Chapter 5

Chell had once been at sea when a hurricane blew through the Carribbean. The force with which the wind blew the rain and hail down around her had made it seem as though she was being attacked by a living thing: a teeming mass of nature. The sound had been unbearably loud, driving her near to the point of deafness.

The attack by the bouncing rats was quite similar to this.

"Oh God, give me a weapon, give me a weapon, give me a weapon," Wheatley screamed as the rats bounced around them.

Chell placed a cutlass in his hand to shut him up, and then yelled through the screeching, squealing din, "I think I see an exit head! Keep going."

The others lashed out, trying to strike the rats down. Sometimes their cutlasses or knives simply bounced off the animals, and when they did kill one, the corpse kept bouncing around even after death. Noting this, Chell took to staking the rats through with her cutlass. The young boy followed her example astutely, while Craig tried his best to immitate. Wheatley continued to fight in his own style which involved, principally, flailing about with his cutlass, eyes partially closed, screaming in terror. Rick tried to strike an action pose each time he struck out.

It was slow-going, but eventually they spotted an exit. As they were hacking their way through the rats, the group disappeared, only to reappear again in five different locations in the hold.

Wheatley let out a strangled holler in shock.

"And that, would be the teleporting," Craig shouted over the din.

"What controls it?" Chell asked.

I do. That didn't take you nearly long enough. Try again. Entertain me, or you'll be starting over again.

"Not a problem, strange disembodied witch voice," Rick said. "Check it out!"

Rick proceeded to sheath his cutlass and then began punching, kicking, and generally fighting the rats.

"Black belt in rat smiting, baby," he said as he continued on with his unathletic, awkward karate routine.

The others ignored Gladys' taunt and continued on. The young boy was running into some trouble, however. He had kebabed so many rats on his small knife that he had room for no more. He tried to remove the corpses, but they tended to collide with other rats and bounce away, worsening the problem. Frustrated, he had to cling to his rat covered knife and try to cower, pushing his way through the storm of rats.

Chell had made it to the exit again, but stood there, waiting for the others, lest when she exited Gladys decided to isolate her from the group.

However, as Chell stood firm, watching the others make their way once again towards the exit, something awful happened. Craig, still holding the torch, watched in horror as a bouncing rat passed right through the flame of his torch, instantly catching alight. As the rat bounced off and into other rats, a chain reaction occured, with rat after rat catching on fire. Flaming rats flew around them, catching bits of the group as well as bits of the hold on fire. They desperately tried to put the fires out.

And then, one rat richoceted into the exit that was the group's destination. There was a hissing sound, and a realization dawned on Chell. She knew what room they'd been about to enter.

"Take cover!" Chell hollered.

"That's what I've been trying to do," Wheatley whimpered, cowering.

And then an explosion rocked the adjacent room. A plume of fire whooshed out of it, throwing everyone off their feet, sending rats everywhere.

Chell must have blacked out for a moment. The next thing she remembered, she was looking up at the others.

Is she dead? No? I'll just have to try harder next time, Gladys said, disappointed.

Chell got to her feet, ignoring the pain down her left side, which had been singed. The good news was that the fire and explosions had killed the rats and burned off the repulsion pitch, rendering them a non-threat.

Wheatley reached out a hand for Chell, and asked with genuine concern, "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Chell said, helping herself up, and pulling dead scorched rats from her cutlass. "Just singed. The more important thing is that we should know even the exits are a trap."

"How do you mean, pretty lady?" Rick asked, confused.

Craig nodded at Chell and explained, "The powder room was clearly compromised: probably had leaked powder all over it. Had we walked in there with my torch alight, it would have taken one spark to blow us to the next life. In a way, the bloody rats saved us."

"Fiery, not bloody," the boy said, "Sea rats were on fire."

Clever, Gladys said, although a note of real admiration could just about be detected in her voice. But knowing there's a trap and being able to escape from a trap are two different things.

"I'm really started to get annoyed by all her crazy talk," Rick huffed.

"That's what she wants," Chell said, before motioning to the next room.

"You sure we'll be safe in there? You said the exits were a trap," Wheatley said with some degree of agitation.

Craig snorted, "You idiot. Nothing would survive that explosion."

And Craig proved correct. As they entered the powder room they found a charred husk. The pressure had partially stripped away some of the floor and side boards and blown open the hatch to the deck above, the only exit open to them.

"Do you remember the layout of the ship?" Chell asked Wheatley.

Wheatley tapped the side of his head, "Mind like a bear trap."

"Steel trap," Craig corrected with some annoyance.

"Above us is the weapon's store and constable's quarters," Wheatley retorted to Craig, sticking out his tongue.

"Weapons out, then," Chell said.

She waited patiently as the young boy threw the rats that had been skewered on his knife out of the ship, one-by-one through a cracked plank.

"Why do we need weapons?" Wheatley asked puzzled. "The constable isn't going to be alive up there and ready for a fight."

"How do we know that after everything that has happened?" Craig asked angrily.

Wheatley frowned, pursed his lips and mumbled to himself.

"Now don't fight, boys," Rick said, clapping a hand on both of them. "If we don't look after this little lady, who will?"

"She will?" Both Craig and Wheatley asked at the same time.

"Poisedon, God of the Sea?" offered the boy.

"No, damnit! We'll look after her. Cause we're men. And Craig. And that boy."

Captain Chell ignored them all and climbed up out of the hatch. The others moved to catch-up, with everyone, even the boy, glaring angrily at Rick. As they met up with Chell on the upper level, two things happened simultaneously: 1) the hatch they'd come through closed and disappeared and 2) a strong wind came out of nowhere, blowing out Craig's torch.

I have a surprise for you, Gladys said. No peeking.

As the assembled group looked around in the dark, bewildered, wondering where the next attack would come from, tense, they tried to see something, anything, in the pitch black.

And then a sound. A hissing, whirring, sound. The clicking sound of a clockwork mechanism, the sound of steam, the clink of soldered metal, moving.

"Oh god," Craig whispered in a harsh voice, "the mechanical horrors."

In front of them, soft red lights became visibles. The light came from a glowing lantern, roughly in the chest area of the THINGS which stood in front of them. The things were short, made entirely of brass, roughly human, no *child* shaped, with spindly appendages. Whirring clockwork mechanisms dotted the creatures' bodies and steam softly puffed out of what would have been their ears, had they been fully human. On top of their bodies sat what could only be described as their heads, complete with glowing glass discs that served as eyes, and a grill where their mouth would have sat. They moved with an odd grace, the tiny clockwork mechanisms visible in their bodies oddly beautiful.

And on either side of their chests, were affixed a row of barrels. Barrels that probably went to guns.

"Hello?" A few of the child-like mechanical robots asked, their heads titling from side to side, their glass eyes alight, tracking the group in the near complete darkness.

"I see you," others said, their tinny, child-like voices oddly beautiful.

And then they started shooting at them.

"Hide!" Craig yelled, "If they can't see you, they won't shoot!"

Everyone ducked behind barrels, gun racks, desks, anything they could find.

"Are you still there?" All the robot children asked in eery unison.

"They aren't very accurate. And slow. And can't tell where you are by sound," Craig continued. "If we sneak up behind them, we can disarm them."

Chell peaked her head out from behind where she was hiding, to see the child robots ambling around, glass eyes searching.

"There you are!" One burbled happily as it saw Chell. Chell ducked back behind her hiding spot.

"Target lost," the robot said sadly as Chell disappeared.

"We need a decoy," Chell decided.

"Make Wheatley do it," Rick said cockily. "Wait? Where is Wheatley?"

"Hiding. And not going. And hiding in a really great spot," Wheatley said, although it was hard to tell where his voice came from.

Chell had a better idea. "Then I don't know what to do. I'm so..." A pause as Chell grit her teeth, "Frightened and overwhelmed. Rick, can you kill those evil metal creatures for me?"

"No problemo, pretty lady. In fact, I've been hoping you'd ask. Now watch this!"

Rick sprung out from the barrel he'd been hiding behind, gesticulating wildly. The attention of the metal children all snapped towards Rick.

"There you are!" The metal children all said in unison, targetting him and firing

Rick moved wildly, trying to avoid their bullets, and lashing out ineffectively at the nearest robots.

Meanwhile, Chell had crept up behind the distracted metal children, jamming their mechanisms, pushing them over, destroying the steam powered bits that ran them.

All was going quite well until Rick finally managed to down one by accident. It fell, its head rolling towards where Wheatley was hiding.

"I don't blame you," the head garbled at Wheatley, the light fading from its glass eyes.

Petrified by this reaction, Wheatley sprung from his hiding place and beat a land speed record as he ran to the exit of the weapon's room and left the others alone. The young boy, seeing this, and assuming an all clear, sprung from his hiding place, just in time to see Chell down the last metal child. As it fell, it became apparent that Rick was in the line of fire for the last burst of bullets. Unexpectedly, Craig burst out of his hiding place, tackling Rick to the ground, saving him from becoming a very dead and bullet-riddled adventurer.

"Craig," Rick said shocked, "you saved me."

"Of course I did," Craig said, although he seemed a bit shocked at his actions.

Their happy reunion was ended abruptly as the young boy began wailing frantically, "Shot at sea! Shot at sea! Help! Shot at sea!"