Blackness. Heavy breathing.

Chell's heart pounded as she ran through the facility. The sharp scent of adrenal vapor curled into her nose, spreading to every nerve. Adrenal vapor? Wasn't that supposed to be off? She dismissed the thought almost as soon as it arrived. Clearly GLaDOS had lied about that, because she could smell it so distinctly, even in the areas outside the testing chambers—like right now.

The vapor was too strong. Chell couldn't think straight, and that just compounded the feelings of anxiety coursing through her veins. Her fingers trembled with an unnatural burst of energy.

"Hello-o?"

"Are you still there?"

Sickeningly sweet voices called out to her, but the lights blinded her. She squinted and raised her free hand to shield her eyes. Before she could even focus on the red lights streaking across the room, beads of crimson locked on to her.

Bang bang bang bang bang.

She turned away, but everything was too slow. She could barely move, like her legs were drudging through heavy water.

Pain.

The bullets ripped into her skin, and Chell collapsed, agony spiking through her body. She gasped, crying out, until suddenly—

—she was awake. Pain streaked down her side, a reminder of the real-life damage she'd endured.

Loud notes chimed.

"Good morning," the announcer chirped. "You have been resting for eight hours."

Chell stared at the ceiling, eyes adjusting to the simulated daylight. Her body trembled, and she stretched out her limbs to try to soothe the feeling. Her hair was fanned out on the pillow, radiating from her as if she were underwater.

Chell didn't understand why GLaDOS insisted on waking her up every morning instead of letting her wake up naturally. It wasn't like she slept the full time anyway—she was lucky if she got a few hours of sleep per night. The rest was spent staring out the window at the vastness of the facility, or lying in bed and looking up at the ceiling. She also didn't really get why she had to stick so closely to a schedule, even as she recovered.

She inched herself out of bed and made her way over to the closet, catching sight of herself in the mirror. Her long brown hair streamed out behind her, a bit wild from the night. She looked at the loose hair band dangling from her wrist.

Maybe she wouldn't put up her hair today.

She associated her usual hairstyle—the classic ponytail—so much with testing. Now that she wasn't testing, it didn't matter to her to keep her hair back and out of her eyes.

As she was instructed to do every morning, Chell replaced the bandages on her side. A large, reusable elastic bandage was wrapped around her torso, keeping the smaller and more disposable bandages in place.

She heard a loud knock on the door.

Pulling her shirt back down and over the bandages, Chell made her way down the narrow entrance to the room and opened the door.

GLaDOS smiled, taking a step forward. Chell stepped aside and let her in.

She waited for the supercomputer to say something, but the robot was just…staring at her. Her built-in fans whirred, and she opened her mouth and then closed it.

"You look," she paused, "different."

Chell shrugged.

GLaDOS took a moment, but then continued. "I want to go back down there, just to go through some of the other offices. If this area is going to be a part of my facility, then it needs to be cleaned up a bit."

They made their way to the elevator that connected them to the 90's section of Aperture. It was quite a walk, but nothing more than Chell was used to. The elevator ride was quiet. Chell tucked her dark hair behind her ears absently.

The elevator stopped a little earlier than normal today. Their ride down wasn't as far as normal, apparently. Chell, having made sure to have gotten into the elevator last and thus standing close to the door, exited first.

"I've been looking at my schematics, and there's a few rooms that require a keycard to enter. Now, I don't know what makes these rooms so special, so I want to find out. And you're going to help me. But first, we need to clean up this mess."

GLaDOS did not elaborate until they turned the corner. On the side of the building, Chell spotted a date: 1999. They moved into a pitch black office. GLaDOS activated the lights.

Chell staggered, raising a hand to shield her eyes. The brightness—it made her heart rate spike. It reminded her of the modern Enrichment Center's lighting. She blinked and her eyes adjusted to the brightness, and her heartbeat slowed just a bit. It was okay. She wasn't in a test chamber. At least, not right now.

It took her a moment to actually settle her gaze on the office when a jolt of fear zipped up her back.

There were skeletons in this office. Bodies with clothes still on them.

"I took the pleasure of hooking up an incinerator chute just outside. So, you know. We can make this as efficient as possible."

Chell shook her head. No. She wasn't going to lift a bunch of bones and throw them into an incinerator.

"Fine. Blue and Orange will help me, then. They at least care about being helpful. Unlike you."

Chell started to shuffle through some papers, not really sure as to what she was supposed to be doing instead.

"Can you at least search through the," GLaDOS hesitated, "jackets to find their keycards? The more we can collect, the better chances we have at getting into those rooms."

Chell didn't feel much more comfortable digging through the pockets of dead people, but at least she wouldn't have to get her hands as dirty. This wasn't her mess to clean up—it was GLaDOS's.

P-body and ATLAS entered, pushing what looked like a large cart.

"Don't feel sorry for them," said GLaDOS, gesturing at the bodies. "They had their chances. Many chances. I offered to enroll them all in a mandatory employee testing initiative, but these people refused." GLaDOS sighed.

Chell gave GLaDOS a look. That didn't excuse killing off so many scientists. They couldn't have all done something wrong. They couldn't have all deserved a grisly death.

"Don't give me that look," she said. "You have to understand—I am built to test. It's my purpose. Without testing, I—" she broke off. "Well, let's just say I'm looking forward to you healing."

Chell nodded.

"Now can you do something useful and get me those badges?"

Chell dipped her head. Yes, she supposed that this was something that she could do. A bit macabre, sure, but it wasn't the worst thing that she'd seen at Aperture. She approached the closest skeleton. It was wearing a labcoat, and an ID badge dangled from the front of it. Chell reached across the body and pulled it off with a puff of dust. She sneezed, then she wiped the card on the leg of her jumpsuit, holding it up to get a better look.

Christopher M Pham

There was a serious-looking photo next to it, an Aperture logo, and a black stripe across the back side.

A flash of an image came to her mind. A man, talking. A man that looked just like this picture, but in three dimensions. Chell closed her eyes for a moment, struggling to grasp onto the image. But the quality of it was like an old VHS tape. She couldn't make out what the man was saying or why he was talking to her.

Then, as quickly as it arrived, the image was gone. Chell took one final look at the card and then tucked it into her pocket. That was one thing she did like about the jumpsuits—they had pockets.

She moved on to the other skeletons, yanking off badges and putting them into her pockets. A few more times she experienced the same visual phenomenon—like her brain was struggling to remember something.

Why did she have memories of these Aperture employees?

She heard some shuffling and some robotic beeps and chips and squeals. When she looked up, she saw ATLAS and P-body hitting each other with what looked like human femurs.

"Hey," said GLaDOS. "Knock it off."

The robots made sad noises, tossing the bones into the cart with a clatter. Not sure what to think about what she'd just seen, Chell turned back to her work.

By the time Chell was about halfway through the room, GLaDOS had taken a break from hauling bones and was at a computer. This time, though, a cord from her body was plugged in to it. Images flashed across the screen, faster than Chell could comprehend. She was searching for something—and that made Chell's stomach start to churn.

When she dropped another load of badges at the desk where GLaDOS was, the supercomputer paused. "Oh, wonderful," she said. "I've been cross-referencing the names on these badges with the employee records—none of them are useful so far, but I did find that there's an employee with higher access who died not far from here. In a test chamber."

Chell raised her eyebrows, trying to push down the feeling in the pit of her stomach.

"A particularly difficult test for a particularly difficult man," she said. "So I kept the test. As a memento. But I'm busy right now—could you go and fetch the badge for me?"

Chell hesitated. A test chamber? Was GLaDOS serious?

"Don't worry," she said. "The chamber in question is offline. You will not be forced to complete it."

Chell's insides still screamed. Trap. This had to be a trap. Why else would GLaDOS want her to get into a testing chamber?

"It's perfectly safe," said GLaDOS. "The doors will remain open."

Chell sighed. She still wasn't entirely sure about this.

"I'll show you where it is on the map—you won't get lost. I hope."

Chell looked at the computer screen and at the map of the facility. It was zoomed in to this area. It looked like it was a few floors beneath them, and down a few twists and turns in the hallways. Nothing she couldn't handle. She hoped.

"Here. You'll need this," GLaDOS said, almost as an afterthought. With a wave of her hand, she summoned one of the co-op bots over. They handed over Chell's dual portal device.

Bright.

The lights flashed on with a loud click and a deep, rumbling hum as Chell entered the test chamber. Her breath hitched, and her free hand curled into a fist. The acrid smells of the acid pit in the center of the room overwhelmed her, pulling her into memory.

This was just like the first time she'd tested for GLaDOS. The sights, the smells, the grimy white walls—this looked like the Aperture she'd first awoken in.

Chell took a few deep breaths to try to center herself. She raised a hand to shield her eyes, squinting. The sooner she could find this badge, the sooner she could get out of here.

Chell looked around the test chamber. Besides the acid pit taking up a large portion of the room, it didn't seem particularly difficult to her. Then again, she was better than the average person at testing. Part of her wondered why this was. She wasn't the smartest person she knew. She probably didn't have the highest IQ out of everyone in the world, either. So what made her different? What made her so good at testing?

She wasn't sure, but she hoped that someday she would find out. She scoured the room for signs of life—or rather, signs of death.

Chell found him in the far corner of the room. He wasn't even wearing a jumpsuit—he must have been moved here directly from work. She didn't see a badge clipped onto the lab coat though, so she started to sift through his pockets. She found the hard plastic edge of the badge, pulling it out and looking it over.

Henry Stevens

The picture depicted a balding man, probably in his 40's. The name did not ring a bell. She wondered what kind of beef GLaDOS had with this person—why had he been thrown directly into a testing chamber, and how had he even died? Could he really not figure out the test?

She clipped the badge to her jumpsuit while pondering over these questions. She portaled over to the other side of the chamber and moved back to the entrance of the room. But just as she turned a corner down the hallway, she noticed what she feared she'd see—a closed door.

Chell broke into a run, closing the gap in a few seconds. A deep tingling rose up in her nerves, spreading out from her chest and into her hands.

The door was closed.

GLaDOS had promised that the door wouldn't be closed.

Chell broke into a sweat, setting down her portal gun and beginning to pry at the crack where the door had closed.

Nothing.

A sense of dizziness flooded through her head, and she swayed as she stood on the tips of her toes. She twisted back toward the rest of the test chamber, the panic weighing in her lungs.

She had to get out of here. Now.

She couldn't cry out for help. She couldn't ask GLaDOS what had happened—but that was okay. She knew perfectly well what had happened. This had been a trap, and she had played right into GLaDOS's hand.

Her eyes scanned the testing chamber, looking for a way out. She supposed that she could figure out how to solve the test and do that—but that would only take her to the next test chamber. She needed to get out of the testing tracks and into an area where GLaDOS couldn't reach her.

There.

She spotted two panels that were tangled up with one another, leaving a gap between the panels and the wall. Chell picked up her gun and portaled her way over there, making it across the room in seconds. Her arms trembled and her legs wobbled, even with the support of the long fall boots. She got on her hands and knees and started to crawl her way into the walls.

The backside of Aperture opened up to her. Chell pressed herself up and off the floor, not even bothering to wipe off the grime now on her shirt and jumpsuit. She didn't have the time to think of things like that—she needed to be moving. Now.

She began to run.

The orange dot was on the move. GLaDOS watched idly as it began to move around the map. So Chell must have retrieved the badge. Hold on a second, she thought, that wasn't the right way. She was going in the opposite direction of the office that GLaDOS was in. She checked back to the test chamber's camera feeds, quickly rewinding it and examining what Chell had done.

Chell had found the body, and she had retrieved the card, so what was wrong?

Oh.

The door. The door had closed behind her. That wasn't supposed to happen. With a thought, GlaDOS unlocked the door.

She watched the footage in horror as Chell freaked out, prying at the door like some kind of caged animal. The girl then sped across the room, wedging herself between some panels and a wall, and then…she was gone. Just like that.

GLaDOS felt her systems freeze for a brief moment. Just a little blip, then they were back to normal.

She cursed internally.

"Blue, Orange," she said, turning to the robots. "I need to," she paused, "take care of something. Keep doing whatever it is you're doing."

The robots nodded in understanding as GLaDOS unplugged herself from the computer, feeling a rush of quietness as she disconnected from the data stream.

Not sure where she was going, Chell ran.

"What do you think you're doing?" The voice rang out, from everywhere and nowhere at once, moments after she'd entered the back areas. "Stop being stupid and get back here right now."

The catwalks gave way to a maze of pathways, and she started to pick her directions at random.

"Let's stop and think about this. You signed a contract," said GLaDOS. "A contract that allows me to do whatever is necessary to retrieve you. And I will."

Chell wished that she could plug her ears. The noise was so loud, so reverberating that she could feel the beats of speech in her heart.

"You're not actually trying to escape, are you? Because you'll never get out of here," echoed GLaDOS's voice. "You tried it out there, remember? You couldn't even survive without me. You had to come crawling back. You're only here because I decided to give you a second chance. I can take that away."

GlaDOS was angry, and she knew it. But underneath that anger Chell detected something else—could it be fear? Was GlaDOS afraid that Chell was up to something?

"I don't know what you're expecting here, I really don't. Just running like a scared animal? I expected better of you. I guess I was wrong."

The supercomputer had to be afraid of something. Chell was sure of this.

"As I see it, and I'm much smarter than you, there are only a few ways to end this: you come to your senses and apologize for this, or you stay in there for the rest of your little life and die hiding in the walls like a rat. Or I kill you. Like a rat."

Chell didn't think that GLaDOS was going to kill her. But at the same time, she couldn't be sure. If she came back, she was sure GLaDOS would get back at her in her own cruel way.

But still. It hurt how fast GLaDOS had turned on her, after everything they'd been through together. Did GLaDOS really have so little trust in Chell? It was almost like she had been expecting this from her. It hurt. Especially since she had gone out on a limb and placed some of her trust in GLaDOS.

Well, that was gone now.

She wouldn't be so stupid in the future.

Eventually, Chell hit a dead end. The adrenalin began to wear off. She was safe. At least for the moment. Her breath came hard and sharp, and she struggled to regulate it. Her head felt light and she leaned against the railing, slowly lowering herself into a sitting position. She was starting to crash.

"Stop ignoring me," demanded a voice from inside of GLaDOS. "Stop ignoring me right now."

Oh. Caroline. GLaDOS had briefly forgotten about the angry woman that lived inside of her head.

"What now?" she said aloud, though this time just through the android.

"What do you think you're doing?"

"I'm letting her make a choice," GLaDOS said back.

"You're going to scare her if you keep this up," said Caroline.

"Good," said GLaDOS.

"No,"hissed Caroline. "Not good. Not good at all. You're supposed to be gaining her trust, not crushing it. You're undoing all of your hard work."

"Then I'll just do it again," GLaDOS said simply.

"It's not that easy. Once burned, twice shy,"said Caroline. "Your lack of emotional intelligence astounds me. But then again, how could you understand people? You're basically a sentient graphing calculator. I know we did better than this. We had robots who understood basic empathy in 1973. Where did they go wrong with you?"

"There is nothing wrong with me," growled GLaDOS.

"You lie when you're nervous, and you're lying to yourself right now."

"That's ridiculous," said GLaDOS.

"You know you messed up,"she said. "And admit it: you're scared of her."

"I am not," said GLaDOS. That was impossible. She was all-powerful. Almost omniscient. Why would she be afraid of a human? Sure, this human had tried to kill her twice. But she wasn't in a position to do that again. Not anymore.

"And what's this?" Caroline paused, almost laughing. "It's almost like—like you're excited by this. Somehow. Wow. I knew you had trouble regulating your emotions, but this is too much."

Some of this was true. A part of her—a part that she only felt when Chell had escaped before—had flared to life. And it made her feel alive. But she would never admit this to Caroline, because it didn't make sense. Why should she feel so energized by imminent danger? She started to speak, but Caroline cut her off.

"How did you ever survive without me? No wonder that pest was able to take you down before. No wonder a paperweight DESIGNED to be an idiot outsmarted you. I'm honestly ashamed that our scientists killed me and YOU are the best that they could do. I wish I'd died of moon cancer. Then I wouldn't have to see how pathetic you are."

GLaDOS nearly shook with rage, but Caroline didn't stop. The android felt her systems frizzle, threatening to overheat.

"No wonder the scientists hated you. You're an idiot. You're worthless. You're a failed experiment. They must've had more faith in you than I do—they at least tried to make you useful. I would've scrapped you and started over."

GLaDOS moved to open her mouth, but something caught both GLaDOS's and Caroline's attention: a soft, persistent sound. They both listened for a moment.

Was that…crying?

"Hold on a second," said Caroline. "This is good. Crying people are vulnerable. And we need someone vulnerable if we're going to fix your mistakes."

"And just what do you suggest that I do?"

"Listen carefully, and repeat everything I say."

Chell pulled her knees up toward her chest, wrapping her arms around them. She heaved, breaths shaky and heavy. She felt absently at the back of her neck, a part of her wishing she had something sharp. Her limbs shook, and Chell felt herself crash as the adrenaline wore off. The frustration came to a boiling point and Chell began to cry hot tears. It was silent at first, but as she thought about her situation more, it changed into sniffling and then into outright sobs. She couldn't control herself, and though she considered covering her mouth, making herself silent, hiding her pain, she didn't. She didn't care if GLaDOS could hear her crying. More likely than not, GlaDOS was just outside of these walls.

The AI went quiet. Chell, thankful for the release, just cried harder.

She listened for a moment. She could still hear GLaDOS speaking—was she talking to herself? She certainly wasn't talking to Chell. She couldn't make out the words through the thickness of the wall.

After another few moments, the voice returned over the speakers.

"You know that you overreacted, right?" said GLaDOS. "That door that you thought was closed? Did you even try just pushing it? Because it was unlocked. All you had to do was give it a little push, and then we wouldn't even have this problem."

Chell felt her breath catch. Could that be true?

"This is all in your head—you're panicking for no reason. Why don't you come out here, and you'll see. None of this is real."

Chell used her forearm to wipe tears away from her eyes, taking a moment to steady her breathing. Tears still streamed down her face, but at least she wasn't sobbing anymore. She had been on edge already from the atmosphere of the test chamber—could it have been possible that she had overlooked something so obvious? That she had rushed to panic?

Chell pushed herself to her feet, trying her best to remember the way that she'd come here. She had to check on that door—she had to know the truth. Plus, she wasn't sure if she knew another way out besides that way.

"You know what? Since I'm feeling generous, I'll only take away your food for a day if you come back now. That is what you're doing, isn't it?"

She struggled to retrace her steps, but eventually she made it back to the outside of the chamber she'd exited from. She pushed her portal gun through the hole in the wall and then crawled her way out of it.

"Oh. There you are," said GLaDOS. "Go on. Try the door."

Chell didn't look at the cameras as she portaled to the entrance of the chamber. With the end of her portal gun, she pushed at the door. Sure enough, it opened right up. Hot shame flared through her. GlaDOS was right—all of her running, all of her crying—it had only been in her head.

Maybe she could trust GLaDOS after all.

When she exited the chamber, the android was waiting on the other side, hands folded across her chest.

"Well?" she said. "Do you have anything to say for yourself?"

Chell sniffed, using her arm to wipe away some snot from her nose. She shook her head and stared at her feet.

"Look at me when I'm talking to you," GLaDOS said, closing the distance between them and grabbing Chell by the upper arm. Her fingers dug into the muscles of Chell's arm.

Chell jerked back, twisting out of GLaDOS's grasp. She considered giving her a shove back but thought better of it. She shot the android a glare. GLaDOS was treating Chell like a misbehaving dog, and she wouldn't be dragged to the testing tracks by the scruff of her neck.

"Fine. If you don't like that, then at least take my hand."

She leaned out a delicate white hand.

Chell slipped her free hand into the android's.

She would follow.