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 25th
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.
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