Dim lights flickered in the dark, derelict testing room of the once proud Aperture Science Enrichment Centre. One of the many prime examples of the types of rooms used to test the most innovated scientific discoveries, now devoid of any life, or presence in general. The dirt-stained white wall panels were tattered and in certain places amiss, bearing loose wires which sparked and crackled, and hollow openings that lead further into the abyss of the facility.

As the distant echo of metal creaking and banging reached the room, a sudden light filled the shadowed space. It was bright green. A very special bright green. Usually accompanied by a gelatinous, multi-dimensional portal. The portal in question tore its way into the very fabric of reality itself, swirling and humming in the air, both inviting and harrowing. As it began to pulsate in the dusty atmosphere, an old man with an eager look on his face stepped through from nothingness, putting away some strange gun-like device into the inner pocket of his white lab coat whilst setting off some sort of sensor on the floor which seemed to reactivate the room's still functioning lights. Behind him was a small boy in a yellow t-shirt, who stayed close behind with his arms tucked up and his hands clutching together nervously. This was Rick and Morty.

"R-Rick why did you have to pull me out of Science Class? We were just about to pick partners! I-I-It was my one chance to ask Jessica, Rick. W-What if I never get another chance to ask her now?" Stuttered Morty, following closely behind each of Rick's enthusiastic strides. Rick's enthusiasm quickly departed as he sighed and rolled his eyes at the thought of yet another adventure ruined by Morty's incessant whining.

"Oh yeah Morty, Th-That sounds like a real problem," He replied, flailing his arms around sarcastically, "y'know, asking some random girl to be your Lab partner while you do ridiculous fake science shit, Morty. What a reeeal romantic setting, Morty. I can picture it now. You're there dissecting a frog or a rat or some shit, and she looks over a-a-a-and she thinks: Damn this guy is so smart and attractive. I-I-I-I just gotta get all up in that. Y-Y-You see what getting at here Morty?"

"Shut up Rick, you know what I mean. This was important to me. I get this chance a-a-and then you just take it away. Plus now I'm gonna fail Science class for sure, Rick."

"Relax Morty!" Assured Rick, spinning around and placing his hands on Morty's shoulders, "and forget Science Class! This is real Science we're doing here, Morty! You won't read about this is any text book, o-o-o-or inside a dumb frog, Morty!" Rick raised his arms in excitement, showcasing to Morty the brand new surroundings they had just entered, then turned around and began striding again, surveying the room with an almost child-like wonderment. Morty frowned in frustration and continued to follow as the Portal evaporated behind them.

"What're we even doing here Rick? This place looks kinda weird," questioned Morty as he looked up and down the filthy walls and jumped at each sparking wire he passed. Rick's hand found itself colliding softly with his forehead, rubbing his eyes in frustration and another sigh escaped his mouth.

"Oh really Morty? Of the all the places I've dragged you along to, th-th-this is the place you think is weird, huh? Not the Microverse in my car-battery, or the theme park inside a living person. No, this is the place you think is truly weird, right Morty?"

"They're all weird Rick! But this place is more than that. It gives me the creeps. It feels like we're being watched or something." Said Morty, as he peered around the dusty corners of the room, briefly glancing at what he thought was an active security camera, before bumping into the back of his disgruntled grandpa.

"Jesus Christ, Morty, look at this place. It's abandoned. There's nobody here. L-L-Look over there Morty. There's a goddamn skeleton over there Morty!" Rick grabbed Morty and pointed his attention to the skeletal remains of some poor life form, piled in the corner of the room, and watched as Morty's face contorted into a mixture of disgust and confusion. "Does that make you feel better? Knowing that whatever was here is probably dead now? Does that make you happy Morty? You little morbid, piece of shit." Rick then regained his composure, whilst taking a drink from the flask in his lab coat pocket and belching an echo into the empty room. Morty's eyes widened as he looked at the pile, squirming in place before catching up with Rick.

"W-w-was that some sort of Mantis….person…skeleton? Did it die fighting those other regular people!?" Morty yelled while pointing at the skeletons positioned in a fighting pose on the ground, with one big mantis skull biting down on a human vertebrae.

"I said RELAX, Morty, this place is totally safe. All we're gonna do is scavenge a few things, maybe do a little bit of graffiti, what could go wrong?" Rick then exchanged his flask with a spray can from his pocket, and tossed it to Morty, who juggled it before tossing it away himself.

"Graffiti!? What the hell Rick!?" He shouted, before picking the can back up, uncomfortable with his act of littering.

"Morty, have you seen this place? Every single wall panel is like a freaking blank canvas. Y-y-you're seriously going to tell me that you don't wanna draw like a-a-a big wiener on at least one of them? Maybe a dirty word?"

"What? No! C'mon Rick, we're gonna get in trouble. Someone will probably see us."

"Abandoned, Morty! It means that nobody's here! L-L-Look, check out these readings," said Rick, taking out a strange sensor-like device from his pocket and showing it to his worried grandson. "See? Only two life forms, Morty. Just you and me. If there were any other life forms in this place, this thing would pick up their brainwaves and start beeping. No beeping, Morty. That means that if there is anything in here, then they're more than likely dumber than you. Which is highly improbable, Morty." He said smugly, returning the device to his pocket before shaking a can and running to one of the blank wall panels.

"Fine! W-Well what about Robots, huh? They don't have y'know like brainwaves or whatever. W-w-w-what if that thing can't detect robots?"

"Pfft, stop being paranoid Morty. A facility this big couldn't possibly be sustained by robots. And even if it could, have you seen the state of this place? Th-Th-They'd probably have shut down by now. Which means more scavenging for us, Morty!" Said Rick joyfully while spraying a mist of green onto the blank white wall panels

"Whatever Rick, let's just get what we came here for and then get out, before anything bad happens." Morty started fidgeting while jumping at more sparks and wincing at the distant echoes returning, before turning his attention to trying to find where Rick had run off to.

"Hey Mortyyyyy! If these walls could talk, huh Morty!?" Exclaimed Rick with an excited smile, dancing on the spot and pointing to the now graffiti adorned wall, spelling out the words:

MORTY LICKS BALLZ

In crudely painted green letters "Ahahahaaa get it?"

"Fuck you Rick! You don't even…erm… have… balls to even be licked in the first place! Hahaa!" Replied Morty in an almost half-hearted triumphant tone, striking a victorious pose.

"Oooooh nice comeback, Morty! You saving that one for school?" Said Rick in a sarcastic tone, tossing his spray can aside and taking another sip from his flask before belching once again. Suddenly, Rick's watch began to beep and flash, bringing up some strange hologram that seemed to point out of the room they were in. "Ooooh shit motherfucker! This way Morty, time to get what we came for!" He yelled, making his way in the direction of the hologram, leading through a malfunctioning automatic door that occasionally twitched open on one side.

"Fine!" Said Morty, as he finished altering the words of Rick's masterpiece to read:

RICK SUCKS

MORTY LICKS BALLZ

He tossed the can away, and then headed in the same direction as Rick, trying not to trip over the cracked floor panels that occasionally rose higher than the others. As he sidled through the automatic door, he screamed and darted through as it twitched close, panting and clutching his chest before composing himself again, watching Rick rummage through some mechanical debris. Rick called him over to help, ordering him to start digging through the amalgamation of panels, pipes and other trash, piled high in the centre of the small, dark room, on top of what appeared to be a large circular, metallic hatch.

As Morty began to dig, he noticed a huge cylinder, as tall as the room itself, toppled over next to the pile, the exact same diameter as the hatch. It was hollow inside, save for a few pieces of tattered padding and busted controls, with some sort of doorway carved into it for access. He peered inside out of curiosity, turning his attention to a flickering blue sign on the inside which read Aperture Laboratories, the only source of light in the room, apart for the small amount protruding through the twitchy door they came through. He gulped in fear before returning to his pile and started digging again, occasionally looking around him at the broken glass screens surrounding him on all fronts. "Aww geez," he grumbled getting back to work, as the twitchy door opened and closed periodically, almost in time with the flickering of the blue light.

Elsewhere, in another well-kept part of the facility, a large white and grey machine was hanging from the ceiling. Its body and the connecting wires were swaying to and fro ever so slightly, suggesting it was in working order and operating efficiently. The white wall panels of the room acted almost with sentience, as mechanical hinges extended some of them outwards, shaking and tilting them up and down to relieve them of the dust and grime that congregated. Along the side of the hanging machine's dusty white chassis were the initials GLaDOS and the Aperture logo, almost too worn and faded to make out clearly. This was the machine's name.

Further down towards the bottom of the body, was a large bright orange light, surrounded by grey panels acting like eyelids, and a large white rectangular shell. It glowed brighter and dimmer periodically, as GLaDOS appeared to hum its own little tune, in a quiet and eerily emotionless feminine voice. Off her main body, she was using some sort of extended mechanical appendage acting as her makeshift arms during her current task. She was cleaning. Specifically sweeping up and hoovering. Specifically sweeping up and hoovering the dried up skeletal remains of former test subjects. "It's good to do this myself every once in a while," she thought to herself, sweeping a skull fragment and a femur into a pile of calcium dust, "the cleaning bots have all the fun exploring these old test chambers, and oh the memories." She let out an audible, mechanical sigh of happiness before returning to her hum.

Suddenly, a quiet beeping began on her body, prompting a monitor to lower itself to her eye. The monitor turned itself on in static before showing the footage of another Test Chamber of the facility, which curiously enough contained two humans rummaging through her precious junk. One was an old man in a lab coat, the other was a small nervous boy, who had stopped rummaging and began to stare inquisitively at what he thought was a damaged security camera in the corner of the room. GLaDOS's eye widened and grew brighter in curiosity, stopping her spring cleaning and returning her appendages to her main body.

"Well, well, well," she said in her dull, ever changing tone. Her voice vibrated around the room, causing the panels to fall back into place, like soldiers standing to attention. "Who do we have here? And more importantly, how did they sneak in to MY facility?" She bellowed, echoing throughout the chamber like a great church bell. The monitor footage reflected through her large optical light as she rewound the footage and noticed that they came through a large unfamiliar looking Green Portal. She paused at the moment Rick walked through into her test chamber, and saw that in a split second Rick had seemingly put some strange gun into the inner pocket of his lab coat. "Interesting," she hummed, as her light dimmed again, "looks like I'd better pay them a little visit. What kind of host would I be if I didn't even greet my guests?"

The hydraulics in her body began to hiss and moan as she rose towards the ceiling she was hanging from, and her eye began to close to symbolise her temporary standby mode. The monitor rose with her and returned back to its original position, turning itself off in the process, but not before showing the last bit of footage from the chamber: The old man ordering the young boy to push aside some debris, revealing a large grey cube with a pink heart design painted on the front.