Chapter 12: Going Up

The lift seemed to be taking longer than usual. It was a real relic of a machine, surrounded by technology that far surpassed it. Going up and down between levels, you could hear it clang against incomplete stories of architecture.

Chell and Dean smiled sheepishly at each other, still surprised by what had just happened. They were both just kids, really - kids who hadn't had very normal childhoods - kids who never got to love. It was confusing, but liberating at the same time. 

She leaned against the sliding door, her arms stretched out from side to side, her boots extending her over the metal railing. He was perched across from her, his long hair flowing down just past his shoulders, his legs curled underneath his cloak. They had such prefect views of each other, and as long as the lift kept going, it could stay like this.

But nice things could only last so long in this place. Someone had to break the silence:

"Was that... um" Chell hesitated "A thing?"

Dean brushed sweat off his forehead, understanding completely. It hadn't been anything extreme. It was a kiss, a long kiss, but that's it. It was basic shit. And yet, it felt permanent, like a point of no return. It felt like they had both committed to something they didn't want to admit to.

"I think we got carried away," Dean smiled. "That's all. It was a one-off." He heard the words come out of his mouth, and immediately wondered why he said them. He had loved every second of it.

"Yeah, a one-off. Chell looked to the side. “But like, it wasn't weird for you, was it?" 

"It wasn't weird. Not at all!" Dean blurted out, blushing. 

The awkwardness was exquisite. They both just stood there, in an elevator between one doom and another, talking about something that seemed completely trivial. How could they do it? How could they find the time for this with what waited for them behind every door?

And suddenly, the absurdity of the whole thing dawned on them. They were heading back into the chamber with a deadly A.I., and yet, this was the time to check on each other. This was the time to make sure everything was okay.

They started laughing, and laughing with terrified glee. It echoed through the elevator shaft maniacally, and sprung back at them in a cackling frenzy. Both the source and the return got louder and louder, until they were competing to reach GLaDOS before the other.

"That machine wants to kill us!" Dean laughed hysterically, "And bludgeon us, and fill us with bullets and test us to death!"

"Hey, you're getting it!" Chell giggled. "We're gonna be doing this forever!"

"And ever."

"And ever!"

They couldn't stop. It was just all so ridiculous. Chell carefully lifted Dean up with both her hands, spinning around the elevator like a ballerina.

"But if I'm in trouble, I'll have you to protect me, right?" She joked, making herself dizzy

"There's no match for one of my patented screams!" He managed, eye-level with her again. "I'll bring this whole place down!"

It was so wonderful for Chell, having someone who felt that same dread that she did.   She had always tried to find the humor in it all, but alone, it could be hard to laugh and keep your sanity at the same time. With Dean... there was recognition. There was validation that this was all absurd. It felt more normal than ever before.

For Dean, these thoughts were horrifying just a night ago. The idea that he would never get out of here - the idea that he would be powerless all the way to the grave. But spinning around playfully with Chell, he wasn't so worried anymore. His life would constantly be in danger, but for once, he had someone on his side. It felt so right that they were together.

And as they peered at each other, the lift finally reached the next chamber with a thud. It was a real shaky landing, Chell almost falling over in the middle of her dance routine. The pair straightened their faces, preparing for the sudden transition into very possible death. It gave them all the more incentive to persist, and to get to the next chamber alive.

"Uh, Dean, I just thought of something. I can't carry you around while we're testing. I'm not gonna tie you down to my jumpsuit anymore, so where do you wanna be?"

Dean thought about it for a moment, his eyes motioning over to the tip of the portal gun. Chell laughed

"What, really? You like that better?"

Dean thought back to when he scoured the basement of the facility, back before the blood swap. That portal device had gotten him out of a lot of jams. On the other hand though, it would feel strange being attached to it. It was one of the few things he had control over at that time, and now, he would be pinned to it. He wouldn't have a very good view of the action either - he would be facing the ceiling.  

Tied to Chell, he could see practically everything. It let him intervene when he did, outsmarting GLaDOS and taking out the turrets. It let him see just how elegant and graceful she could be, swaying from side to side and persisting in the face of everything.

"But uh... wasn't it weird? Me being tied to your waist?" Dean finally asked.

"It wasn't weird." Chell smiled. "Not at all." 

And when the doors slid open, there they were, as before. Chell, standing upright, and Dean, tied comfortably to the little blue band around her waist.

And then, something dropped down in front of them:

"You're alive!" Wheatley cheered. "Oh, that's wonderful!"

...

"Everything is just so wonderful." Wheatley was chattering away ecstatically. "When you aband- uh left me back there, I thought I was gonna die! Again! There I was, the walls closing in around me... she did a complete 180 on that whole dedication to science bit, talking about how she was gonna slowly dampen the light in my display-"

He was infinitely chipper, like his old self. Chell remembered how she had left him at the entrance to be crushed. That guilt had nibbled away at her in the misty room, and it was rising back up to the surface. He was a machine, and one that had been exceedingly unhelpful to her. And yet, here he was, a reminder of her imperfections, just when Dean was beginning to look up to her.

"And I floated all the way through the air until I could sense you. And here you are! What've you been doing without me anyway? Must've been wandering around aimlessly, like uh, you. Whenever you're not with me. Not to worry, I've still got that intricate plan I was talking about earlier. Let's get started on that shall we?"

Dean just stared at the happy little thing, dumbfounded. GLaDOS had been a revelation - an A.I. that could accurately simulate a personality, or at least, a hypothetical one quite obsessed with science. But this one seemed more... human. It was a piece of technology that could carry a conversation outside the confines of this facility.

It took a few moments, but Wheatley finally noticed him, pinned to Chell's waistband. 

"What's this you got there?" He fluttered forward in surprise, getting uncomfortably close to Dean.  "A... charm of yours? Oh it moved! It's alive! There's a little human on your-"

Chell shoved Wheatley backwards, reflexively. Dean was leaning back on her waistband, inches away from being crushed by the machine's little blue monitor. Wheatley's metal eyelid fell downwards, blocking out his pupil in embarrassment. For a second, that chipper attitude disappeared totally. He looked back up at Chell, then back down at Dean, scarcely understanding what was going on.

Chell wasn't saying anything. It was so strange to Dean - when these pieces of technology popped up, she was back to her silent self. It was rather unsettling. Whatever the case, he didn't like it one bit. He had to say something:

"You can't get that close to me, core. You've gotta be more careful."

Wheatley kept hovering, squinting through closed eyelids, and prolonging the awkward silence. Dean was uncomfortable with the ease by which he twitched around and shifted suddenly between chattering and quiet.

"A human thing, I suppose." Wheatley finally said, now several feet back from the two. "I truly am sorry about that... I'm programmed to inspect things, you know. Can't help it."

Chell finally stepped out of the elevator, walking towards the next test chamber. They just had to get this whole thing over with.

"Yes. Yes! I love your initiative, I really do. I actually am gonna tell you my plan this time, because we keep getting separated! If it happens again, at least we'll know what to do next time, right? Right?"

She just walked on, ignoring him, but more so than usual. These sorts of actions, these distinctly human ones, were confusing for Wheatley. They all lay somewhere on the range of his emotional processor, but it took up so much of his thinking and programming, that he was often at a crossroads between his directives and how he was supposed to feel.

Trailing behind Chell and her new friend, he floated himself a little further up in the air, so he could see far above them. Up close and personal, she was big - big enough to protect that little pet of hers. But from up there, she seemed small. Everything did.

"Do you trust him?" Dean asked Chell. "He's cute and all but... he's part of this facility, right?"

Chell still wouldn't talk, to his confusion. She nodded her head, put her left thumb up and smiled. Dean still didn't know what to think, but if she approved, he would go along for the time being.

This room looked suspiciously similar to the cake fiasco, where GLaDOS had forced a word out of Chell. It was much longer though, like the turret hallway. The door at the end of the chamber was plainly visible, which was the strangest part. There were seemingly no obstacles in front of it, and no traps sticking out in plain sight. The facility was getting less and less predictable by the day.

They were expecting GLaDOS' menacing monotone to drone out over the speakers any second now. Like loyal, expectant servants, they waited at the entrance for her instructions. Then they waited a bit longer. And after a few minutes or so, it was still silent.

"Where is she?" Wheatley wondered aloud, trying to rejoin the duo. "She should be trying to murder us by now, no?"

Hesitantly, Chell took a step forward, half-expecting a trap door to swallow her whole. The ground stayed firm, and she kept walking forward. Wheatley zipped on behind.

"So, my plan! I didn't tell you. This one is absolutely infallible! I know I said that about the last one, but see, I was exaggerating there. This one is actually infallible, that's the difference. All we have to do is get out of the testing area, and into the mainframe. Once we're there, we can initiate a core transfer! You plug me into the receptacle, and just like that, I can free you... both."

Chell stopped in surprise. He had actually thought it through. It was a little crazy, but a lot better than nothing. Dean was a little more skeptical, gritting his teeth with every little movement Wheatley made. The plan seemed deceptively simple:

"So, the mainframe. How're you gonna get us there?" Dean pressed.

Wheatley stopped for a moment.

"Ah, that's tricky isn't it? Suppose I haven't... completely thought that through yet." Wheatley perked up. "But now that I think about it, are you two sure you want to leave? Once I'm in charge, this place will be completely different. You'll be happier here than you'd ever b-"

Chell shot him a scarier look than he could ever replicate.

"Alright, fair enough. Freedom it is, for the both of you. 'For you were called to freedom, brothers.' That's uh, Jesus, I'm quoting there..."

And with that, everything was nice and quiet again. The room stretched on and on, but finally, the three got to the doorway at the end of it. GLaDOS was still nowhere to be heard. For the first time ever, Chell walked through an exit without having done a test of any kind.

Dean could see the discomfort on her expression. It was a relief on one hand, but cause to worry on the other. The whole thing smelled like some horrifically cruel trap,  luring them into a false sense of security and ensnaring them when their guards were down.

"Are you alright?" Dean checked up with Chell.

She stared off into space, re-assuring him with an absent-minded nod of her head. The way Wheatley was acting, the silence from above... the ridiculousness of it all was dawning on her again, but this time, less optimistically. It was an incredible testament to her situation, that this prolonged silence from the source of her problem could be taken as a bad thing. But Chell was confident of this.

And just their luck, the next room was the same as the first. It was completely empty, and even more eerily, the persistent hiss from the heart of the facility was gone. It was as if the entire place had come to a screeching halt, from the production lines to the ever-increasing ruptures in the gel pipes.

Dean saw Wheatley twitching around again, looking just as nervous as Chell. The core kept floating over their heads, as if he were waiting for a cue from up above. And the longer he went without that cue, the more Wheatley twitched.

"She really ought to be here by now," Wheatley reiterated, not helping the tension much. 

And then it hit him. Wheatley's robotic pupil lit up, as he descended down to the floor with a malicious glint in his eye.

"What is it?" Dean asked.

Wheatley hid it immediately.

"What's what?"

A loud noise in the distance could be plainly heard, the unmistakable buzz of a machine booting up. Chell raised her portal gun instinctively, ready for anything. There was another period of awkward silence as the buzzing and whirring got closer and closer to that empty room. Wheatley descended even lower, as if he hadn't been up to anything in the first place. Finally, a voice thundered over the speakers:

"Greetings. I am the Genetic Lifeform and Disc Operating System. Please identify yourselves promptly." GLaDOS' voice said.

Chell braced herself, preparing for whatever new kind of cruel trick this was intended to be. The monotone was still there, but it seemed to lack something - that sarcastic spark that could hit you harder than a turret beam when you least suspected. It was just a voice.

"Why's she talking like she doesn't know us?" Dean whispered.

"I will repeat: Unidentified interlopers, please identify yourselves promptly. This land is owned by Aperture Science, and its parent organization, Aperture Fixtures. Trespassers will be... executed."