. His eyes were glowing bright blue with the use of his abilities.
They felt a sudden tugging in wind and looked up at a damaged tube above. "Oooh, that's a damaged tube... we can ride it straight to her!" his eyes lit up with excitement.
Chell stepped back, avoiding the suctioning pull of the tube. Now that... was not a very good idea. But two out of three for the day wasn't bad.
Wheatley seemed to have other plans though as he yanked her over and they were shot up into the high-powered suctioning tube. Chell smacked him with displeasure, but couldn't resist a grin at the new-found adrenaline rush. It was like a giant water slide, except she was getting sucked through with air.
Chell stared outside the glass tube in wonder as the rest of the inner workings of the facility came into view. She spotted the catwalks they had traversed earlier and noted all the different testing chambers spread throughout the place.
"Whooo! I knew this would be fun!" Wheatley exclaimed in front of her, "Man, this place is ginormous. And it goes down for miles! Look at that!"
He cocked his head to face her, "We should be getting close! Oh, I can't wait to see the look on her smug little face. No neurotoxin... no turrets. She's never gonna know what hit her!"
She smiled enthusiastically back at him, trying to push down the nervousness creeping into her stomach. Chell wasn't quite sure she wanted to face Glados again, even without her defenses.
Then it suddenly got worse.
Wheatley was sucked into a connecting tube in the blink of an eye, heading down a different path than she was. Panicked, she almost dropped her portal gun, but retrieved it and hit the side of the glass tube.
"AHH! I'm going the wrong way!" he yelled to her, "Don't worry! Get to Her and I'll come find you! You'll be okay, luv!" he gave her a thumbs up reassuringly and then disappeared from view.
She was alone again as she hurtled towards the unknown.
I loved the idea of Glados with freakishly long hair, but it was time for a cut, haha. I know that was kinda weird, but... whatever. ;) I know it seems like I'm spitting out chapters like nobody's business, but that's because it was already written months ago (& short). I've just been reading it over and double-checking for errors before I post it. :D
