As it turned out, the loading depot I fought the giant in had working security cameras, and my human friends apparently watched the whole skirmish from behind a screen.
Doctor Mofuni made this clearly known to me after popping on the intercom and announcing to me I put on a terrific show, and that he also had good news for me. Having accessed the building's security room in my absence, he informed me of a lift somewhere in the depot that would take me straight back up to them. Then, out of nowhere, he also mentioned that he was going to knock a few points off of my "fighting score" for my pacing.
The fight was supposed to last longer according to him, and passively scolded me that if he had paid to watch the fight, he wouldn't have felt like he got his money's worth. It looked like the effects of his triple dosage of Postum he took before coming here were already starting to wear off. At least I got to hear Shephard begin to cuss him out just before the intercom feed cut out.
Fortunately, before any of that happened, Mofuni's intention when buzzing in was to guide me out of there and lead me back to him and Shephard. Krazoa be praised. I had just about had it with Aperture's half-baked and dangerous products and its test chambers; I was very eager to get out of this subterranean deathtrap.
I leaned against the chromed wall of the elevator, which could have been a claustrophobic space had there been a couple more people in there. I placed Rod down in the corner as we ascended; the ride was a little shaky but it could have been worse. Despite the crackly audio recording of smooth jazz playing in the twenty-year-old speaker, it was silent inside the ascending metal box.
I rubbed my eyes for a long moment before regarding all of my reflections that looked back at me through all of the mirrored walls of the elevator. I looked quite weathered; my hair was a mess and I had dirt and grime all over my clothes and the fur on my face. I fixated on one of my reflections' eyes for a lengthy moment, parting my bangs to get a better look. I had been letting my hair grow out a little bit ever since marooning on Earth and came to the realisation that maybe I should trim it. A lot of distractions had kept me from doing it sooner.
"You doing all right up there?" Rod asked me, breaking the vocal silence in the elevator. I looked down at him and saw his bright yellow optic staring up at me quizzically.
"Of course," I assured, managing a modest smile. "I'm just a little tired. I'm happy we're almost out of here."
"Yeah, I'm with you," Rod spun his eye around in agreement with a spread of his handlebars. "I'm not happy with the fact that I've been stuffed down there for more than twenty years. That's how long it took to build the Great Pyramids and those poor human mules got paid in beer. You know our benefits are asinine when extracting limestone in the quarries promises an evening of splurging and the occasional nookie if you're lucky."
The poor metal sphere could hardly make a mutual remark without turning it into a lewd joke. While I could hardly register the context as being as drained as I felt, I still managed a humoured chuff. I did find Rod a refreshing aspect to this otherwise dreadful venture.
"I can never be so certain if what you say is experience-based or that you have a built-in algorithm that determines ideal comedic responses," I guessed.
"Your guess is as good as mine," Rod said, imitating a shrugging gesture by shifting his shudders, optic and handlebars. "The higher-ups loved blurring the lines when it came to the mechanised handiwork. They blurred the lines with a lot of things."
"That much I am a witness to," I said, looking back ahead again, which led me to look at all of my rattly reflections as the rickety elevator continued to rise―just only several levels away from reaching our desired floor. "I'll be happy to get out of here once we achieve what we came here to do."
"Well, that's close to becoming a reality," Rod encouraged. "I'll help you get that teleporter working again, and then you can arm your freedom fighter friends with as much classified hardware as you like."
"I believe it'll be declassified soon," I corrected, glancing down at him again. "With your nation's governments dissolved, contracts and other liabilities have been voided indefinitely."
"That would appear so if everything you've told me is true," Rob said. "Who needs protocol if everything's a free-for-all now? I sure hope my processor can learn to accept this soon, otherwise I might fry all of my circuitry. They've built pain receptors into me, you know. I'll feel every bit of it."
I frowned after Rod told me this. What a gruesome fate if that were true. It was apparent Aperture may have been just as cruel to their sentient hardware as they were to their human test subjects.
"Perhaps Doctor Mofuni can help override that programming if it's there," I said hopefully. "I would very much prefer you not melt on the inside out after all you've done to help me get out of those depths."
Rod squinted his shudders appreciatively. "Hey, you're all right, kid."
We arrived at the top floor seconds later, prompting me to hoist Rod and hold him firmly by the handlebars over my stomach. His core spun inside his case so his eye was facing forward again. I could feel him tremble a bit in excitement over who said was supposed to be waiting for us just outside the elevator door―and a telepathic scan confirmed to me that my friends were indeed there.
The elevator dinged as we arrived at the top, seconds before the old stiff doors opened up, which was the moment Rod used to orchestrate his dramatic reveal to the two humans waiting for us. "Ayy, papa needs a new pair of everything!" he announced grandly, which was also when it was revealed that he had a preprogrammed laugh track when it started blasting through his internal audio speakers. Rod instantly became the centre of attention upon reveal as I had anticipated
"What the hell?" Shephard winced in bewilderment as we stepped into some kind of foyer lined with old wooden benches. While he was utterly bewildered by the loud robotic souvenir I brought with me, Doctor Mofuni's face lit up like a little kit receiving what he wanted for his birthday.
"By Jove! A working Personality Sphere!" he exclaimed, rushing up to Rod, basking in the light of his yellow optic.
"Hey hey! How're you doing, four eyes?" Rod greeted back. "Nice to see a white coat walking around in this dump again! I tell ya, this place has been deader than Chornobyl after getting its graphite geyser installed." Rod then honed his optic over to Shephard, who was grimacing with slight discomfort at the presence of this smart alek robot. "Ah, and you must be the soldier boy your blue friend told me about. Hey, G.I. Joe over here won't quit gawking at me. You're acting like you've never seen a metal olive talking smack about you before. I'm telling ya, I still get no respect."
"…Uhh…" Shephard blanked for a moment, still unsure as to what to make of this as Mofuni interjected with a sharp gasp.
"Oh, I remember you! You're Rod! The AI overseer of this division!" Doctor Mofuni realised, his beaming grin shining even brighter now. "Oh, this just gets better and better! Rejogging the teleporter will be a sinch with your internal access codes!"
"Heh, I figured I could be of some use to you vagrants," Rod chortled, jerking his optic upward to signal that attention should be drawn to me. "Thank this spunky little fox girl for digging me out of the trash bin. She's a real trooper this one; hell of a fighter she is; jumping around like a blue ninja! But even with those fangs, she's also the cuddliest sweetheart who's just the greatest pleasure to talk to. Can rely on her for just about anything!"
Rod then looked between Mofuni and Shephard―who still was perturbed by this talking core's presence. "Oh man, after everything I've seen and heard from her―and especially her dialects―I'm really hoping we don't run into Robin Hood at some point because Maid Marian's got some lethal competition right here."
Surprisingly, that managed to get a chuckle out of Shephard spontaneously. "Oh man, that hadn't occurred to me before," he said, looking at me from a different kind of angle now. I was truly lost on the joke.
"Wait…I'm who's competition?" I queried, looking to anybody who could provide an answer.
"He's saying you're not the first British fox lady to have existed in our collective subconsciousness before," Mofuni answered, though it was a dismissive one, waving his hand as he quickly returned the focus back to Rod (my neverending association with this earthling "Britishness" was starting to get irksome for me). "Would you mind if I take this marvellous mechanical miscreant?" he asked me. "There's a lot he and I need to get reacquainted with. I could also use him to override the highly discriminatory vetting robot guarding the Teleportation Division's entrance. The one that sucked you down into the depths? I'd prefer we disable that for now."
Rob then spun around in his case to look at me. "Let him take me from here, kid, you've got to be tired of carrying me around, right?"
I hesitated for a second out of a delay in my thinking process rather than out of mistrust. "All right. By all means, Doctor," I nodded, handing Rod off to an overly eager Mofuni.
"Splendid," he grinned, grabbing the core's handlebars and holding him aloft. "All right, Rod, let's get you back to your rightful place as this place's omniscient keeper."
"Hey, the sooner the better, doc!" Rod nodded his spherical body happily. "I'll be happy to get out of this mechanical diaper and back into my big boy pants."
The two of them proceeded to talk amongst themselves like they were soulmates as Mofuni hurriedly carried Rod out of the foyer and down the proceeding hallway, leaving me and Shephard to ourselves as we followed at a more mindful pace. It was good being in this marine's company again after all that I went through down there; and what little Shephard did witness through the security feed, he was beyond impressed with me.
"I don't know what to say, Pop-Tart," he admitted as we walked alongside each other. "The way you tackled that behemoth down there? I mean…holy shit. I had no idea your magic stick was so lethal. You literally cut that thing down to size! Where the hell did that thing come from?"
I smiled modestly, but I couldn't suppress the twinge of discontent speaking so highly of my inflicted alien fatality. "There were devices down there that opened brief portals to the border world," I explained. "Sometimes things came back through them. That giant happened to be one of them."
"The doc told me about the tests they used to do down there; he mentioned those grenades," Shephard said. "But shit, of all the things to get ripped back here it had to be one of those things."
My ear perked up after having heard that. "Have you faced a monster like that before?" I asked, getting the sense he was familiar with the beast.
"Only once while I was still running around Black Mesa," Shephard admitted. "One of my guys somehow managed to chain it down to the facility's hydroelectric dam. I would have asked them just how the hell they pulled that off but they exploded before I could. The big blue beetle thing just stomped the ground and this big red wave of energy or something shot through the ground and exploded beneath their boots."
I thought about that crazy image for a second. "I didn't know those creatures could do that," I said. "Perhaps I should feel lucky that I didn't make my opponent mad enough to recreate what happened to your fellow men."
"I second that," Shephard nodded in agreement. "But all that aside, you okay? Any injuries we should know about?"
I appreciated how mission-focused he was, and that was dependent on the well-being of his teammates. "A few bruises and a couple of scratches. Nothing I can't shake off. I'm just happy to have found you all again."
"You sure? I've got a medkit in my pack if you need it," Shephard insisted.
"I'll let you know when I'm in critical condition, Popeye. Need not worry yourself."
Shephard grinned at me like I said the magic words, going so far as to even put his arm around me in the boyish manner he often expressed, patting pretty hard on my shoulder.
Finally returning to the point where we were before I got sucked down into the depths, we finally entered the elevator that took us straight down to Arbeit's elusive Teleportation Division.
The elevator in this shaft was much more girthy than the one I rode in with Rod several minutes ago, so there was room for all of us to stand in comfortably. I could feel that this lift was a bit slower going as it jittered and jived going down its shaft. There was also a distinct lack of unfittingly chipper background music, which made the ride a bit more foreboding at first. The dead air was soon filled with an audio track that started up abruptly, accompanied by the rectangular screen just above the two sliding doors flicking on to reveal a series of animated graphics, automatically drawing our attention.
Alongside a wavy techno-jingle spawned the Aperture Laboratories logo, before immediately sliding away to make way for one of the company's slogans: We do what we must because we can! Seconds later, a voiceover popped up. It was very resounding thanks to the speakers flanking us on our left and right.
"Greetings to all of you plucky interdimensional pioneers!" a charismatic man's voice announced, though I couldn't help but feel that it sounded laboured to a noticeable extent. "If you're hearing this, it means you have passed all the qualifications necessary to help push mankind to an even newer kind of frontier. One that yields discoveries beyond our wildest imaginations, and we're here to stake our rightful claim in its reportedly clammy soil. I'm Cave Johnson, founder and CEO of Aperture Science, and I am personally welcoming you or any more of you―on this automatic recording―to our esteemed but highly classified Teleportation Division!"
The apparent company's CEO began to cough loudly a few times. It was a distinct cough that communicated poor health. Mr Johnson must have been under the weather.
"Now, before any of you eager prospectors can think of hopping on the survey caravans, I am obliged to thumb through a few vital disclaimers before you jump out there with your picks and sifters," Mr Johnson said as the sounds of flipping paper could be heard in the background of the recording. "Any and all discussions, citations, or even the smallest passing suggestions of the activities you are privileged to engage in are to be withheld anywhere beyond the subsector you are entering. No one outside of this facility is to know what is being conducted here aside from the directing executive officials. Top secret to the maximum. Hell, they even told me that I'm not supposed to know about what's going on over there either! They're worried I'll run my mouth to the press; a loose cannon they called me. A bunch of bureaucratic stiffnecks think I would risk allowing whispers of our achievements in this field to reach Black Mesa's ears. I know actions have consequences, dammit, so there's no way in Huron I'm letting this opportunity for worldly acclaim slip away from―!"
Mr Cave Johnson then began to cough excruciatingly hard. His gasps of air were sharp and unsubstantial. I could feel everybody getting a bit uncomfortable in the elevator as they listened. Rod had no real emotions to sense, though his optic was lowered sullenly.
"Sir, please, you really do need your rest," a soft female voice said very faintly somewhere in the background as Mr Johnson's cough subsided.
"I'm aware of that, Caroline. I'm almost wrapping up here…" Cave Johnson said, his voice incredibly dry and strained.
"Why don't we do another take when you're well?" another very faint disembodied voice suggested.
"No no, Greg. No retakes. I'm doing this raw. I want everyone to hear exactly what consequences sound like…" Mr Johnson stubbornly said with a very coarse voice before getting closer to the microphone. "So, brave pioneers and explorers, if you don't want to end up like the mess I am now, make sure to be careful when wading through those waters of discovery. You might be keeping this whole endeavour to yourselves for the time being, but don't do anything too hasty. Keep a sharp eye out, watch each other's backs, and please be careful. We haven't made robots advanced enough yet to run you hobos out of a volunteer job―let alone afford to make any―so go on and prove why we don't need them. You're still the best we have. We need to appreciate that. I need to…"
Cave Johnson began to cough some more, and it once more sounded incredibly unbearable.
"Okay, are we done?"
"We're done…" the voices of Caroline and Greg exchanged amongst the wheeze of Cave's coughing before the audio cut out indefinitely, yet the glowing screen above the door kept projecting a series of motivational graphics and tips about what to do when engaging with the teleporter. A heavy silence permeated the elevator for a lengthy moment after the audio cut out, returning us to the lone rattling of our descent.
"Aww…I almost forgot how rough the boss was getting it…" Rod lamented, his optic blinking gloomily.
"Jeez, that guy sounded like his lungs were about to fly out of his throat," Shephard noted, a little unnerved by what was preserved on the recording.
"Astute observation, my boy," Mofuni said, appearing to share the same glumness Rod displayed. "Mr Johnson became terminally ill near the end of his life; irreversible lung disease brought upon by inhaling moonrock dust."
Shephard and I both looked at Mofuni in tempered astonishment. "How did that happen?" I wondered.
"It coincided with the long-running Portal Project," Mofuni added. "Our handheld portal devices could only place portals on certain surface types we've discovered; we were developing ways to convert non-compatible surfaces to befit our portable person-sized gateways. The rocky material on our moon proved to be an excellent portal conductor when mixed with our adhesion gels, which were another series of experiments we were working on at the time."
"The big J was personally inspecting the mincing room one day without a mask," Rod continued for his fellow Aperture associate. "Don't think I need to tell you what happened after that. Turns out moon rocks are pure poison, and Cave dosed his air sacks with enough of the fine white powder you'd think his throat had a diaper rash."
"The big blowhard died in the early eighties, and we here had been trudging along ever since until the world ended," Mofuni concluded. "It's hard to tell if we were really better or worse off without him. We never stopped being a place of the kind of innovation that innovated at virtually any cost. At least Mr Johnson softened up a bit at the end. Or at least tried to, anyway."
I let that information settle for a moment before I looked back up at that little screen above the doors to catch another one of Aperture's motivational slogans: We do what we must because we can!