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.
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