After Aperture: Chapter 5

Here's Chapter 5 of my Portal fanfic, After Aperture. Enjoy! But, if you didn't catch the last few chapters, simply scroll down and read them from the bottom up! Edit: I've just done some editing to this chapter and made a few changes, but it's mostly the same. Enjoy!

Chapter 5: A Constant Drone

The lift had broken down, keeping Chell stuck in there for about an hour. It had been a long day, she woke up refreshed that morning, only to remember that she fell a couple hundred feet and blacked out. Wheatley’s babble drove her mad in the last chamber and it was all she had to stay sane in the lift with his rambling. He was just as corrupt as before when he had a body. He reminded her of Cave Johnson in the abandoned 1960’s levels before she found GLaDOS as a potato. Chell remembered when she was little, her dad had taken her to work for a class field trip. She actually saw the CEO of Aperture before he passed away. It was a wonder the mind wipe didn’t start fading when she was down in the abandoned labs.

“Caroline, I want more chambers with more panels, and I want those levels 60% harder than they were before. I just caught a glimpse of a report stolen from Black Mesa and they have created a newer version of their Physics Gun.”

“Right away, Mr. Johnson. But first, I want you to introduce yourself to the school field trip.”

“Oh, and I also want the zero point energy field’s gravity increased a little, the test subjects keep dropping the cubes into water, and it’s costing too much to replace them. We will have the Mach 12 portal device created before the next physics gun, and Black Mesa can stick theirs up their a-“

“Mr. Johnson.”

“Oh, sorry Caroline, stick it up their-“

“Mr. Johnson!” She pointed her eyes at the school group.

“Who invited the school group this week, we have no more open appointments with me!”

“Mr. Johnson, you invited them last week. Today, the 25^th of June, remember?”

“Oh, yes, Caroline, thank you. You are a wonderful secretary.” With that, Caroline zoomed away with her clip board into the labyrinth of office cubicles. “How is the tour, kids? Where can we get started together?”

All of the children in Chell’s kindergarten class yelled in unison, “To the labs Mr. Johnson!” Chell ran towards the group to try to say hello to Mr. Johnson, her daddy’s boss, but she stopped midway, a little shy to him still.

“Hey there,” Cave paused to read the crayon-written name tag Chell had made, like the rest of her classmates, “Chell, why don’t you help me lead the group to our first test!” At first Chell hesitated, but Mr. Johnson had an air about him that made any kid love him. She ran up and grabbed his hand and started walking towards a sign that said Lab 23, cube replication plant.

“Can you kids sound out the first word on this sign?” Cave Johnson asked the class.

“L-A-B,” everyone sounded it out.

“Good, this is where we make our boxes called companion cubes! You all can even touch one!” All of the children rushed into the room and surrounded a cube in the center of the room.

“You see the heart in the center of the cube? That means it’s no ordinary one, it’s a companion. They are known to be great listeners!” Jimmy, one of the troublemakers ran through the crowd of kids and whispered something to the cube.

“Jimmy, Mr. Johnson didn’t say we could whisper to Cube! Only touch it!” a red headed girl stated in a matter-of-fact voice. The boy, Jimmy, stuck his tongue out to the girl and ran back to the rear of the class again, taking his place.

“Ha-ha, that’s alright, like I said, a great listener!” Cave said to the class, letting them adore the cube. “But now, we have so much more to see, come on class!” Chell was still holding Mr. Johnson’s hand.

He led the class to a room full of lemons and machines making what looked like lemon grenades.

“Ah, the triumph of this month, kids! These are my combustible lemons! They are basically grenades, but made of lemons!” The class giggled. “You know what happened just yesterday?” Cave said to Chell.

“Hmm?” Chell said, looking up into his big gray eyes.

“My assistant Jeremy brought me my lunch, and instead of the normal tea, he brought me a glass of lemonade!”

“What did you do, Mr. Johnson?” Chell mustered to say.

“I fired him of course!” At that moment Caroline came in to help round up the children for the next room.

“Why did you do that? I love lemonade, don’t you Mr. Johnson?”

“Hell no. It gives me the sour face.” He made a funny frown face at Caroline. Chell giggled.

“Alright, Mr. Johnson, let’s go to the lunch room and get these kiddies a snack.”

The class cheered and jabbered as Cave and Chell led the way to the Mess Hall. Chell remembered liking Cave Johnson a lot. He would have made a fine father if he hadn’t died too soon.

The lift started to slow, and the doors finally opened. She had been riding down for about two minutes.

“Ok, test subject, to the next test!” Wheatley said into the intercom.

Chell slowly got up, her muscles feeling rather sore. She could see that this chamber was huge, spanning hundreds of feet wide with a great gap filled with poisonous water in the center. The task was simple. Get to the door at the opposite side. The only problem was that there were areal faith plates surrounding the water, making it seem impossible to get to the end.

“You’re getting close to his lair.” She could hear GLaDOS whisper from the intercom.

“Did you say something? I think I just heard you say something, well maybe not, continue testing, don’t mind me, just supervising. You know, so you don’t escape.”

She ignored him and walked into the chamber further, examining the faith plates.

“What if I shook things up a little bit?” Wheatley continued, “What if I told you that I’m really not Wheatley? What if I told you that GLaDOS built me to look and act like him, but I was really not him?” Chell shuddered, that was not what she wanted to hear.

“Yeah, she built me just to lure you in here to test! Don’t you see? You do see, don’t you? You’re helpless. A tiny helpless human.” This couldn’t be. “Yes, and I need your help to get Her out again.”

Chell shook her head. She was not falling for that again.

“CORE CORRUPTION LEVEL AT 25%.”

“No, no, no, no, no! You aren’t supposed to say that now! I thought I shut your voice off five minutes ago!” That was the giveaway. Wheatley was really Wheatley. Not just a replica.

“CORE CORRUPTION LEVEL AT 25%. SEE THE APERTURE SCIENCE CORE TRANSFER MANUAL, SECTION 45-B5 FOR FURTHER DETAIL.” Chell could see a way out of the chamber already. During Wheatley’s rant, she caught a glimpse of a malfunctioning panel on the far side of the room. She needed to get to it without setting off the areal faith plates, or she’d be wet and dissolving in the acid pool.

“I know, I know! See the manual. I’ve been hearing your stinking voice for too long now! Shut down emergency voice guidance system!” Chell counted to three, timing her jump just right. She was going to make it. One, two, three, she pounced onto one faith plate and was flying through the air towards the panel, only she aimed too high, and hit the wall above it, slightly bouncing off and fell towards the acid water.

“PLEASE REPEAT YOUR COMMAND. REMEMBER THAT YOUR WARRANTY UNDER CORE CONTROL AND REPRODUCTION, SECTION 56-32-199F, WILL BE VOID UPON SHUTTING DOWN THE EMERGENCY VOICE GUIDAN---“ Chell twisted her body as hard as she could before she hit the water and hit another faith plate, sending her to the opposite side of the room. She jumped again, this time, crouching in mid-air to fall faster.

“I don’t bloody care! Shut down emergency voice guidance system!” Chell was already aiming the gun towards the outside of the chamber.

“EMERGENCY VOICE GUIDANCE SYSTEM DISABLED.” Chell shot a portal on a white patch just outside the chamber and bounced back towards the beginning of the chamber, where the only white patch of wall was.

“Ah, sorry about that. Back to testing, eh? I suppose you probably don’t believe my story about GLaDOS replicating me do you, I mean honestly, it took a while to cook up. Hey, why do you have that smug look on your face, it looks as though you are planning something sinister. No seriously. Get that look off your face, I get worried when you look like that.”

She shot an orange portal underneath her feet, slipping out of the chamber and onto a platform on the outside of the chamber.

“Oh, no you don’t, you’re not getting away from me this time, lady.”

The platform on which she stood buckled under her feet, dropping her into a tube of water and carrying her away. Water. Not acid. Chell could hold her breath for a very long time, and she knew it, but the tube seemed to twist and turn forever, jolting her already exhausted body around like a ragdoll. She was being dragged deeper and deeper into the labs.

Another minute passed she needed air. Desperately. Chell started to panic. Don’t panic, she repeated to herself, but she could only think of how badly she needed oxygen. Her lungs burned, making her let out the air she had been holding, and her chest instinctively expanded to get fresh air, only sucking the icy water in. She was going to die in the watery tanks of Aperture. She coughed under water, only sucking in more water, and she could then see black spots entering her vision at a fast rate. Why did she have to die so soon? Did GLaDOS know where she was? Could she help? Suddenly, a panel on the tube opened, dropping her onto some hard concrete floor. Chell could see the portal device flickering and then going out.

Chell heaved, a lot. Vomiting and retching until she could breathe. She could barely breathe, her lungs stung so badly. She gasped, not only to get more air, but to confirm for herself that she could indeed breathe. The black spots were starting to disappear, but Chell was too weak to get back up off of the floor, so she laid there, wondering why she couldn’t hear Wheatley. By now, he must have realized that he lost her in the tube.

The portal device flickered back on.

“I know you are there, Chell. I can see you through a camera I hacked. Chell, can you hear me? I know you can hear me. Why aren’t you moving? I almost forgot humans are so intolerable to a lack of oxygen. Humans are not built for endurance, I guess. Do you like the new waterproof feature I added to your Device? I ended up losing too many Portal Devices in water and acid, so I made it waterproof. Oh, yes, and I inserted a tracker into your device as well. The facility can’t afford us to lose this war.”

Chell couldn’t move. She was too weak. She was glad GLaDOS knew she was alive, but what could She do to get her out?

“As you have probably figured out on your own, or maybe not, I got control of some of the water and gel tube release panels in some parts of Wheatley’s control quadrant. You were lucky I could get you out here, or you would have died. Oh, I realized that my Artificial Test Subjects are good for something. They can’t die like you can. I will guide two of them to you to get you out of there. I need you to rest and get moving again.” Chell wondered why GLaDOS didn’t just send some of her robots in to destroy Wheatley.

“You are probably wondering why I didn’t just send some of my robots in to get rid of the tumor, aren’t you. You hardly pay attention to details. I am so disappointed in you. Don’t you see that it is much more fun watching live test subjects die instead of reproducible artificial ones? That was a joke you know. I just can’t help myself. Well, I did tell you that He has control of the turret assembly line, and he also has control of the robot assembly line. His only problem is that I disabled a large portion of the plant, so he can’t create any Artificial Test Subjects. The two I am sending you are named Atlas and P-Body. They are morons, but aren’t as bad as Wheatley. I only have a limited amount of the replacements, so take good care of them.”

At that moment, the two robots Chell had seen outside of the lift when GLaDOS let her free came in the small room. One crouched down, looking at her face with a bright blue optic, while the other one glanced around, nervously shifting its weight from one foot to the other. Both had Portal Devices in different colors. The blue one was a shorter, stalky robot, and the other was an egg-shaped, taller one. The shorter one picked up Chell’s Device and handed it, as well as its own to the other one. It then turned around, gently picked her up, and started towards the door. Its hands and arms were hard and cold, but Chell’s eyes became heavy, and she fell asleep in its arms almost immediately. She knew GLaDOS would guide them to a safer place, even though they were still deep in Wheatley territory.

After Aperture: Chapter 4

Here's Chapter 4 of the Portal 2 Fanfiction, After Aperture! Enjoy! If you haven't read chapter's 1-3 or the prologue, simply scroll down and read them first!

Chapter 4: The Tests Have Begun…. Again.

Chell knew better than to walk straight into the test chamber, but without going through the chambers, she would get lost in the mazes of Aperture Science.

Before getting into the chamber, she listed in her mind the past week’s events. Her mind was still spinning on the fact that she was back inside Aperture. One, the mind wipe was starting to wear off and Chell was remembering more about her life as a child. Two, she was lured back into Aperture by the same AI that threatened to kill her in her past; GLaDOS had also saved Chell’s life after she shot a portal on the moon. Three, Wheatley was supposedly back and threatening to take over Aperture again. Or was he really?

This could be just one more of GLaDOS’s well-played out plans to keep her in testing, Chell realized. GLaDOS could have just grabbed a few turret cubes, thrown them convincingly into a chamber, and could be waiting to snatch her again. Then again, GLaDOS had also given Chell her original Portal Device. If she wanted her to be testing so badly, Chell grasped she would already be in some new testing chamber now under GLaDOS’s supervision, not racing through the outskirts of old chambers. So, she calmly walked towards the test chamber, aiming the device into the chamber, and taking the bait. She walked through the portal and into the chamber.

“Come on, turrets, the elevator is right there! Wait, what? Chell, what the hell are you doing here? You were gone and now you’re back! She really couldn’t resist going to get you couldn’t she? Aha, I knew She would try to bring you back to get rid of me, but you can’t you see! You do see, don’t you? Wait, let me turn on a screen so you can really see me.”

A hole in the wall near the lift opened and a screen popped out, flashing blue, then showing Wheatley. He was in a new body like GLaDOS said, it was just dark grey instead of bright white like GLaDOS’s body.

“I still can’t believe She really dragged you back here to try to take me out. You know, I do appreciate her placing you into my clutches, the whole turret cube thing was really getting on my bloody nerves. I even tried out Her artificial test subjects to give them a go, but she hacked into the assembly plant far too soon.”

Chell just glared at the screen.

“I could just kill you, you know, just kill you and get it over with. I’ve got plenty of mashie-spike plates in store for you, go ahead and get into the lift. Go on, or is your brain damage kicking into gear? Ha ha, I should call myself Mr. Clever.”

There was no way out now, as far as Chell could see. The portals she had already shot had dematerialized and spike plates had taken place of the walls of the test chamber.

They were getting closer.

There was no time to think. Chell could only act upon her instinct. She shot first at the floor under her feet and then at a wall between the gaps of the spike plates.

“Wait, what are you doing? No, no no no no! You can’t do that, just come back! I promise not to mash you! Wait!” Chell was already on the other side.

“Where are you, lady? I know you’re still there! Come back! Great. You know what you are? Slippery. Why didn’t I just trap her in a room of gas? Because she was slippery and I was distracted. Cameras, She has already hacked into some of my cameras! So, Miss Bossy is helping her out by hacking into my mainframe, is She? Well, Mr. Clever is starting to hack into some of hers!”

Chell stood staring between the plates at the screen, which then flickered and went out.

“Are you still there? Chell?” the tiny voice said from out of the portal device.

“Mm Hmm.”

“He’s already hacking into my main power supply. I can’t hold him off forever, you will have to shut the moron down before then.”

She was headed towards the next chamber, which was not one of the originals. It said chamber 24, and it was immense. There was only one way in and that was through the lift.

“Are you serious? You are bloody kidding me! You have got to be joking! Asking for death again, my dear? You just walked into my hands again! You know these are my chambers, not Hers don’t you? The brain damage you have must be frying your little nerves! I’ll let you live for a little while, but you will never make it out of my chambers!”

The lift stopped when it reached test chamber 24. Doors hissing open, she walked straight in, solving her first puzzle with no help from Wheatley’s constant rant. She let his voice drown into the humming of the chamber’s walls. There were no broken walls, no air vents, and no rooms overlooking the chamber. From where she stood, she could hear the higher pitched humming of turrets, and see their lasers pointed dead ahead of each one.

“The turrets will make a cheese grater out of you before you can even scream out for help. Oh, wait. I forgot you can’t even talk. That is a sad thing, that is. I remember when I first met you. I really wanted to help. I had searched the entire facility and couldn’t find one stinking live test subject. The most you could do was jump when I told you to speak. Not the talking type. I was doomed until I found you, and now you are back to help me again! Keep testing, don’t mind me jabbering about my future success here at Wheatley laboratories.”

“Aaargh!” Chell yelled, running towards the turrets. She couldn’t stand his voice anymore. Wheatley’s strong English accent was starting to grate on her nerves. She knocked down each turret, gracefully dodging bullets without a single scratch against her skin. At last the end of the level was near. Test chamber 24 was finally over. Panting, she stepped into the lift, sitting down and crossing her legs for the long descent to the next chamber.

After Aperture: Chapter 3

Hi guys! This is Chapter 3 of my story, After Aperture, a Portal fanfiction. If you haven't read chapter 2,1, or the prologue, simply scroll down and read them, the newest posts are the newest chapters!

Chapter 3: Issues

Already, Chell was looking for any sign of turrets; she closed the door behind her, and grabbed hold of the rungs of the ladder. She decided to come back in, but not down the shaft. There could be too many turrets that way. Down she went, carefully passing one foot underneath the other, cautious not to slip off. It was a long, long way down. She looked around, seeing the broken gel pipes that still hadn’t been repaired. Strange. GLaDOS would have had the whole facility repaired and running within a year, so why was it still in ruins? At least here?

She noticed that there was fresh, wet white gel all over the ladder below her, and she was still descending into it. When she got to the wet surface, she was as careful as ever, now that the ladder was slippery. A gurgling noise started coming from a broken pipe above. Panicked, Chell gripped the ladder as hard as she could as a sheet of white gel came pouring down on her. She couldn’t breathe, and the gel was still pouring down. Finally, it stopped and she gasped for air. Chell was weak from the downpour. Shivering, she started downward again. More gurgling came from the pipe and another sheet came down on her. Only this time, she wasn’t prepared. Her hands were ripped from the rungs, and she fell. She was falling for quite a while, the gyros in the long fall boots kicking in and turning her right-side-up. She could see the ground coming closer and closer. It was the roof of the room GLaDOS was in the last time she was here. “Why didn’t I just take the lift?” She thought.

Smashing through the roof and finally to the floor of the room, she tried to land perfectly on her feet, but it was too long of a fall, and she hit the floor with a pain shooting up her right leg.

All went black.

By the time Chell was nine, she had already gotten used to living as an orphan in Aperture Science’s children training center. Because there was a shortage on good test subjects, Aperture would take orphans from local orphanages and train them using turrets with paint guns, instead of bullets, and automatic shooting portals instead of the expensive manual portal guns. It was safer for the kids. She was still made fun of as she still could not find the courage and focus to speak. By the time she was sixteen, she was at the top of her class, with the highest of testing scores.

It was time to sign some papers and start the real testing, with real turrets and real portal devices. She would first get tested for pain tolerance, tenacity, IQ, and other critical aspects for testing. She knew her tenacity score would be very high, as she still got into much trouble at fifteen and sixteen years of age, and it was, but the scientists didn’t think it would matter later in testing. This later saved her life and GLaDOS’s life. The next step for testing was the mind wipe.

It didn’t hurt, Chell remembered, they stuck a bunch of wires on her head, had her drink a clear substance that didn’t have a taste. Then they stuck her in a cryo-bed to sleep until she awoke for her very first test. That was when she first heard GLaDOS. “Hello, and again, welcome to the Aperture Science Computer Aided Enrichment Center. We hope your brief detention in the relaxation vault has been a pleasant one. Your specimen has been processed and we are ready to begin the test proper. Chell? Chell! Please wake up! I need you awake and functioning like a normal human would right now! Oh, you better wake up, you ungrateful test subject!”

“Hmmm...” Chell rolled over on the sterile bed she was laying on.

“Please, Chell, I know you are alive, I can see your vital organs functioning in my readings. And by the way, you’ve lost some weight, I see. You’re practically skin and bones.”

Chell opened her eyes, slowly. Every part in her body ached. She was in GLaDOS’s main room on a cryo-bed as a makeshift medical bed. She looked down at her right leg, which felt slightly lighter than usual, and there was no pain.

“Good afternoon, Chell. I should say you slept in…. For about 2 days.”

She turned her head and stared into the familiar yellow optic, GLaDOS was still functioning of course. She looked back at her right leg again, lifting it and turning her ankle. It did not feel right.

“I had to replace your tibia with a slightly lighter titanium rod because you fell exactly five hundred, seventy three point three five feet and landed on your feet. Unlike our fall when I was a potato, there was really nothing to catch your fall, and instead of landing on soft dirt, you landed on stainless steel floor. You know, I see no logic in coming down the ladder. You could have come down the lift. That was idiotic. A more intelligent test subject wouldn’t have been suspicious about lifts. I hope the radio placement outside wasn’t too alarming for your tiny brain, I had a turret cube the moron created put it there.” Chell just stared back. From the moment she found the radio, she wondered how, in the three years she had been out there, she had never noticed the radio’s noise. Now she understood.

“I forgot you were a silent one. Nevertheless, I knew you would come, since peace and serenity isn’t really your thing, especially with the tenacity score you received during your initial tests. Anyway, Aperture Science Laboratories is in a dire situation right now, and I need your help.” Chell then slowly slipped her feet off of the bed, hearing the long fall boots clank on the floor. She placed her hands in her lap and listened to GLaDOS explain the circumstances.

“The moron is back. Wheatley, remember him? He took over the entire facility and tried to kill you and hooked me up to a potato?” Chell couldn’t believe her. Wheatley was still in space. She pointed at the ceiling, indicating that he was still up there.

“No he is not in space, I mean he is, but he is also here. He replicated himself, backing up his memories on a computer before you shot a portal into space. He then proceeded to make an automatic program that loaded his memory into an empty core shell, and now he is here, tormenting the facility. He managed to get to one of my robotic test subjects and convince it to plug him into a core control panel near test chamber 17. He can’t control the whole facility without my body, but he has got control of about 33.4% of it right now. So you get it now, right? The moron is still in space but his replicated self is wreaking havoc on my beautiful testing facility. He was not such a moron after all.” Chell nodded and made a gun motion with her hands.

“I don’t understand what you are saying.”

She persisted with the same action.

“I really loathe charades, Chell.”

Chell sighed and pressed her lips together to try to form a word or two.

“Portal Device,” Chell managed to blurt out. She did it. GLaDOS stared back, just registering the speech; she almost looked surprised to hear it, even though her yellow optic and shiny, white metal didn’t show a bit of emotion.

“I really cannot believe the mute just spoke. First a mute and now a selective mute?” Chell scowled at GLaDOS.

“I need you to succeed, I know you can because no matter how hard I tried to kill you, I couldn’t and I know you can help me win. Without an Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device, you are a mere human being, but with one, you are as deadly fast as neurotoxin gas.” Chell’s tongue was a brick, and she couldn’t speak again, but she nodded instead.

“Let’s get to work. I will give you a portal device. Please don’t destroy it like you do everything else you touch. The moron is in the same chambers you used to test in when we first started testing you. He’s probably built himself some sort of body, so it may be difficult to get him out. He has no idea you are here, so we technically have a higher advantage than he has, but he does have control of the security cameras in his quadrant, and the turret assembly line, unfortunately.” A door in the ground opened and a Portal Device on a stand came out. Chell walked over and picked it up. It had scratches, dents, and was a little dusty still. It looked and felt familiar. With a start, Chell realized that it was the same gun used in all of her tests and the one she used against Wheatley and on the moon.

“You know, it was a long shot trying to shoot the moon with a Portal Device, but it worked. I have to give you credit for that. I was too, oh what do you call that emotion, nostalgic? That’s it. Oh, I was too sentimental, and didn’t even clean the dirt off of that Device. It’s the same one you used when you were here.”

Chell nodded and inspected the device, remembering how amazed she was that it withstood the long fall down the elevator shaft Wheatley pushed her and the potatOS down. She started towards the doors at the far side of the room, and they suddenly disappeared. New ones appeared on the opposite side of the room.

“Oh, and that was the wrong way. The real way is over there, idiot.”

Chell grinned and sprinted towards the other ones. Let the psychological games begin. She knew just where to go to find Wheatley. She had no doubt that he was just doing what he did before. Only this time, she had to find and destroy the computer, or core that held his replication data. A voice suddenly popped out of the inside of the Portal Device, and Chell nearly dropped it out of surprise.

“Oh, and I hope you don’t mind that I inserted an intercom speaker on your device, Chell. Sorry if I distressed you. You know, loud noises often frighten people with guilty consciences.”

She just sighed and kept walking towards a test chamber with a couple cube-turrets roaming around: Wheatley territory. She was getting closer. She could see the level sign on the inside of the chamber: 3. It was one of the most simple test chambers, as there were only gaps to jump across to the end lift, no turrets, no energy pellets, and no consequences for failure, just gaps.

After Aperture: Chapter 2

Chapter 2: The Radio

Bursting awake, Chell gasped for clean air, finding it easy to breathe in her small hut. She looked around, seeing her cube sitting on the floor near the door, her dusty long fall boots leaning against it. She couldn’t stand it anymore, she wept. They were just tears at first, but wrenching sobs followed soon afterwards. She missed her dad.

For the first time, she felt completely alone.

She decided to get up, the sun hadn’t risen yet, but by the look of the moon and the purple shade of the sky, it would soon be morning. As Chell walked to the front door, she sat on the companion cube and strapped on her long fall boots. It had been a while since she wore them, two and a half years to be exact, but they still fit perfectly. She rolled up her pants so they wouldn’t catch on the metal of the boots and got up, testing her weight on the braces. It was fine, so she walked over to the other corner of the room and grabbed her pistol and a few bullets. She didn’t know what she was taking a walk for, but she needed some fresh air.

Walking for a few miles, Chell glanced at a crow pecking at some grass and laughed when she remembered how scared her dad had been of those birds, and how terrified GLaDOS was of them when she was a potato battery. She turned around suddenly, hearing a slight hissing noise far to her right. It sounded strangely familiar, yet she couldn’t quite remember what it was.

Slowly stepping closer to the noise, she pointed the gun at the general direction of the object. It sounded like static from a broken TV. As she stopped in front of the object, she burst out laughing, it was an Aperture Science radio. They used to play music in certain parts of the science facility. When Chell tested, she found fun in locating hidden radios around the test chambers.

So, she picked up the radio and took it with her. She felt a little less lonely. She walked a little longer, thinking of when she first started testing. She couldn’t remember any of her past when she first started. With the promise of cake at the end of the tests, she couldn’t wait to start testing, although the robot talking over the intercom was a little creepy. She loved being free, but she missed that feeling of dodging bullets and flying through portals. “Like an eagle flying a blimp” she could hear GLaDOS teasing her. She even missed GLaDOS’s nagging about her “weight” and the psychological games she would play with her.

Chell finally realized what she was searching for.

The back door to Aperture Science.

All of Aperture Science Laboratories was underground. The only door was the one she came out of when GLaDOS let her go. The forest cleared and the radio started playing the song it used to play in one of the chambers. Chell’s heart leapt, and she held the radio out to see if the signal would fade, it didn’t. She kept walking, and the signal kept getting better. She started running. The familiar tune got louder and louder until she almost ran into the small building she came out of three years ago.

The Aperture logo was still painted on the door. She shuttered, then sat the radio down and pressed on the door. Harder. Then she shoved the door with her whole body and it burst open. She looked around and saw the lift she came out of, and a ladder going down the same shaft.

Chell stood there, thinking about her life in the past three years. Freedom was wonderful. It took her forever to get out of that dark facility, yet she wanted back in.

After Aperture, Chapter 1

Here is Chapter 1 of my fan-fiction for Portal 2. If you haven't read the prologue yet, please do so, it is below this chapter, I will try my best to post a chapter a day, I love writing this story.

Chapter 1: Beginnings

Her only friend was the charred companion cube GLaDOS had thrown out the lift after she let her go. She never spoke to it, well, she really never spoke at all. She has had speech problems ever since she was little. Through time, memories of her past before Aperture came back to her. The scientists from Aperture wipe the memories from every test subject so that they are “clean” for testing, but it finally was wearing off for Chell. She usually slept very lightly, only sleeping for a few hours, waking at every sound that she heard. Drifting in and out of sleep, she kept seeing her father.

  “Hey, Chell, time to get up, you know what day it is!”

    “Ummm.” She rolled over, burying her head deeper into her pink daisy pillow and burrowing further in her twin sized bed.

    “Come on, or we’ll be late!” her dad said from the kitchen, “it’s my favorite day at work. We can spend the whole day together.” It was Bring-Your-Daughter-To-Work Day at his job. He was a security guard at Aperture.

    “Alright, I’m coming in to grab you out of bed, sleeping beauty!”

She shrieked with laughter as she jumped out of her covers before he stomped in, waving her arms.

    “No monsters today, Daddy!” she managed to say, running out of her bedroom and about the house.

    “Alright, go get dressed, and I’ll get your cereal. We’ve got fifteen minutes!”

    “Okay!” she ran into her closet and dressed in a hurry. She did not want to miss her daddy’s favorite day at work. All of her school got to take today off, it was just like a holiday. That was good for Chell, as she hated school, not that she had bad grades, but the girls constantly teased her for not speaking very well. She was the black sheep of the second grade, always getting into trouble and never able to speak her way out of it.

    It wasn’t her fault, she couldn’t control when her tongue got tied, it just happened all the time. She remembered when the doctor told her dad that she was a mute. He told him that she would grow out of it in no time and to keep encouraging her to speak, but she never grew out of it and it seemed that whenever she needed it most, her voice failed her, so she didn’t speak often, only to her daddy.

    She loved her dad, as her mom passed away shortly after she was born. Her dad was the only family and friend she knew. Every once in a while, he would surprise her and bake her cookies, but her favorite surprise was the cake he baked her. In return, she would always run about outside and pick daisies and weedy flowers and put them in his room. They were ugly flowers that grew everywhere, but to her seven-year-old brain, they were beautiful, and her daddy would laugh when he found them.

    At last, Chell and her dad made it to his work. He drove his electric car through the security gate and into the employee parking lot.

    “Chell, do you want to see my office?”

    “Mm hhmmm!”

    “Use your words, Chell,” he said patiently.

    “Yes, please,” she said with a groan. She wasn’t at home and was a little uncomfortable talking.

    “Good. Today is a big day for my work, darling. My boss passed away a couple weeks ago and we are plugging in something big today. You’ll get to see it first-hand, sweetheart!”

    She nodded expectantly and trailed after him through the parking lot and to the winding hallways leading to his office.

    Chell’s dad’s office was small, but with a big window looking down into a large room with a huge machine hanging from the ceiling. Men in long white coats were making adjustments to things on the machine and bustling about the room like ants. She pointed to the window, wanting to know what the machine was. Her dad just crossed his arms, lifting his eyebrow.

    “What is that?” Chell asked quietly. Her dad uncrossed his arms and walked toward the window.

    “That, my dear is our new boss. We are testing to see if it works today. It is called a GLaDOS.”

    “A GLaDOS?” she asked, pronouncing the word slowly.

    “Yes, it is a great big robot that can run all of the tests and do all of the work that our old boss could at the same time. It will be a huge success, really good for your daddy’s work.”

    She nodded as her attention went back to the workers. They lined up in front of the great machine and pressed a button, turning it on for the very first time. The machine started talking with the men, in a mechanical female voice for a few moments. Chell’s dad was reading what the machine was doing on his computer. Everything seemed to be going fine until the computer started beeping and words flashed on the screen saying ERROR, ERROR, ERROR.

    “Shit, it’s all going wrong,” he faced Chell and gripped her shoulders “Sweetie, I need you to stay here alright?" His grip on her shoulders tightened as he shook her.

    "Stay here until I come back. Do not leave my office, do you understand?” Tears leaked from Chell’s eyes, she was frightened.

     She nodded. The screen flashed the words again and again.

    “I love you, Daddy”

    He released his grip on her and she watched outside the window as the scientists still talked with the great robot. Something was very wrong and they didn’t know it. She didn’t even know what was wrong, but the computer screen flashed different words this time: NERO-TOXIN LEVELS AT MAXIMUM. CLOSING DOORS IN MAIN CHAMBER.

    Chell could see her dad rush into the room as the doors locked behind him. A green gas started to emit from the air vents on the floor and ceiling. She knew perfectly well what was happening now.

    “Daddy, no!”

    She watched as he ripped wires from a console on the floor, trying to shut the machine off before the room was toxic. The men in white coats collapsed on the floor, gasping for fresh air. Other men in the offices overlooking the chamber were frantically typing on their computers, shutting down piece after piece of the robot.

   Her dad collapsed on the floor underneath the great robot, no longer moving.

Chell couldn't watch any more. Her dad died just before the robot was shut down. She ran out of the office, bumping into more men in white coats and racing into the nearest broom closet.

Portal Fanfiction: After Aperture Prologue

Hi guys! If you have ever played the Portal game series all the way through and just couldn't get enough, here is a story I've been writing about what happened after Chell was released from Aperture. Here is the prologue.

Prologue:

It had been three years since Chell had been released from Aperture, no food, portal device, or even a place to go, but her will to survive kept her alive. For the first few days of her freedom, she searched for any sign of human life, but she needed food and a place to sleep. After walking through the grassy field and endless forest, she stumbled upon a small town of smashed buildings, uprooted trees, and dead bodies, everywhere. Inside the rubble of a house was a newspaper from 2007. The whole nation, it seemed, had been ruined by a war that started in New Mexico, where the science facility, Black Mesa introduced an alien species into the world. She remembered from a speech she overheard in Aperture’s 1960’s facility that Black Mesa was Aperture’s rival in science.

A man by the name of Wallace Breen had taken control of the Earth by forces of his army and creatures from the Xen planet; they were horrible, taking over human bodies, ripping limbs of others. Breen was the head of Black Mesa, when it still functioned. After the Resonance Cascade, the initial invasion of the alien species, all hell broke loose and he took control, leading attack after attack on every state in the US. Aperture Science Laboratories had apparently been affected by the war after Chell destroyed GLaDOS the
first time.

That would explain the ruins the facility was in when she awoke from her long cryo-sleep. She stayed in the ruined town for about three months but over time, Chell moved away from the rubble and moved closer to the woods near it. She managed to build a small hut out of old concrete blocks from the ruins of the town she encountered. The only living things around the woods were an occasional deer, squirrel, and the occasional head-crab. In the town, she had found food: cans of beans, jelly, corn, and even pork. The ruins of the grocery store had lots of canned goods underneath the remains. Underneath the stones of ruined houses, she found a lead crow bar, a small pistol, very little ammunition, and an ax. She couldn't fight the occasional head-crabs with her bare hands. She was alone, but didn't feel alone. Chell was free.