Chapter Text
The sound of blaring music fills her ears as she types out a few more lines of code. Her hand reaches out to grab the energy drink to her right, but once she tips it back, she finds that it has already been finished. Grumbling to herself, Chell chunks it into a wastebasket under the desk.
Slipping the headphones from her ears, she takes in the quieter sounds of the server room. The subtle beeps from the machinery and the whir of cooling fans circulating. Crossing the room, she walked among the rows of towers until she found the right one. Tower 5-3B. Popping open the door, she examined the rows of wires and grumbled to herself.
‘Incompetent interns screwing around again,’ she thought as she switched a few wires around into the correct spots.
The little red lights switched back to blue moments later. Sighing in satisfaction, Chell moved back to the desk and grabbed her supplies before leaving the server room. As she opened the door, a blast of warm air hit her in the face that was a welcome sensation compared to the nearly frigid temperature of the server room.
Stopping by the tech station, Chell dropped off her bag, grabbed her lunch, then started making her way to the break room. She’d been working nonstop since the previous evening, and she had skipped both dinner and breakfast in her hyperfocused state. A headache was forming behind her eyes from the lack of food and sleep.
Once in the breakroom, Chell stood at the counter as she prepared the lunch she brought for herself. As she worked, footsteps could be heard approaching from behind.
Chell didn’t even get to turn around before an annoyed voice said, “By all means, block the microwave all day.”
Without turning around, Chell responded, “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize this was made specifically for you.”
“Well, clearly, I’m in a hurry!”
“Well, as the saying goes… Time moves for no man. Even crotchety scientists…”
“Simple-minded programmer!”
“Mindless, arrogant undergrad!”
“Undergrad?” The voice actually sounded offended by that.
It made Chell turn around with a laugh to look at Arne Magnusson, “You know I’m joking, Arne.”
Arne had a put off expression on his face, but he quickly schooled it back to being stoic and commanding, “Yes, well… You were rather convincing today.”
Chell shook her head with a laugh as she leaned back against the counter, her thermos of coffee in her left hand, “So what sort of top-secret work can you not tell me about today?”
“The kind that involves the Administrator of Anomalous Materials checking in constantly. That man hovers over everyone as if we are in preschool,” Arne said, popping his food into the microwave. The perpetual annoyed state that Magnusson was always in shined brighter than before with the mention of Doctor Wallace Breen. Chell had a few interactions with the man as she worked with the Programmers and Analysts over Sectors C and D.
“That’s all I can really say,” he shrugged. “But what about you? How goes your work?”
A strange look settled over Chell’s face. Her eyes looked dead inside as she turned her gaze to the ceiling. “I may kill someone today, Arne. I think I might finally snap and kill one of the interns.”
“Can’t possibly be that bad,” he snapped, eyes rolling as the microwave continued to hum.
Chell’s eyes snapped to Magnusson with a manic expression. “One of them tried downloading porn and nearly crashed the servers. I caught another using the disc tray as a cup holder. But the worst offender? They thought it would be funny to make a program that triggers a song to play on the server room speakers every time someone walked in. The code they wrote became a virus, and that damn song started playing any time someone needed to play up an audio file. That means any time a message needed to be sent out by the announcement system, the song would start playing in the server room. I’ve been dealing with that since yesterday morning. I haven’t slept in 22 hours, and you have no idea how much I want this coffee to be vodka right now.”
With that, she took a large drink of it, burning her mouth and throat in the process.
If she wasn’t so frazzled, Magnusson might have laughed. Instead, he reached out and patted her back. “There, there… You can murder them later. For now, just enjoy your lunch.”
She nodded as he led her to the nearby table to sit, her hands clasped tight to the thermos. The food she had been preparing was placed in front of her, and she began to eat, not really tasting it.
“Arne… I swear if I ever hear that song again, I will snap. I had to listen to it on repeat for hours on end while working. I can’t go through that again,” she shuddered, the plastic fork in her hands on the verge of snapping with the force she was holding it.
“Forget about that. Why not tell me about any side projects you are working on,” Arne continued, trying to get her mind off the stress.
She swallowed a large bite of food, a sense of sanity returning to her face. “You know how the Anomalous Materials people are always pushing their machinery too far and overloading their servers? Well, I’m making something that will prevent that from happening.”
Arne narrowed his eyes at Chell, “Explain.”
“Nothing malicious. Someday they are going to push their machines too far and cause someone to get hurt. I’m doing what I can to save the machinery and prevent anything from being overworked again,” Chell explained. She’d heard too many stories and witnessed the computer systems in Sector C getting fried. Even elevators going out on the other side of the facility all because of the people in Anomalous Materials. It was becoming a problem.
“Good luck with that. Hope you don’t get in trouble over it,” Magnusson smiled. He paused to check on his food. “After all… you are the only one here who isn’t unbearable.”
Chell smiled at that.
A moment later, a young man with dark hair and wearing a gaudy yellow shirt entered the break room. Chell’s eyes widened as her fork finally snapped.
The man had been singing.
“-make an input-output request!” He finished up as he slipped money into the vending machine.
That manic look returned to Chell’s eyes as she slowly turned her head to look at the humming man retrieve his soda.
Her arm extended, an accusatory finger extended outward, “You!” Chell’s voice was cold, and Magnusson was frankly enjoying the show at this point.
The young man turned to look at Chell, an embarrassed smile crossed his face, “Oh… hey! So, I see you got that thing fixed. I will admit, it was my bad. My intentions were good, though. I just thought we could add some humor around here! Make things livelier and less serious!”
Chell just continued to stare at him. If the man has any self-preservation, he’d run away or shut up, Magnusson thought.
Unfortunately, the intern had neither.
“You can’t blame me for it becoming a virus. If you look at it, it’s your fault for not designing a proper anti-virus software to counteract any bugs in the code,” he stated, his hands resting on his hips.
Magnusson felt a smile pull at his lips as he watched Chell slowly stand to her feet. She was a good half-foot taller than the intern and had a far more commanding presence. “What was that?” She asked. Her voice lacked any emotion. It had a cutting edge that made Magnusson almost worried for the poor intern. Almost.
Finally, the man realized he may have said something wrong as he attempted to step back from Chell, but just ended up pressing his back to the soda machine. “I- I mean- What I meant to say was… uh- um- The big guy wanted you! The Administrator, yeah! He stopped and asked me to deliver a message! He wants you to come by his office for a meeting!”
Chell narrowed her eyes even further, just looking the kid up and down. “What for?”
“He didn’t say, miss Chell ma’am! He just wanted to see you!”
She was silent for a few moments before the tension in her shoulders relaxed. “Alright, but if you ever try something like you did yesterday, I will end you…”
With that, Chell packed up her lunch, plucked the unopened soda from the intern’s hand, and walked out of the break room.
The room was silent for several seconds as Magnusson took another bite of his food.
The intern looked at Arne and huffed, “She stole my soda…”
“And that’s not my problem.”
The Administrator’s office was similar to most of the others in Sector D. Green carpet, wood-paneled walls, and a desk. That’s where the similarities stopped.
Dr. Breen’s office was easily twice the size of a standard office with a desk that was large, ornately carved, and solid wood compared to the shabby prefabricated slabs every one else had. Dr. Breen’s desk was tacky in Chell’s eyes.
The only thing Chell did like about the office was a painting on the wall that looked like the sun rising over the New Mexico desert. It was a large canvas to give the impression of a window. Being underground for most of the day would make anyone want to see the sun, no matter how fake it might be, Chell thought to herself.
Then came the man himself. Dr. Wallace Breen…
He was an unassuming man with dark brown hair that was graying at the temples. Chell believed he colored his hair if the state of his eyebrows and facial stubble were anything to go by. They both had more gray than brown.
His personality also left something to be desired. He ranged anywhere from an annoyance to actually helpful. He may have good intentions with the people around him, he often came across as a scolding parental figure. It made a lot of people dislike the man on principle. Luckily for Chell, she hadn’t had to interact with him much.
So that made this meeting strange.
She had finished the poor intern’s soda just as she was walking into dr. Breen’s office. Without a care, she crushed the can and dropped into the trashcan next to the door. Breen pursed his lips at her display but ignored it in favor of the meeting.
“Nice of you to join me. I trust your day has been going well?” Dr. Breen commented, gesturing to the chair sitting on the opposite side of his desk.
“Yeah. Just finished working on a bug with the audio systems actually,” Chell answered.
Breen nodded his head at her, “That’s good. Do you have any big projects you are working on?”
Chell had to restrain herself from rolling her eyes at him. She didn’t want to talk about her current project. In fact, she’d rather get the meeting over with as soon as possible. However... it was Dr. Breen. She couldn’t talk to him like she would to Arne. She’d just need a little more tact… “Actually sir, I’d prefer if we skipped the small talk. I am curious as to why you have called me here today.”
The way he stared at her made her feel like it was the wrong thing to say. No matter, as he simply sighed and sat back in his large leather chair with his hands steepled. “Straight to business with no room for deviance. It reminds me of Dr. Magnusson… No matter, I wanted you here to discuss a possible business venture.”
Chell raided a brow at him. “What sort of venture?”
A sly smile spread across Breen’s face as he slid a file across the desk towards Chell. She accepted it and opened the envelope to the first page. Ice suddenly gripped her heart.
It was her file. Well, a file on her. It was extensive. There were pictures of her graduation from CalTech, high school transcripts, a list of achievements, but the most prominent piece was a photograph. The photo contained Chell as a child sitting on a man’s shoulder’s in front of an Aperture Science welcome sign and security gate.
“How-“
“-did I get that? It doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you neglected to tell us that your father worked for a rival company. Our biggest rival, in fact. Nowhere in your files have you mentioned your father. So, that makes me curious about how can we trust you in the future? What else have you possibly lied about?” Breen said, the smile still on his face.
Chell unceremoniously dropped the file back on Breen’s desk. “He’s not my father. I’d hardly call him a dad at this point. The whole reason I applied to Black Mesa in the first place was to stick it to him.”
That made Dr. Breen perk up. “So you harbor some sort of resentment to this man? What happened?”
“Are you my therapist, or are we going to talk about this so-called business venture?” Chell snapped, clearly done with being polite.
Breen nodded as he pushed the file out of the way and pulled up a new one. “This is a resume for one “Freelance Programming Specialist” to an open position at Aperture Science. I want you to take the job.”
“Are you firing me?”
“On the contrary. I’m giving you an opportunity.” Breen then handed the file to Chell. “Along with the resume, you will find a contract, a pay increase for yourself, and an outline of what I’d like for you to accomplish. You don’t have to accept right away. In fact, go back to your domicile and read everything over. You can give me your answer tomorrow.”
Chell had already started looking at the contract but had been caught off guard by the pay. That couldn’t be right, could it? No, it had to be a mistake, right? She barely registered herself nodding as she stood up, still caught up in the pay increase. It had to be a typo, right?
As she walked out of the office, she brushed the shoulder of someone else. She muttered an apology and looked back to see who it had been. Chell locked her gaze onto the green eyes of a pale man in a blue suit. He didn’t say anything to Chell, but only gave a tiny smirk and nod of his head before walking into Dr. Breen’s office. As she entered the elevator, she couldn’t help how cold her shoulder suddenly felt.
“So, he wants you to do what?!” Arne hissed. He was careful to not raise his voice too loud. The walls were thin, after all.
Chell was currently sitting on Arne’s couch with her feet resting up on his coffee table and the contract in her lap. She had been looking over it for hours and was having trouble making a decision. She had vowed to never go back there, but…
“And he’s going to pay you how much?!”
“Believe me, it’s the last place I want to be again, but… that is a lot of money. I could finally get a private dorm in the residential sector. Maybe get some proper soundproofing or headphones,” Chell pondered.
“He’s offering that much of a raise, and all you can think of is headphones?!”
Chell smiled at that, but slowly shifted back into a more serious look. “Arne… You can’t tell anyone this. Promise me you won’t tell.”
Magnusson rolled his eyes at her, “Just who am I going to tell?”
“Promise me. You can’t let anyone know. No matter what happens, you can’t let anyone find out what I’ll be doing.”
“So, you are going to do it?”
Chell slowly nodded her head. “Yeah… if it means I get to screw over Aperture, then I’ll do it.”
Arne nodded his head, “Alright. Just be sure to keep in touch.”
Chell entered Dr. Breen’s office the next day with the contract signed and determination in her eyes. Wallace was in the middle of computer work when she unceremoniously dropped the folder onto his desk, some of the papers sliding out. “I’ll do it.”
“Excellent, now let’s discuss business,” Breen said while pushing fixing the folder.
The two discussed at length at what Chell would be doing. She was to obtain the job at Aperture. With the qualifications and sources listed in her resume, Wallace doubted they’d bat an eye. While there, she would work under the guise of wanting to see her father and reconnect with him. She didn’t like that idea, but if she had to use that excuse, then she would.
While in Aperture, she would send any data she could obtain straight to Dr. Breen using a specialized laptop designed for encryption and security. It would route all data through several proxies and a VPN to prevent the data from being traced back to her or Black Mesa.
The downside to the work she would be doing is that she’d have to put all her current projects for Black Mesa on hold, including her bootstrap code. She’d just have to hope nothing went wrong while she was gone.
Before she left, the final words Dr. Breen said to her were, “And remember, my dear, if you are discovered or captured, say absolutely nothing. Stay silent at all times, alright? Don’t give them any ideas.”
Chell nodded before walking away. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of that same man in the suit walking towards Dr. Breen’s office again.
Six months later, Chell was in her shared lab with an associate. He was tinkering away with small electronics and periodically typing something into his computer. He was a strange man, but he didn’t pry into her business. In fact, she had somehow become friends with the man since she started working there.
She’d been introduced to the man on her first day of work. Chell had been all but thrown into Doug’s lap that day, and they had been forced to flounder around each other. The main issue was trying to get to find common ground on space and who would take what jobs.
He was a talented coder and a fantastic artist as well. He confided that the art was a form of therapy after his last episode. She didn’t pry and further.
While he was distracted, Chell was busy going through some of the encrypted files. Since she had arrived, she had found prototype designs for a zero-point energy field, adrenal vapor that was designed to act as a pain killer and amphetamine, and something called the Genetic Life Form and Disc Operating system. That last one was under too many walls of security for her to even try and send everything. What she did discover was barely a fraction of the truth.
Looking at the time, she shut everything down on her Aperture issued computer before making the long trek back to the communal area. It was the one place where employees could get snacks, coffee, or make phone calls on landlines other than one of the cafeterias.
Since starting at Aperture five months ago, Chell and Arne had set up a schedule of when they could call and chat. It would be on his first break of the day and Chell’s lunch period, and he would always be ready for her call.
He picked up after the second ring.
“And what do I owe the pleasure?” Arne said upon answering.
“You get to here me berate you over the phone.”
“Funny. It just doesn’t have the same bite to it.”
“Only because you can’t see me imitate your scowl,” she laughed.
There was a harrumph sound on the other end, and that only made her laugh more.
“By the way, I ran into my adoptive father yesterday. He wished me a happy birthday,” she continued.
“But wasn’t it-“
“-two weeks ago? Yeah.”
“Will you ever tell me what happened to make you stop talking to him?”
Chell pursed her lips at the memory of her dad yelling at her about wanting to take a job with Aperture after college. It got so heated that Chell applied to Black Mesa out of spite. She never told her dad about that job, he just thought she was doing freelance IT work across California. At least that’s what Chell told him the last time he asked.
He had changed from the man she used to know. Sometimes she wanted to reconcile, but always remembered how he kept throwing himself into his job. In her last two years of high school, she probably ate more dinners alone than with him.
“…it’s complicated. It’s why I can’t wait for this five-month contract to be up! I tried to talk to him a few days ago, but he wouldn’t listen.”
“Then you don’t need him, Chell. Just three more weeks, and you can put it all behind you,” Arne assured her.
Chell remained silent for several seconds before sighing. “Yeah. Thanks, Arne. Talk to you tomorrow.”
Tomorrow never came.
Chell arrived to work at Aperture as usual. She checked in, worked with Doug, then took her bag and a laptop to “check on the servers.”
Once in the server room, she settled on the floor and got to work. Just as she was getting all the wires plugged into her laptop, she heard a tinkling sound and saw something fuzzy trotting to her with a bell collar around its neck. The cat instantly started to nuzzle its head into Chell’s knee.
She had forgotten it was Bring Your Cat to Work Day. The cat must have slipped into the room with her when she wasn’t looking. Well, as long as it didn’t mess with any of the server towers or chew on any wires, she wouldn’t bother it.
Soon as the secure connection to Dr. Breen was connected, she called the private number he had set up to his office.
It rang four times before he finally answered her call. “You’re late today.”
“Good morning to you too, sir…” She drew out the last word to show her disdain. She was so tired of dealing with him.
“I have a meeting to attend soon, so I will need anything you have as soon as possible.”
Over the last few months, Dr. Breen had become more and more annoyed with Chell’s brash personality. He no longer tried to keep up a polite façade with her, and she didn’t restrain herself with how she felt about the man. What was he going to do? Fire her? If he did that, she’d have enough information on what she had been doing to ensure Black Mesa burned to the ground. Would she feel guilty? Maybe. Was she vindictive? For sure. Everyone likes revenge.
“Yeah, yeah. I’m transmitting the data now. No need to get your tighty-whities in a bunch,” Chell groaned into her earpiece.
Breen huffed into his phone. “You have no right to speak to me that way. Just do the job that I hired you for.”
Hearing him angry almost made Chell laugh. Almost.
“Look, I’m going as fast as I can here, sir. I may need to finish this up later because I need to get back to my post soon, or someone is going to notice me missing.”
That was a lie. Chell just wanted to annoy Breen and make him wait.
The cat that had been trying to curl up into Chell’s lap is lifted and placed away once it accidentally poked her legs with its claws. It meowed loud enough for Dr. Breen to pause his tirade to say, “What was that noise?”
“It’s just a cat. Aperture had a ‘Bring Your Cat to Work Day’ today apparently… I-“ Chell had cut herself off as the lights in the server room went dead momentarily, to only be replaced by a foreboding red light fading in and out. Emergency lighting? No. It’s probably a false alarm.
Then she heard the first scream.
“What’s going on? I heard a-
Chell cut him off. “Something’s wrong. I’ve got to go.”
Magnusson sat by the phone, waiting for the call to come.
It never did.