#i took the ''less monochrome'' thing seriously but i can make alterations

[transingthoseformers]

So my current approximations of the sg RainMakers:

[tornrose24]

Three worded password (A CU Portal AU oneshot)

There’s a hidden test subject in the facility and George and Harold have no clue that three strange discoveries are they key to her freedom.

There’s a lot to discover when you have two sets of portal guns, two naturally curious and determined but easily bored boys, and a sadistic maniac forcing you to do test after test without stopping. The sterile look of Aperture Labs will eventually get to you and you will welcome any change of color besides the dull monochromes and blues and oranges.

George and Harold managed to ‘ruin’ another test as an act of defiance against Krupp to the point that they could hear him screaming and throwing a terrific tantrum in his domain, which meant he was not focusing on them. They took their chance to use the portal guns to sneak up into what appeared to be another hidden area that was barely in view. Careful aiming and timing granted the boys a brief moment of freedom and a new area to explore.

“It’s like you’re trying to give me a headache! WHICH IS WORKING!” They could  still hear Krupp’s projected voice. “I’m going to explode from a headache no thanks to you two! And then you’re going to have ‘committed a murder via headache induced by stupid reckless behavior’ on your files!”

The boys just laughed and continued on their way into the secret room. But upon entering it, they stopped laughing when they saw what was on the wall.

Painted upon the wall was a mural of a stick figure in some sort of strange metal and glass container. Whoever made it was a terrible artist and made Harold look like Rembrandt.

“Huh, wonder what it is.” George stated as he and Harold looked at it. “Hey... have I seen that before?” George struggled to think as Harold continued looking at the image, but nothing happened to make them remember.

Harold turned his head and saw something written on the side wall next to the mural. “‘George, look.” He pointed to the message.

“‘Can’t use this test subject.’” George read the frantic, yet desperate message. “‘No matter what, can not use it. Too valuable. Not fit for testing. Don’t let him free the subject.’” The last part had a line drawn under it for emphasis, followed by ‘save subject!!!’

“George, is there... you don’t think there’s another test subject like us in Aperture?” Harold nervously asked. “I thought we’re the only ones. Krupp said so.” 
“Krupp says anything.” George pointed out before noticing another message. “Azure skies, denim jeans, sapphire seas, cobalt space, cerulean oceans, robin’s egg... what do we all have in common?”

“Ok, now this is getting weird.” George shook his head. “Some weirdo must have made this.”

Harold stared at the message and tried to think. What did these things all have in common? He struggled to think–he barely remembered what a sky was supposed to look like. He didn’t know what a robin’s egg was. Sapphire... that was a jewel right? It almost reminded him of when the portal gun produced a certain colored portal–

“Blue!” Harold exclaimed. “These are all just another way of saying blue!”

“Really?” George was impressed before frowning. “But that still doesn’t make sense.”

“WHERE ARE YOU BRATS?! IF YOU GONE AND KILLED YOURSELF, THEN IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT NOT MINE!”

The boys gave each other a knowing look and sighed. It was time to head back.

They didn’t think too much of that until they found another room. Krupp had been distracted once again and they took their freedom as fast as they could.

They were happy to get a chance to rest–only to find the same mural of a figure in that container and it was just as bad as the last one.

“Again?” Harold raised an eyebrow at this as George read the message.

“‘Couldn’t save you in time, I should have told you to leave me. Now you’re stuck here in this nightmare with me. Can’t expect forgiveness. Can’t trust myself–too cowardly to risk it. I’m going to burn for this one day.’”

“Seriously, who made these?” Harold shuddered before George read the message at the bottom.

“‘Friends are a pair, splitting leads to twins, a team is a duo, lovebirds are a couple, eight minus six is–’” The rest was a blank.

George thought about this message and raised his hands up to count down with his fingers. “Eight minus six....” He paused and thought as he counted down his fingers with each one going down.

“Two.” He looked up. “This message is talking about twos.”

“So it’s like how that last message and all the things in it had something in common  with each other.” Harold thought.

They both didn’t think too much on it and sat down to rest for a few minutes.

By the time they found the third hidden room, they were more than sure that Krupp was feeding them lies.

They didn’t remember anything before they woke up as if their lives had been a blank. Despite whatever Krupp told them (that their parents abandoned them, that the world outside was a wasteland filled with useless, stupid people, that all they were good for was for testing and not drawing or telling stories) they had a feeling it was all a lie long before they figured it out. Much like the promise of freedom that they craved for than anything.

He was making it point clear that he would be keeping them locked up in this awful, boring place, no matter how many tests they had done, and he wouldn’t say why other than “Because I say so!” when pushed too far. Also the ‘tests’ were getting worse to the point that both boys had been pushed beyond their limits and were almost shot by turrets that were shaped more like toilets (to which the pain in their neck admitted that he didn’t know why they were designed like that, but they were a metaphor waiting to be used on the two if they didn’t hurry it up).

The only consolation they had was each other, and it was getting to the point that Krupp was noticing. The tests had less cooperation involved then usual. It was only a matter of time...

Both boys were sweaty, dirty, and George had a hole in his t-shirt from a close call by one of the turrets when they came upon this room. Once again the same mural greeted them along with another strange message.

“I want to see you again. I can’t see you again. No, too dangerous. Must forget these locations before the itch comes on. I want to see your smile and hear your voice.”

The boys didn’t bother to read the other message until they rested up for a few minutes and were too exhausted to even talk. Harold took out a small, but strange gray-white sphere with a blue light in it that he and George found earlier and tossed it in his hands for a bit while George stared up at the ceiling and tried to imagine life before this (he could barely make out two faces in the haze) before either of them looked at the next cryptic message.

“Will I ever again see the sky? Would I ever know what it’s like to fly? Perhaps it’d be better if I die? Perhaps the end is nigh. I hear myself sigh. Did I make her cry? Sometimes I ask myself ‘why?’ All they told us was a lie. They away so much, including my–”

Under the bizarre poem was a series of words to chose from and to fill in the blank space for the last line. This time both boys figured out what the missing word was within a few moments.

“Eye.” Harold pointed to the word in the word bank.

“Yup, it’s ‘eye.’” George agreed before grimacing. “They... took away my eye?”

“George this is freaking me out.” Harold shuddered. “Let’s leave this place.”

“Hang on a minute.” George turned to Harold. “What was the point of these puzzles? How does this relate to a missing subject? And how come Krupp never mentioned it?”

“Maybe he doesn’t know about it.” Harold thought over this. “We should mention it to him next time–”


“No.” George denied. “I have a feeling he shouldn’t know. Especially if there’s something we don’t know.”

Harold hummed as he traced his fingers against some lettering on the sphere: ‘Intelligence Dampening Sph–’ the rest had been rubbed off. Had he known that the object was going to be one of many keys to freedom, he would have treated it with more care.

Neither boy would be able to solve the mystery anytime soon–especially when they finally confronted their tormentor in his domain and saw him face to face. He almost looked more machine than man though being connected to multiple cables and wires woven through a mechanical ‘throne’ thanks to what appeared to be ports scattered across his back and in the back of his head. One quarter of his face was seemingly taken over by a white and black thing with some sort of yellow optic where one eye should have been (forcing him to see in binary, numbers, and the world around him in yellow monochrome, alongside what his more human-like eye could see).

Especially when he tricked them into destroying the morality core shoved into his chest via a nearby incinerator–the very thing that forced him to follow ‘their’ rules and regulations and not lash out, no matter what the name implied–which he himself could not, thanks to a restraint that had been forced into his mentality. Now he was at the point that he didn’t care if the boys lived or died (for whatever happened to them would be revenge upon their parents for not stopping those who ran this place in time).

Especially when the boys used all they learned against him and pulled off a prank (with the help of the portals) by shoving the Intelligence Dampening Sphere into his chest where the morality core used to be. When the whole area exploded, when they found themselves gazing at the sky before an escort robot could drag them back to be put in stasis.

But they both would chose each other over freedom. They could not imagine escaping at the cost of leaving the other behind.

Soon they’d be awakened at some point later on by a cheerful face who was both familiar and not quite. A face with a slightly altered appearance with a blue light in his eye and a familiar sphere shoved into his chest.

It was only after a few hours of exploration, a moment of revenge by taking the core in and out of their new friend to turn him back to his old self with each removal, that they would come upon a familiar sight.

The boys were now in a unique area filled with stasis chambers and these ones were different. Located in a small room that seemed surprisingly well cared for, these chambers were all familiar to them–they were the chambers that were depicted in the murals that once puzzled the boys, yet only one was occupied.

“George, look!” Harold pulled his friend to look at this particular chamber. A woman in her very late twenties to early-or-mid-thirties was sleeping inside, with dark hair covering half of a face that had a light sprinkle of freckles, and she was dressed in a dark pink dress with an apron bearing the Aperture logo across her chest. There also seemed to be handprint smudges upon the outside of glass that sealed her in, but the boys were drawn to what was smack dab on the middle of the container.

It looked like a keyboard with letters and numbers with a screen on it.

“I guess there was someone down here after all!” George exclaimed as he and Harold didn’t know whether to be excited or horrified for the sleeping woman’s sake.

“Yeah, I guess so.” Harold then went up to the keyboard and tried pressing something to see what would happen. The screen flashed red colored words against the black screen in response.

‘SUBJECT WILL ONLY AWAKEN FROM STASIS UPON ENTERING THE CORRECT THREE WORDED PASSWORD. TYPE IN PASSWORD TO AWAKEN SUBJECT. PRESS ENTER’ FOR EACH WORD.’ The screen then displayed a blinking red bar.

“Oh wow,” Harold grimaced as he looked at George. “I have no clue what that could be.”

“Aperture Science... Labs?” George suggested and typed it in.

‘ERROR.’

“Ok, not that one.” George shook his head.

“Cake is lie?” Harold typed in, only to be greeted with ‘ERROR’.

“Dance banana dance?”

“Krupp’s a jerk?”

“Furry taco shell?”

“Lemons are explosive?”

“Wicked wedgie woman?”

“Potato powered battery?”

“Bird’s the word?”

Each one was met with an ‘ERROR.’

“ARGH!” George threw his hands in the air. “It could be anything!” He and Harold struggled to think of the possible passwords in addition to wondering why it had to be so hard to awaken the woman inside.

“Wait a minute.” Harold thought back to the murals and how this chamber looked like the ones that were depicted upon the walls. “Remember those murals from awhile ago? I think they might have to do with this. There were three in total–”

“They were giving us the password!” George caught on and his eyes sparkled. “Those messages must have been giving us the answers!”

Harold struggled to recount. “The first one listed different kinds of blue... one of the words is ‘blue.’”

“Ok, ok,” George thought. “The second one was the use of two... the answer was ‘two!’”

“And then the last one was a poem.” Harold struggled harder. “What were the words used? Fly, lie, cry, sigh– eye! The word was ‘eye!’”

“Blue... two... eye...” George thought on this. “Eye... two... blue... two blue... eye... No if there was more then one it would need to be ‘eyes’ not ‘eye.’”

“Well, lets give it a shot.” Harold was optimistic and steeped aside to let George type it in. He nervously typed each word in (the words that spelled out ‘two blue eyes’) and after pressing enter one last time, dots appeared on the screen and he stepped back towards Harold.

There was a click and the lettering became green. ‘PASSWORD ACCEPTED. AWAKENING SUBJECT.’ The screen said to the joy of the boys who felt victorious at the accomplishment.

A blast of hair blew into the woman and made her clothes ripple before the door swung open. Whatever kept her suspended mid air vanished and made her collapse into a crumble upon the floor.

“Quickly, let’s get her out!” Harold rushed to her aid and with the help of George, they got the woman out as fast as they could. She was heavy, but they managed to get her out with much care.

“We did it!” George cried out when they rested the woman on the floor.

“We did!” Harold exclaimed as the woman began to stir. “We–she’s waking up!” He freaked out as the woman’s eyelids began to flutter open, revealing a striking set of the bluest eyes that the two had ever seen.

“Hey, are you ok?” Harold knelt beside the woman who was struggling with wakening up.

“Where... am...” She voice was weak from lack of use as she tried to look at the two. “Ben.” Her voice became urgent. “Where... where’s Ben... where....?” She pleaded.

“Hey guys, what’s taking so long?!” A cheerful voice from down a hallway asked.

The woman could see that the boys panicked a little at the sound of the voice. “Do you think we should–?” Harold asked.

“As long as we don’t take the sphere out of him.” George turned to the woman. “Hey it’s ok, we’ll get you out of here!” He promised her.

“No...” The woman felt sleep coming over her. “Ben..jamin... they still have...”

The woman heard someone charging down the hallway and she couldn’t get her eyes to open when Harold called out. “We need you to help carry someone!”

The woman then slipped in and out of consciousness as she thought she heard a somewhat familiar voice talking to the boys. The last thing she recalled before falling back to sleep was someone–a man, she guessed–picking her up and gently cradling her in his arms. She was close enough to fell his heart beat and the last thing she could make out when she opened her eyes a crack was something blue on his chest before the darkness took over again.

The woman was fine for now and would soon wake up. Unfortunately for her and the boys, her rescuers did something they probably shouldn’t have done–awoken the test subject that Krupp had wanted to awaken for a very long time.

Just not while the addiction to test was still a part of him.

-The itch is also known as the ‘urge to test’ in Portal 2. I combined what I knew of both games for this one. I don’t intend on making a full on fan fic (plus I have some things that need to be finished, like the Corpse Bride AU). But it would be a good AU to revisit. Also, now you know what the password is. :)