CHAPTER 2

They arrived at the mouth of a ravine. "I thought you said the ship sunk!" Chell protested.

"It did. The ocean must have been dried up," GLaDOS replied.

"What."

"Let's just go."

They climbed into the ravine. On the floor of the ravine lay the Borealis under a large overhang of rock. They entered the ship. "Oo! Look! Another portal gun!" Chell exclaimed gleefully.

"Oo! Look! Mines!" GLaDOS muttered sarcastically.

Chell exploded. But not hard. Also, she tended to be resistant to that kind of stuff. She popped up and grabbed the gun.

"Let's go!" they froze when they heard footsteps. Suddenly, a man wearing an orange suit of armor ran around a corner brandishing a crowbar. Chell shot two portals, one at the man's feet and one in the ceiling behind him. He fell through the portal and flopped on the floor. He got up, ran forward, and fell again. He did this five or six times before realizing that there was a portal on the ground. He jumped over the portal and charged. GLaDOS grabbed his crowbar and bent it into the shape of a pretzel. The man burst into tears. GLaDOS stiffened as she noticed a certain symbol on the man's chest. "Don't trust that man!" she hissed, stabbing an accusatory finger at said man.

"Why not?" Chell asked.

"He's one of them!" Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Black Mesa."

"GLaDOS, there are aliens to worry about. We need all the help we can get." Chell replied. "Now, GLaDOS, please un-pretzel the nice man's crowbar and apologize."

"Fine." GLaDOS did as she was told. The man took his crowbar back. "Hi, sorry I attacked you. I thought you were aliens. My name's Gordon, by the way."

"I'm Chell, and this my psychotic AI, GLaDOS." Chell responded.

"Nice to meet you, My Psychotic AI, GLaDOS."

"Just GLaDOS. She's a psychotic AI, and she's mine –"

"I am not!"

"– but her name's just GLaDOS. Nice to meet you, Gordon!"

Chell and Gordon quickly became good friends and chatted happily as they searched the ship for supplies. They had finished searching belowdecks and were combing the deck of the ship when they heard a rumble, and the ship began to shake. "What's going on?" Chell yelled.

"The cave's collapsing! RUN!" Gordon hollered. As he spoke, huge chunks of rock began to fall from the overhang. They just managed to climb to the ground and scramble a safe distance away before the overhang fell, obliterating the Borealis utterly. "That was too close!" GLaDOS shouted. "Whose dumb idea was it to come here, anyway?"

"Um… yours?" Chell replied. That shut GLaDOS up for a long while. They slowly climbed out of the ravine. "So, now what?" Chell asked Gordon.

"I guess I could take you to the resistance's camp – or at least what's left of it." Gordon replied. "We can always use new fighters."

"Resistance? Fighters?"

"You haven't even heard of it? Where have you been?" Gordon said incredulously.

"Trapped underground in a secret lab," Chell retorted.

"Oh… that explains a lot." Gordon said.

"What are we fighting? I want in!" Chell exclaimed.

"Um… aliens?"

"Oh, right. Sure! Where do I sign up?" Chell asked eagerly.

"Like I said, come with me to our camp. I –"

"NO!" GLaDOS interrupted. "I'm not going anywhere with you!"

"GLaDOS, you realize if we don't, we die." Chell told her.

"I won't," GLaDOS grumbled, but she didn't argue.

"Good! Let's go!"

note: in case you noticed, yes, I kind of put my own take on the Borealis story into this book. there will be a few instances of this. just an FYI.