#“cave johnson never died! he's been a giant head the whole time!”

[bixels]

If you're getting back into a portal kick and want something that has the same vibe while also being fresh and still Portal, I would recommend you check out the Portal 2 mod "Portal Stories: Mel". It's very good and takes place just before the events of Portal 2. You play as one of the athletes Aperture used in the early days who was testing out a cryostasis pod that no one remembered to set an alarm for.

I've played it! It was pretty good, I enjoyed the experience.

[fleechin]

Separatory Funnel

Here’s my 2020 Portal Secret Santa for @artistyutaki, she offered a few prompts but one that I thought was interesting was Chell and GLaDOS/PotatOS hiding from Wheatley in the later chapters of Portal 2. I thought I might as well tie it into some of Chell’s thoughts about the ordeal, while also showing what Wheatley’s up to. I also noticed she was interested in the idea of computer gore, with plates and cables all over the place, so I tried to incorporate a bit of that in as well. I also threw in a tiny nod to Mel and Blue Sky since she mentioned she’s a Blue Sky fan. So this ended up being longer than I thought, and it’s my first time writing a proper fanfic of sorts, but I really hope you like this! I had a great time making it!

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This was not the best place to be in right now. 

Not that it ever was down here, but where Chell was at this exact moment was especially not great. She didn’t complain though, it could always get worse. Actually, it usually did get worse, especially right about when she would wonder if it ever could. Perhaps it was best not to ask that question right about now. Sure, she had just fallen from a deactivated funnel and landed in a dark office whose only door was blocked by overturned desks, monitors, and furniture, which happened to be heavy enough that it’d be a pain in the back to move but for whatever reason the Portal Gun didn’t want to pick up. On the bright side, at least she didn’t fall all the way back down to the 1950s again.

Realistically though, knowing Aperture, it was bound to get worse no matter what she did. If even superstition was anywhere near reliable at this point, it would have been an improvement compared to everything else in this insane complex that somehow had only gotten stranger and more… alien-like, almost, after its founder had died of moon rock poisoning. At least the idea of a set of metal underground spheres laced with asbestos and full of half finished test chambers, the brainchild of a man proudly named Cave, was somewhat navegable. There was an understanding that if one were to see some place and travel far enough in that direction, they would eventually get to that place. If that place moved downwards in freefall, it would be because of the design of the facility, not some sarcastic supercomputer trying to keep her testing while calling her fat.

This bundle of desks, chairs and monitors was somehow all tangled up, with the wires going all over the place. It looked like she would have to either pull the whole thing at once or remove each one separately.

The recordings she heard from Cave Johnson painted a general picture, though they didn’t get awfully specific. But seeing as ground up moon rocks were all the rage down here back in those days, and hearing Cave coughing while ranting about lemons for some reason, it wasn’t difficult for her to figure out exactly how they managed to finally bring down the founder of Aperture. The real surprise? That somehow every other employee at Aperture hadn’t inhaled the stuff and keeled over. It had to have been a possibility, as there was no way that anyone smart enough to work a portal gun would have taken it upon themselves to design any part of this place without being crazy enough to consider the idea. 

This table was a lot heavier than it looked. Hopefully she could fold it over. It wasn’t exactly easy to see the parts that let the table fold on itself when it was this dark.

Could she have been one of those scientists? Chell couldn’t remember anything about herself before waking up under Her testing course, however long ago that was, or whether she was actually adopted, like every personality construct in this place seemed to think was a big deal. Any attempt at figuring out how she got down here would have to be based on guesswork. She was a test subject, which made her a likely employee at some point, though if Her insults were anything to go by, she was only a part time employee. Not committed to this job, just doing it on the side to make ends meet.

She finally managed to fold the damn table, and began to drag it out of the way.

At least that meant she wasn’t some Olympian from the 60s who got tricked into going here. Or a homeless person that got plucked off the streets of some town in Upper Michigan all for the promises of $60 at the end. She wasn’t sure how much that would be in today’s money, but wasn’t about to get optimistic. The real downside to it all was that she never would be able to figure it out. She didn’t even know how long it had been other than that it was long enough to concern Wheatley about brain damage, and even if there were information available about her and why she was here to begin with, she didn’t want to go out of her way to find it. Her main goal was getting out of here as quickly as possible, so there was no time for expositional detours. 

At most, she could stumble upon her backstory without looking for it. Figuring out what happened to Caroline was enough for one day, or however long it had been since she had last gotten some sleep. Besides, it would probably be a huge letdown anyway. Maybe she really was adopted after her birth parents considered her completely unlikeable even as a baby. Maybe her last name was something boring, like Smith. Or Jones. Maybe her name wasn’t even Chell at all. But hey, at least it wasn’t Cave. Hopefully.

Of course, she could just ask the supercomputer turned potato battery where she came from. Yes, that would be a great idea, confiding in who up until recently was her own worst enemy about a detail that She had constantly made fun of. She definitely wouldn’t take advantage of that fact and tell her all about how little Miss Chell SmithJonesWhatever couldn’t hold a single job until she came here because everyone hated her. They seemed to be on good terms now, but she wasn’t going to risk jinxing herself. Besides, she had a rule. No talking in Aperture. Nothing that any AI said was ever worth a response. 

So the lights didn’t work in this room anymore. Phenomenal.

Regardless, even though it still didn’t explain whether she was one of the employees, part time, or otherwise, who might have almost inhaled ground up rocks that cost anywhere from a TV to a house - she wasn’t about to do the math to figure anything more precise than that - it was at least clear that she had made it into Aperture under vaguely legitimate pretenses, and that they considered her smart enough to get her hands on a machine that, in the right hands, could’ve solved the world’s climate crisis by generating free energy. It was damning with faint praise.

Which just so happened to summarize the remarks from her semi edible companion. Not directed at her, for once, rather the situation at hand. Neither one of them were the most frequent of talkers, but She was more willing to comment on the situation. Funny enough, once they happened to agree with each other, Chell could reasonably rely on her as somewhat of a spokesperson. 

“After seeing what he's done to my facility, after we take over again, is it alright if I kill him?” 

Chell looked over at the glowing yellow circle, the only part of Her she could actually make out in the darkness of the room, and could only shrug her shoulders. Do whatever you want, she would have said. Frankly, as much as the two had been getting along, Chell wasn’t about to act like this was some new found friendship between the two. As far as she was concerned, the facility deserved to explode in a mushroom cloud with a giant blast radius. The bigger the better. If she was lucky, it would kill Her, Wheatley, and every other personality construct. Just as long as she wasn’t there for it. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Since he was connected to the mainframe, Wheatley had been trying to figure out how to work this new body. Now that his only test subject was missing, admittedly due to a mistake on his part, he could explore further. There had to at least be some way to hack the solution euphoria program. But until then, the next order of business was to redesign his lair to his own liking. Not too bad a job She did, but it didn’t quite have the Wheatley style to it. Needed a bit more work. Namely, getting rid of that stalemate button. No way that could remain. 

“Right, so, asking the announcer... voice... guy... didn’t seem to do anything.” He said out loud, “Guess he didn’t quite understand what I was getting at. Hmm, wait a minute, maybe if I go and change this setting, then- Это программное обеспечение повреждено. Удалите его и обратитесь к администратору. Aaaand, nope, still there. Hasn’t even budged a little bit. Guess that didn’t work.”

He then remembered the complexities of hacking the neurotoxin emitters and thought he might start there. “Oh, um hello, Mister button, there.” He said in an accent beyond the rage of any human’s hearing, “I’m a representative of the mechanical parts… association, and we are inviting you to a… convention! Yes, a convention, with all sorts of members, cubes, turrets, even other buttons! And we’d like to invite you! Full expenses paid, shuttle bus straight there to the convention. And there’s going to be a whole panel on buttons! Who knows, they might even have you as a guest speaker! All you have to do is head straight down to the lowest part of the facility! That’s where the bus is! Just head on down there and you’re good to go!”

The button didn’t budge. 

“Not one for conventions I guess? Perhaps you’re more of an introverted sort of button. Doesn’t mind being pressed but also fine with staying where he is.”

Wheatley, being the genius he knew he was, figured he ought to look in the old tapes to see what Her old room looked like. Ever since She had been killed, the facility had been in some disarray, of that much Wheatley was well aware. The relaxation center had taken a hit, for sure, and it seemed the rest of the facility was none the better. Wheatley wondered how long it had been, and though he probably could have figured it out, this new interface wasn’t exactly what he would have considered user friendly. 

Come to think of it, he could figure out a few things at once by going through the recordings. For one, he could figure out what Her old room looked like and what She had done about this pesky little button. Or more interestingly, how her whole room got destroyed just from being shut down, that was always a mystery there. 

All he could find were tapes, and they didn’t seem too promising. Just video feeds of the room, none of which showed if the button was there at all or what she had done with it. Maybe skipping around a bit would work, perhaps it would show something. Nothing so far…

Wait a minute now, here were the tapes of when She was killed. Yes, this was definitely the same test subject all right. Silent as always, she was. Maybe her brain damage was pre-existing.

Well this was concerning. Neither neurotoxin nor the built in rocket turret defense station was enough to even faze her. All that nameless lunatic needed were a couple of seemingly easy portals and in less than the required six minutes She was dead. 

If that silent test subject was still alive, she could find any flaw in his lair design and it’d be bye bye Wheatley. 

First immediate order of business, no portal surfaces anywhere in the lair. That shouldn’t be too hard, just meant he would have to move some panels around. There, piece of cake, only a few panels detached and falling off. That was probably normal.

“Right, no portal surfaces anywhere. Check that off the list. Ding! Next we can- OW! Great, another panel just went and fell right out of the ceiling. Hit me right in the… to be honest I’m not sure what this part of me even is. Doesn’t really look like it does anything useful. Tell you what, how about I take this part off, don’t really need it do we? Won’t be hurting anymore, I imagine. Here we go, unscrewing… and done!”

The offending plate came off of his right side, pulling down several attached cables right out of their sockets, leaving them to dangle around and coil around the floor like snakes. Snakes that occasionally gave out electrical sparks. That probably existed somewhere in nature. Electric snakes. Maybe unicrons ate them. Wheatley made a mental note to look that up, right after learning how to play cards. 

“OK, wow that was actually pretty painful. Guess they don’t simulate any anaesthetic in this thing. Aaand now the lights are flickering on and off. Those are the lights, right? The flashlight doesn’t seem to be helping, so maybe I killed that too. That’s probably normal. Happens sometimes. That’ll probably fix itself.”

In the meantime, he at least had time to see what else was in Her old archives. Maybe there was a guide to fixing whatever was going on. Nope, nothing there. He did find an old security protocol system. Aperture Employee Guardian and Intrusion System, it was called. Interesting, that could help make sure she never got anywhere near his lair. Wait, no, that system was shut down locally. Before She went back online even. Odd, not clear who did that. What else was there… Oh, hang on a minute. The Cooperative Testing Initiative. That sounded useful. Wheatley kept reading. 

Yes, these two little bots seemed to be the fix for everything. As soon as he could he had one of each type assembled and sent straight up to his lair. 

“Hello! Right, so I understand you guys are built for testing, and what have you. So, I have selected you two to be my next testers. I need a few favors from you two though. See those cables down there? The ones that are kind of sparking there a bit? Those? Yeah, ever since I unhooked those, the lights have been flickering on and off.”

Blue looked at Orange, somewhat confused.

“You guys don’t see it? Wait, it just happened again real quick right there.”

Orange shook its head.

“So that might just be my optic sputtering out then. Yeah, that’s not great. Either way, I need you guys to try and get those back into me so I can see again. Now you might be wondering why I can’t just use those grabbers of mine and do it myself? Turns out, if I ever try to fix myself without someone else to help out, I’ll die. So you guys will have to do it for me.”

They both suddenly appeared nervous, and Blue slowly approached the bundle of wires. They sent out a spark and they both flinched. Upon reaching the wire, Blue picked up the first one, which went back in without a hitch. The second one was still going through the exterior plate that Wheatley had just unscrewed off. Pulling it as hard as possible didn’t work. Orange, annoyed, went up and pushed Blue out of the way, then slowly pulled out the cable and stuck it back in. By now the flickering was still happening, but only in randomly appearing colors.

“Great! OK now just one more to go! Home stretch!”

Orange was ready to pick up the last cable, but Blue, unrelenting, snatched it out of Orange’s grasp, and emphatically plugged it in. And then the flickering stopped.

“You did it! Bingo! Oh, man alive, that’s much better. Aaand now it seems you guys are knocking each other’s heads out of their… socket, things, whatever they’re called. Not really getting anything productive out of that, besides I kinda need you guys for something else.”

Neither Blue nor Orange were hearing it though. Once they had decided to play the classic game of Knock the Other Bot’s Head Off, there was little that could stop the competition. For personality constructs designed to get along, they did this a lot.

“Ahem, knock knock, anybody there?!”

It was getting heated. Now Blue was running around with Orange’s head, Orange’s body trying to chase after it but only managing to flail around miserably due to lack of eyes.

“ENOUGH!”

Wheatley hadn’t had an outburst like that in a while. It was a little easier when his only test subject and her potato weren’t driving him up the wall smashing his monitors and not giving him the relief when he wanted it. But the lack of test solution euphoria was starting to make its presence known once more, and it made him impatient as ever. Both bots stopped to look over, then Orange snatched its head and put it back on, glancing angrily at Blue.

“You know, there are bots in orphanages that don't even have heads to steal. Maybe think about how lucky you two are and stop fiddling around like that, yeah?”

They both looked at each other, shrugged the mechanical equivalent of their shoulders and gave each other a quick hug. Wheatley didn’t understand how they could forgive each other so quickly, but he wasn't about to object.

“Right, so, what I need you guys to do is see if we can find any neurotoxin reserves. Ever since I hacked the main factory, genius, I know; we haven’t had any neurotoxin to dispense. So I’m building you a testing course that should lead to where the neurotoxin facility was to see if you can find any clues. Alright, Go team!”

Several panels cleared out of the way to reveal two elevators facing each other, one blue and one orange. The bots looked at each other before taking off and heading to the disassembly machines. In less than a minute they had reached the first test, a simple introductory course with a laser and a redirection cube. And no test of Wheatley’s would be complete without his signature, the word TEST written in lights on the wall. 

These two were smart enough to have figured out how to solve it rather quickly, and Wheatley immediately felt the rush of solution euphoria. Whether it was the amount of time since he had last felt it or because he was testing new subjects, this felt much better than the last few tests he had gotten his other subject to try. Now he could focus on the text task, seeing if there was a trap he could build, just in case those two weren’t dead. Getting rid of the button would have to wait. Maybe if they found some turrets or explosives to keep anyone from reaching it, that could work as a solution. For a little while at least.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Having cleared out all the tables, chairs, and any other debris lying around in what was once an office, Chell could finally get through to the other side and out the door. And the potato on her gun had done a great job at keeping her company. 

“Oh good, now we can get going again. Maybe we can find a way out of here.”

Chell picked up the portal gun and made her way out of the office. To her disappointment, the walkway just led down to the entryway to another test.

“Great, it looks like we’ll need to keep testing a little while longer. And I’m not sure we have that much more time left. Look on the bright side though. Maybe we’ll get to see more of that moron’s inventions. Maybe he’s gotten so desperate he’ll have tried to fuse a turret with a redirection cube and give it laser eyes.”

Chell couldn’t help but smile a bit at that. She resented that Wheatley had become like this, and somewhat missed him in a way, but it was nice to occasionally poke fun at his less than amazing intelligence.

“If a defective turret and a pile of trash had a baby, he would make an excellent pet for that baby.”

Chell’s smile grew slightly bigger and she chuckled silently. It was kind of nice to hear Her jokes while not also being the recipient. The classic insults thrown her way, that she was fat, adopted, unlikeable; those didn’t work on her at all. But they were at least well crafted, almost stand-up quality, though she never would have admitted that. Despite being a murderous former supercomputer with zero conscience up until this point, she did have a bit of a knack for humor. Chell would at least miss that when she left this place.

This was the end of the walkway, and Chell jumped down; her testing break was over. It was going to get tough before she finally did make it out of here.