Aperture Science Laboratories
October 7th, 1972-

Virgil sat on the floor of the stasis pod room, working fervently on a glitchy pod he'd been asked to repair. It was a simple enough job and he'd had his fair share of work over the past five years of working for Aperture.

Still, something about sitting alone in a cold room full of frozen humans chilled him a little. Literally and figuratively.

Apparently these humans had decided to put themselves in cold storage until Aperture could figure out how to cure them of whatever ailed them, be it a degenerative disease or problems with their deviations. The idea of being deep-frozen for who-knows-how-long personally freaked him out, but good on them.

He stood to stretch from his position sitting on the floor. Almost done.

He accidentally bumped into the stasis pod behind him, activating the display on the screen. "Oh, whoops, sorry there Miss," he patted the pod and tipped an imaginary hat to the woman inside. "Miss..." he narrowed his eyes to read the display screen on her pod, "...Mel?"

He poked the screen, his inherent curiosity piqued, "Mel? That's it? Just Mel?" He continued scanning the screen for more information.

Test Subject #3902303
Tier 2 AGD Enhancement
07-20-1972 00:34

And that was all it said.

Virgil felt a chill go down his spine. Tier 2 AGD Enhancement. That was a term used for the DNA enhancers that had shown up in the black markets the past few years. It certainly wasn't what he had expected to find.

Virgil glanced around the room and decided on a whim that he would find out exactly why this woman was in stasis. He knew he shouldn't, but he couldn't bite back his curiosity. Maybe this was all a misunderstanding, right? Cave wouldn't condone something like this.

Not Cave Johnson. Not Aperture.

After a five minute reactivation sequence, the pod door lifted and he got a clear picture of the woman inside.

She was a well-built, surprisingly muscular red-head with a long curly mane of hair that framed her face. She was pale and freckled and was still wearing remnants of red lipstick. How odd.

Virgil looked to the doorway, half expecting someone to walk in and find him out. He knew it was a chance he had to take, because he just had to know.

He said a silent apology to the woman in the pod and leaned over to shake her awake.

He probably would have thought twice about that if he had known she was already awake, as the next thing he knew he was getting a solid blow to the face and found himself lying on his backside.

A groan escaped his lips as she leapt from the pod, shockingly alert, and roughly yanked him into sitting position, her face inches from his.

"Who are you and what were you doing to me?" she hissed angrily, "Talk, mister!" She pulled his collar tighter, which he thought to himself was not a very good way of getting someone to talk, but he thought it best to let it slide.

He phased out of her grip and jumped to his feet, putting his arms out in self-defense. Her eyes widened in mild surprise, but she remained silent, waiting for him to speak.

"Alright, alright. Just remain calm... I promise I had nothing to do with..." he gestured around the room, "Any of this. I just... are you Mel?" He cursed himself as his voice ended in a squeak.

She frowned and whipped out a hair tie from who knows where and pulled her hair back into a messy bun in three seconds flat. "You work here, don't you? You should already know who I am."

He sighed and rubbed his aching cheek from where she had decked him, "Sort of. I'm just the maintenance guy and I got a little, well, suspicious when I read your pod's display. I'm really sorry..."

Mel didn't seem to believe him, "Well, Mister, you do realize you work for a bunch of lying, filthy kidnappers, don't you?" her voice dripped with venom.

He shrank back under her intense gaze, and he was surprised at himself for being cowed by this woman. "Look, let me try and make it up to you. The display said you've been here for a couple months. It hasn't been that long yet, so-"

"'A couple months'"? she blanched, her voice rising in pitch.

"Shhh, someone's going to hear us!" he whispered furtively, looking back to the doorway. He looked back to her, "Let me help you."

Her green eyes scanned his Aperture coat in disdain and she took a step backward. "No thanks, I can help myself."

He watched as her eyes shifted to an electric blue and there was a blinding flash of sapphire light.

Then she was gone.

Virgil stepped backward in shock, rubbing the white spots from his eyes. She had teleported!

"Oh man, that's a radical deviation," he murmured to himself. Mel had seemed pretty tough, but she had been caught once before. He set himself on the fact that he was going to have to help her. He wouldn't live with himself if she was caught again.

Virgil ran through the walls, wasting no time and desperate to find where she had teleported to. Her range couldn't be far...

There. He found her standing three hallways away, and thankfully no one was in sight.

"Stop, wait for me," he said to her. She scowled irritably at his persistence and was gone in another flash of light.

He calculated the distance she had jumped the first time and ran the same distance away, going with his gut instinct. Again, he found her, and again, she teleported.

A couple more rounds of this and he found himself growing tired, panting with the effort of continually using his deviation. But if he was getting tired, it meant she had to be as well. Although, she did seem to be more physically fit than he, so he wasn't about to underestimate her quite yet.

This time Virgil calculated where she would have gone and slipped through the ceiling above, using a filing cabinet as his step-stool, and almost crashed into a young scientist hurrying down the hall.

The man huffed at him and readjusted his coke bottle glasses, "Watch where you're going you- oh. It's you," he narrowed his eyes at Virgil.

Virgil didn't recall the younger man's name, so he smiled at him, trying to appear nonchalant. "Oh, yes, hello there... friend. Um, Mr. Johnson and I were just running an experiment. My apologies for almost knocking you over."

The man looked Virgil up and down, not seeming too interested, "Right. Watch it next time, janitor. There's actual important work that needs to be accomplished here." Then he was gone down the corridor.

Virgil's eye twitched; janitor?

Brother, the ego on some of these scientists.

He shook his head and ran down the hallway to the spot he had been aiming for. If he was correct, she would be somewhere directly below him. He hoped.

He slipped through the floor and landed directly on top of her, landing both of them in a heap of tangled limbs and curses. They were in an old auxiliary conference room and it was almost completely dark. He hoped it was her he had landed on...

"Oops, sorry! I hope I didn't hurt-"

She elbowed him directly in the face where she had punched him earlier. Yep, that was her. He maintained his grip on her determinedly, "Listen! I'm. Trying. To. Help. You," he emphasized and covered her mouth with one of his hands, praying she didn't bite him.

"Calm down for just one second and listen to me. You've gotten extremely lucky so far by not running into anybody here. Do you know what would happen if they found you? They would hunt you down again and stick you right back into that stasis pod. You don't want that. I don't want that. I would have never woken you in the first place if that was my evil plan," he whispered sharply.

She stopped struggling, finally seeming to listen to him. "You... you promise?" she looked up at him, her big eyes glowing blue in the darkness of the room.

He breathed a sigh of relief and let go of her, rubbing his face gingerly, "Yeah, I promise. Just please stop hitting me," he groaned.

"Deal. I'm Mel," she stuck her hand out to him and he reached out to the vague outline of it, shaking her hand firmly.

"I already know that."

"Dummy, what's your name? If I'm going to trust you, I need to know your name," she rolled her eyes.

"Oh, I'm Virgil," he grunted as she helped him to his feet.

"Alright, Mister Virgil. Let's escape then," there was a mischievous twinkle in her eye and she tightened her grip on his hand.

Then Virgil was swooped up into another, brighter flash of light.

Utilizing both of their deviations, the two made their way out of the underground labyrinth and found themselves on the surface just as the sun was rising for the day.

"You've been gone for hours... do you think someone's noticed?" Mel asked quietly.

Virgil shrugged tiredly, "I really don't know... someone's going to notice something's wrong at one point or another, and I have a few questions for Cave..." he trailed off, then looked at her with a reassuring smile, "Never mind that. Here, take this," he reached into his pockets and gave her all the money in his wallet.

She reluctantly took it, "What for...?"

He ruffled her messy red hair, causing it to frizz even more, "Dummy, for transportation. You're a fugitive on the run, remember? You gotta go home, Mel..."

She looked slightly sad, "Of course. Thank you, Mister Virgil." She reached up and planted a light kiss on his bruised cheek, then stepped back. "Take care of yourself."

He waved to her weakly, "Stay out of the spotlight, eh, Mel?"

She gave him one last wink and was gone in a flash of blue.

After staring at the empty spot where Mel had just been, Virgil finally sighed and resignedly dragged himself back toward the facility to face whatever consequences there would be. Obviously no one had discovered the missing test subject, or there would have been a chase.

"Virgil? You look terribly exhausted. What on earth were you doing?"

Virgil's head snapped up to face Caroline Short, her arms full of files. She was coming into work for the day.

He was tired, and he was angry, so he told her. She was his friend, after all, and he wanted to gauge her reaction.

After telling his tale, Caroline's face was sheet white and her eyes full of fear. Fear for him.

He thought himself a patient person, but at this particular moment that patience was running thin. "Caroline, how long has this been going on? How many test subjects are in there against their will?" his hands balled into fists.

She looked away, shame radiating from her, "This new... development has been going on for a couple years at most. It's... I agree with you. It's gotten out of hand." She took a shaky breath and looked into his eyes imploringly, "Virgil, Cave is intent on this Deviant business. Maybe... maybe you shouldn't come back."

He promised her he would go home for the day and she promised to cover up the mess in the stasis chamber. She would lie for him and maybe nobody would find out about the missing test subject. At least not any time soon.

Virgil had no intention of just disappearing, though. Cave Johnson had become his friend and Virgil wanted to hear the full story from Cave's point of view. Before he walked away from Aperture, he had to know.

The following night Virgil showed up in Cave Johnson's office without Caroline's knowledge. No need to worry the lady. After all, Cave would listen to him. He always had.

However, Virgil hadn't been expecting Cave's terrifying forcefulness.

"You did what?" Cave Johnson thundered, standing up and practically knocking his desk chair over.

"It was the right thing to do! You can't... you can't just keep people here against their will!" Virgil implored.

"They're Deviants. Don't you realize what those deviations can do to benefit science... to benefit humanity?" Cave banged a fist on his desk.

Virgil pointed to himself and got in Cave's face, "I'm a Deviant! Are you going to experiment on me too? Are you going to lock me in a freezer for the 'benefit' of humanity?"

Cave Johnson went uncharacteristically silent, clenching his jaw instead. Virgil continued, his voice lowering, "What about Caroline? Is she gonna become a test subject one day? Is that all Deviants are to you? A new way for you to line your pockets?"

Mr. Johnson grabbed his full cup of coffee and launched it across the room, the mug shattering on the floor. "How dare you, Virgil! Don't you know what lengths I've gone to protect you? Do you realize how many of my scientists come up here and beg me to let them test you?"

Virgil simmered, "You know, believe it or not, that doesn't make me feel much better about this situation. You should've just done it! Then I wouldn't have to live with the fact that I've been helping an organization kidnap and torture people!" his voice rose in volume again and he yanked painfully on his own hair, drawing tears to his eyes.

He pulled himself together and looked up at Cave, "I'm leaving. Right now. And you're not going to stop me," he gestured around the room, "This. This whole thing is going to end. It's going to blow up in your face... that I promise you." Then he turned to leave.

Something struck him in the back, and Virgil was overcome with pain. He landed on his back in shock, realizing he had lost all feeling in his body and had almost no control over his motor functions. He looked up at Cave towering over him, the man holding a Deviant Neutralizing Gun and looking somewhat guilty.

Virgil tried opening his mouth, but no sound came out. His vision started to blur and he could barely make out what Cave was saying.

"...I didn't want to do this... I'm... I'm really sorry, my boy..."

He tried desperately to fight the oncoming tide of unconsciousness, but it was a losing battle.

"...This is where our paths separate."

And Virgil fell into a long, deep sleep.


Present Day: Year 2103-

Virgil watched the surface of the reservoir of water beneath him expectantly. Nothing yet.

He shivered in the moist frigid air that always condensed around the reservoir, rolling his coat sleeves down further. He rubbed the worn edge of the sleeve absent-mindedly; he had had the thing for years.

The old Aperture logos that had been sewn into the shoulders still filled him with remorse, but he couldn't get himself to part with it.

It still had plenty of useful pockets, after all.

Six years previously, Rick had found Virgil sleeping in a stasis chamber, hidden away in an ancient, closed-off laboratory. The two had worked together to create a decent living situation for themselves and the others who trickled in over the years.

Being over one hundred years out of time was... it was incredibly disconcerting. Virgil had only small ideas of what the surface was like now, based on what the others had told him. Things in the world above had only spiraled out of control while he had slept.

Even if his life hadn't turned out the way he had thought it would, he always told himself that Mel had been worth it. Utilizing tech that Chuck had snuck down to them, Virgil had looked her up, just to see what had become of her. Apparently she had become an Olympic bronze medalist.

Stay out of the spotlight... the cheek of that girl. She should have gotten that silver medal, was always his second thought.

Virgil shifted, still contemplating why he had been left alone in a stasis chamber.

Had he been forgotten?

Had Cave Johnson had a change of heart in the end?

These were questions that ran through his head during his every waking second over the past six years. He hadn't been able to find any information about himself, so he guessed that he would never really know. Information about Cave and Caroline themselves had been redacted. A pity, really.

Virgil snapped back to reality as a bright blue head burst through the surface of the water, spraying him slightly.

"Mercy me, this water is freezing!" Ray shook his mop of blue hair wildly, spraying water in every direction.

"Did you fix the plug?" Virgil snapped. It was too early in the day, and he still missed the scent of coffee in the morning. Their own reserves had long run dry.

Ray saluted sarcastically, "Yessir! Plug is repaired and ready, Sir!"

Virgil rolled his eyes, "Get your blue butt out of the water then and get dried off before you die of hypothermia. Your deviation won't protect you from that."

Ray pulled himself up onto the catwalk next to Virgil and dried his hair with his discarded sweater.

Ray had been the perfect candidate to fix the reservoir leak. The nineteen-year old possessed a deviation that allowed him to go over an hour without breathing. It was surprisingly useful for a variety of situations.

He and his parents had been professional scuba divers and had traveled the world together. Ray insisted that the rest of the world wasn't as dangerous as North America for Deviants, so Ray had always displayed his turquoise and cobalt hair proudly. His blatant display of his deviation had eventually gotten him caught a few years back, sending him straight into Aperture science. He had no idea what had happened to his parents.

Virgil felt sorry for him, but Ray always managed to be upbeat for everyone. He loved to regale stories of his scuba adventures in every ocean, his close encounters with sharks.

God, never get the kid started on sharks... he was almost as bad as Big Dipper when he was discussing outer space. The two could power the earth with enthusiasm.

Ray's deep umber skin contrasted with his freakishly blue hair and big, turquoise eyes. He pulled on his now-damp matching blue sweater and grinned at Virgil. "Anything else we should fix while we're at it, Cap'n?"

Virgil scratched his head and looked around the chamber, taking his time. "Weeell, we could always start building Hugo's quarters down here. He wants his own personal space, and I say we give it to him," he snorted.

Ray stifled a laugh and turned his attention to the entrance where somebody was entering.

"Fact: Hugo is an idiot and I concur your idea. Let's begin," Craig walked in, hands in his pockets.

"What are you doing down here? Isn't Rick making breakfast this morning?" Virgil asked with a raised eyebrow.

"That's precisely why I am down here."

Ray and Virgil shrugged at the same time. "Same."

Craig looked at them dubiously, "You've been here for hours. It's eight in the morning."

Virgil shrugged again, "Chuck was snoring and Ray didn't mind that I woke him up. The reservoir needed fixing... Also, Rick told us about his pancake plans last night."

"Some sacrifices just had to be made," Ray folded his arms across his chest smugly.

Big Dipper came careening into the chamber and bounded onto the catwalk, nearly throwing himself into the water below. Virgil caught him deftly, "What do you think you are doing?"

Big Dipper was in near tears, "I think... I think Rick made the pancakes out of potatoes." His agony was so prevalent that Virgil almost dropped the kid as he held back a guffaw of laughter. The kid grew heavier in his arms and he was forced to drop him onto the catwalk.

Big Dipper was just a small, pale, freckled kid with thick, wavy red hair. His eyes were a bright orange as evidenced by his deviation and his voice was high-pitched, yet to hit puberty. The boy had only been six when a bounty hunter had snatched him up, and he had been down with the men ever since, being raised in a decrepit underground facility.

What a childhood.

"Charlie, get off the catwalk right now or pull yourself together. You're going to collapse the entire thing with all of us on it," Virgil scolded him sternly.

Big Dipper pouted and pulled himself up, deactivating his unintentional use of his powers.

The kid also had control over the forces of gravity. He could make himself or anything else heavier than a ton or lighter than air. He tended to lose control over it when mentally upset, and would always make himself heavier than anyone could move when he was throwing a temper tantrum.

Luckily, he was getting older and that phase was dying out, but it was still a dangerous deviation that Virgil remained wary of.

"Hey, guys, where are you? Over," Virgil's walkie talkie burst to life with Rick's voice. It was a rudimentary way of communicating, and they had only been able to salvage three walkie talkies, but it worked.

Virgil sighed, "Well, there goes my evasive maneuvering. Breakfast, anyone?"


Rick was not much of a cook. In fact, he loathed it with a passion.

However, the seven of them had long ago agreed upon a set cooking schedule, despite the fact that they were all completely useless in the kitchen. Shockingly enough, Rick had proved to be one of the least likely to cause an explosion. Unfortunately, that put him on cooking duty more often than the others. It was terrible.

But oh, did Rick miss pancakes. Pancakes and a good ol' fashioned beer. There wasn't much he could do about the beer, but at least he could try his hand at pancakes. How hard could it be?

Very hard.

He ended up having to substitute practically any pancake-sounding ingredient with potatoes and sugar. They had found an old jar of honey in the old Aperture kitchen stock and had all agreed that honey never expired. They scraped the mold off the top and used honey like a syrup.

Rick glanced up at the others seated at the conference table they used as a dining table. Their faces were pretty much what he expected, considering he was making the same revolted expression.

Big Dipper was the first to break the silence with an anguished cry, "These are nothing like pancakes, Riiiick!"

A fork flew across the room.

"I told you I'm allergic to sugar!"

"You're allergic to everything, Helios."

"Here, somebody pass that honey. I'll just eat that."

"I'm swearing off potatoes for the rest of my life."

Rick threw one of his pancakes at Hugo's bald head, evoking a shriek from the target. "Alright! Alright! I know they're bad! But that's what you get for putting me on kitchen duty all the time! We could always escape to the surface and get some real pancakes!"

That silenced everyone. Good.

"I'm goin' for a walk... y'all make your own breakfast," Rick growled and stalked from the kitchen.

That was a typical mealtime episode, so Rick wasn't overly fazed by it. He donned his prized stetson hat and thick green jacket, ready to go out exploring. The nice thing about being stuck in an underground labyrinth was that he never had a shortage of places to find. They were always finding new useful things every week.

Rick had been stuck down in Aperture for seven years, longer than any of the others. He had had plenty of time for exploration. His first outing had earned him this old stetson and jacket somebody had left in a locker. It was still his favorite find.

At 34 years he was about the same age as Virgil, stuck underground during the prime of his life. Worse still, there were no ladies around.

He came upon his favorite secret passageway, guarded by a two-ton hatch. No one but Virgil would be able to penetrate it, but the guy never came down this way. He always minded his own business.

Rick lifted the hatch with relative ease and jumped inside before it swung closed. He deviation gave him incredible strength, but he wasn't invincible.

Although he had always hid his deviation pretty well in his earlier life, he had always loved pushing the limit and impressing all the ladies with his show of strength. His perfectly tanned complexion, wavy black hair, and sharp green eyes had always been a showstopper.

And then a bounty hunter had caught him unawares one night. He had gotten too confident in his late twenties... too cocky. A Deviant-Negating laser shot could neutralize any Deviant on the spot. Specialized bands were developed to interfere with a deviation's power, allowing Deviants to be captured with ease. The trick was to avoid them at all costs.

Rick puffed his cheeks, none of them had been very lucky, had they?

Although, he could have been turned into ashes seven years ago, so the question was really relative.

Besides, Rick hadn't counted himself out of the game yet. He wasn't in agreement with the others about staying down in Aperture for the rest of their lives. They could escape at one point, he knew. The lady up there couldn't neutralize all of them, right?

If worse came to worse, he was quite the lady-killer.


Hi all! Sorry, I know I said I had this chapter written out already, but I ended up reworking it a bit because I was unhappy with the original outcome. I also wanted to post all my character design sheets for this story on my deviantART account at the same time that I posted this chapter, so I was working on those all week as well. If you want to check out the designs, go to deviantART and type LOSHComixfan in the search bar. In my gallery I created a folder for this Portal fic. Enjoy! :)

Back to the story! I've really been enjoying writing all these new characters and I hope it is not too overwhelming, considering seven new characters have joined the fray. O_o Wow.

Again, some characters belong to Harry Callaghan, so I'm not taking credit here. ;)

Thanks for all the feedback and awesome comments! Have a great rest of your week everyone.

-Moe