Chapter Text
Destructive explosions roiled overhead like an oncoming thunderstorm, anxious to free the water from its veins and the lightning from its belly. However, neither natural, authentic occurrence would be witnessed nor experienced by Chell, buried so deep underground that she felt like an earthworm, writhing around helplessly in the dirty confines of the Earth. No sunlight would reach these depths, and no cathartic liberation of the atmosphere could even be heard so far below the surface.
All of this desolate nothingness provided a breeding ground for despair, waves of doom-and-gloom washing over the asbestos-infected structures almost as naturally as repulsion gel coated the surfaces on which she walked—or more accurately, bounced—across. Of course, those waves were nothing more than personifications of despondent wandering, and could do no harm to the miracle-operated speakers, not yet rotted by the flow of time.
As if sentenced to damnation by a cruel judge, this subjected Chell and GLaDOS to the ear-grating sound of Cave Johnson's voice as a criminal would be subjected to a life sentence. Much like prison (what she thought of it, anyway, having never been herself), it was almost never ending, and horribly tedious. Whenever the pre-recorded messages stopped rambling on and on about why science safety is dumb, it provided no relief, as Chell knew one would begin again, just as mind-numbing as the last, within minutes, and as damning as it would be, Chell would much rather listen to GLaDOS's malevolent speeches on repeat.
Regaining her footing on a smooth, slippery orange gel—propulsion gel, she believed it to be called—Chell wiped some of the goo off of her cheek. Almost as irritating as Cave Johnson's nonstop commentary, haunting the pair like a greedy ghost upset that he'd been so disrespectfully stomped, note the sarcasm, repulsion gel clung to her long-fall boots and her legs. The feeling had long since dulled down to a more manageable sting, but when it first wrapped around her calves like a starved anaconda, it had burned worse than anything had ever burned—like her skin was disgusted and desperately trying to separate from the rest of her body. At one point, it had gotten so bad that even GLaDOS noticed, despite the layer of stony determination masking Chell's expression—and by extension, the agony—and asked if she was okay. Coincidentally, the pain lessened after Chell answered with a pained shrug, as if the question were a lock and her response the key.
The propulsion gel was not nearly as agonizing. It brought with it no pain as it clung to her arms, a product of the many times she had slipped on the gel, caught off guard by the incredible speed boost it gave her. Direct contact with the gel actually proved beneficial, in some ways, as she felt awake and energized, a surplus of adrenaline coursing through her body as surely as blood did. Chell related the feeling it gave her to that of the adrenal vapor added to her air supply during time as a test subject subjected to the tests run by GLaDOS.
Speaking of GLaDOS, she'd been almost entirely silent, as if she'd finally fried the potato that served as her momentary host and her systems had shut down without a proper vessel for electricity. Of the few things she had said, most were in trance-like response to things now-dead Cave Johnson said through the speakers and were subsequently followed by a panicked reply and a long period of thoughtful silence. The only thing Chell remembered coming from the potato entirely of her own agency since the Cube Johnson encounter, was her question on Chell's wellbeing. There were no sideways remarks or exasperated exclamations. Even of the words she did say, they formed short, incomplete sentences incapable of hosting mean spirits.
After stomping that cube into the dirt, Chell had no clue what would come next. She didn't know if GLaDOS would resume her insults, or if she would grow even more agitated and aggressive due to emotions and memories Chell believed the robot to be unfamiliar with only hours prior. Chell knew it was possible for GLaDOS to fall into quietude, but she thought it was unlikely, and prioritized aforementioned possibilities over this small one. Evidently, she had been wrong in her selection, and GLaDOS was so shaken that not even berating Chell with needless insults could reverse all of the thoughts and ideas implanted in her brain by Cave Johnson.
Worried, Chell was. It was, what, the third time she'd felt that today? And, with the state of this place and her relationship with GLaDOS, three was a lot of times for Chell to feel concern, especially of such a psychological approach.
Despite having absolutely no fraction of an idea how GLaDOS would react to such a sympathetic gesture, Chell decided to return the favor GLaDOS had given her an hour or two before. Of a more emotional, intimate kind, of course.
Raising her eyebrows and tilting her head slightly forward, she pointed at GLaDOS and signed "OK" with one hand, and the accompanying movement of her head provided the substance of the question. Chell had asked "Are you okay?" and now she only awaited a response.
GLaDOS did not respond immediately. This did not dishearten Chell. Such a loaded question, one so unfamiliar to the A.I it required more thought than it would if asked to another human, especially considering what prompted Chell to ask, would take time to construct a suitable reply. Chell was certain even she'd take a moment to mull over the words she chose to sign in response to that question, during these circumstances.
"Ah, so you are capable of human emotions like worry. That's great to know." GLaDOS responded. Chell knew that it was deflection, a desperate attempt to change the topic so she could disappear down that well of thought and horrible possibility. Chell stared at GLaDOS, her expression still, no longer determined to progress but determined to squeeze an answer out of her companion. "Oh, fine. I don't know. I don't know if I'm okay, or if these feelings are mine. I only know that I am an echo of someone who didn't want this. Of someone who never wanted to live forever."
Chell curled a brow inquisitively, urging the A.I to continue. GLaDOS's optic flickered akin to how one would draw a slow breath into empty lungs, dry with the weight of communication and hoarse with the settlement of not-quite-human emotions. Chell did not rush her, only waited patiently, sitting on the edge of a platform overlooking a propulsion gel depository. She pressed the button and watched globs of thick orange gel drip from the pipe, splattering helplessly on the ground. The sound distantly ricocheted through the aged test chamber, and the clearness, profoundness of the sound was almost unnerving.
Aperture Science had never been this quiet, she was sure.
"You humans are so obsessed with immortality. You think you have the power to overcome the force of death, and you will do whatever it takes to validate that impossible ideation. You claim it's for the sake of 'science', but the stones on which you trod to achieve that goal aren't stones at all." GLaDOS paused. Chell tilted her head like a crow infatuated with a shiny object would, just as interested by GLaDOS's sudden vulnerability as she were by the philosophical nature of her nearly emotionless expression.
"I wasn't the only one, you know."
The thump of the gel making its way through the pipe stopped. The dripping of the gel stopped. Chell's quiet breaths quieted further. Even GLaDOS fell silent once more, leaving the idea hanging in the air like a balloon filled with water, only waiting to be popped. It didn't take long for the proverbial needle to find its mark, digging deep into the rubber flesh of the balloon and raining rancid water down. If Chell was not already accustomed to the atrocities Aperture Science endorsed, she might've popped herself, the exhaustion—physical, mental, emotional—finally getting to her. Unfortunately, that was not the case, and the registration of GLaDOS's loaded statement reinvigorated her as much as the propulsion gel did.
She was talking about the personality cores. The cores that scientists had made to regulate her—that dark blue intelligence core, that red anger core, that orange curiosity core, that purple morality core leeching off of GLaDOS's technological brain like a parasite.
"Death is man's biggest fear and immortality its worst vice," GLaDOS spoke, her tone resigned yet restless, intrigued yet uninterested. Chell couldn't blame her for this emotional confusion. After all, Chell's consciousness was not squeezed into a Genetic Life and Disc Operating System, so to blame GLaDOS for feeling whatever she was feeling would be, to put it simply, wrong. Chell didn't think she'd blame GLaDOS either way, even if it were considered morally correct. As much as the robot and human had fought, bickered, and argued, they'd still nurtured some sort of bond, some sort of relationship that kept them bound to one another, no matter their distance (a bit of reflection led her to realize how damning this statement would be if anyone heard… seriously, who said that about their enemy?).
Nevertheless, the situation was horrible all around, and there was absolutely no way to deny such a statement so fundamentally true in nature. But the horror of it did not come from the cause, but by the effect and the aftermath. As rotten as Aperture and Cave Johnson were, as sour as a lemon at its ripest, there was no way to go back and change things. One, because loopholes could rip apart time and space, but two, because it would just happen again. Cave Johnson would just try again. Aperture Science would just. Try. Again.
Sure, somewhere, in the fabric of time and in the vastness of space, maybe Chell and GLaDOS never met. Maybe Caroline lived, and GLaDOS was nothing more than a supercomputer, an artificial intelligence ran by lines of binary code instead of a human conscience transformed into ones and zeros. Chell's eyes wandered back to the potato, speared crudely on her portal gun out of haste, and she sighed, rising to her feet to emphasize the point she was about to make.
Just as she recalled the signs for the words she wanted to convey to the A.I, a tremor rocked the facility, nearly causing her to slip off of the platform she sat upon. A nauseating feeling of distracted balance flooded her brain from her ears and she scrambled to get both feet back on the ground, explosions overwhelming her ears with ringing despite her distant proximity to the source. Whatever Wheatley was doing up there… she had no more time to dawdle, even on the wellbeing of her companion or the wellbeing of herself.
Once the shaking of the building calmed, she jumped off of the platform as GLaDOS's optic flickered with speech, "Look, this conversation has been great and I appreciate your worry, but that little idiot is getting closer and closer to tearing my facility to the ground. We need to go, now." Chell nodded in affirmation, though it was somewhat difficult to decipher the exact words over the echoing tinnitus in her ears.
Fortunately, Chell had already solved the puzzle. It was decently simple; propulsion gel here, there, jump, get cube, go back, put cube on button, blah blah blah, nothing she hadn't done before. This time was different, though. She moved fast, not just from the propulsion gel, and no longer motivated by the tantalizing thought of freedom, but instead by a strange urge to preserve this place, as much as it deserved to be torn down. Perhaps it was the thought that humans would simply repeat the same thing again if there was no evidence of how wrong it had gone the last time, if society were ever rebuilt, or maybe, she just wanted to help GLaDOS, who was not quite a friend but hardly an enemy either at this point.
Regardless of her motivation, she moved urgently, with haste, as subtler explosions thundered in the background. Into portal, out of portal, hit button, go through door. It would've been the same monotonous flatline as all the tests before it if the explosive ambience and the exigency of the situation were missing from the equation.
She moved forward at a steady pace, her speed not once faltering nor increasing, as she sprinted fast along the molded, rotten, rusty, no-good structures before they could give out under her, on the off chance that the explosions were enough to finally bring the ruins of 1970's Aperture to the ground. GLaDOS was expressionless, as she was forced to be, and she was silent as she had interchangeably been through their journey. But this silence was not brought on by disgust and sadness and nostalgia, but instead by the intensity of the situation, just as determined as Chell was to go go go, until they reached Wheatley and got GLaDOS back in the body she belonged in; the central core.
The few lights that remained lit as she ran flickered like a warning of what was about to come, like a withered old oracle would whisper premonitions over her crystal ball, and the worst explosion yet wracked the facility. It reverberated through her bones, weaving through her tendons and squirming through her tense, strained muscles. She bit down hard on her tongue, drawing the metallic taste of blood into her mouth. The sheer force with which the building shook gave way to a primal fear, an instinctual panic driven from the need to survive. If not for herself, then at least for GLaDOS and for the sake of Aperture Science.
"Oh my Science, what is he doing up there? What is he doing to my facility?" GLaDOS despaired as Chell braced herself against a pedestal, careful not to press the button at its apex, even if the worst it could do was fill the room with gel. Chell had no time to even think of a response to GLaDOS's clearly rhetorical question, raising her portal gun to fire a blue portal on the accepting wall ahead of her, on a separate platform sticking up like a watch tower, and an orange one under the propulsion gel receptacle. The placement of her portals was wonky, as the building was still shaken by the slightly less brutal attacks on the higher parts of the structure, but she managed. She pressed the button and thick globs of orange gel painted a path for her to run across, though she would only dive into the poisonous water below without a third of the path farthest from her smothered in repulsion gel. As she replaced her portals, she was careful to avoid the splash zone, not wanting to undergo the near endless torment she had to endure when the gel had last brushed her skin.
Once the echo of the rattling explosion subsided, Chell steadied herself on both feet and slid onto the propulsion gel, running with increasing speed until she reached the splatter of blue at the end, propelling forward in the air so fast that she just barely hit the platform without breaking a bone or two. The metal railing shook with a cacophonous sound once she made contact, the force and power behind her landing startling the walkway and causing it to shake. Thankfully, no part of the watchtower-esque structure faltered, and she walked around it on the unstable metal mesh that still buzzed under her feet. She peered below her, at the busted pathway sitting around the nape of the structure like a necklace, a near copy of where she currently stood, give or take some rust.
On the opposite side of the opaque watchtower was a gap missing in the rail, giving Chell easy access to the main platform, where she could shoot through a portal on this side and reach the exit.
"Hm. It's quiet now. I think we have a moment before that moron finds something else to destroy," GLaDOS commented, her words seeming much clearer in the silence that had since befallen the room once the explosions had ended, void of the panic before. "You should rest. Our chances of beating him are low, and that's with some generous rounding, but you being exhausted will not help our odds."
Chell had not expected GLaDOS to recommend her rest, especially because it was something she had never, ever offered Chell during her time as a GLaDOS's subject, but it was a suggestion she agreed to, despite her past scorn at dawdling . Even with the propulsion gel pumping a concerning amount of adrenaline through her bloodstream, Chell was still exhausted mentally and emotionally. Too many emotions had been felt, and too many things had happened. She could feel a headache brewing in the cauldron of her skull, melting her brain into stew.
And so, she sat against a wall. She gave a thankful thumbs-up and nod to GLaDOS, then closed her eyes for the first time in what felt like forever.
Chell slept. Not quite peacefully, but not entirely dreadfully, either. There were no dreams, and she would not remember GLaDOS's robotic humming by the time she woke, but until then, the sound of the A.I's melodic, melancholic, wordless murmuring provided some solace in the unfathomable inkwell of her fleeting rest.