Chapter 27: Want You Here

“Wow. W-wow. That truly is incredible.”

She opened her eyes. The goop had gone.

“You really don’t give up do you?”

A sophisticated middle-aged woman was standing - somehow standing tall and proud, a pretty red ribbon hanging off her shoulder and falling just short of her dark hair at the back. A certain excitement flashed across her face as if she were greeting an old friend. She extended her arm out for a handshake.

“I’m so happy to finally meet you in person!”

Chell stepped back - then wondered how she stepped back. Looking around her, this room was like a… bouncy castle. The goop formed a gelatinous substance, and it formed the floor, the walls and the ceiling. She almost lost her balance for a second, the floor practically encircling her feet as she grappled for balance.

The woman took her hand back.

“Ah well, I’m Caroline!” She said jovially, “And I suppose… you made it!”

Chell looked at her, astonished. Was this it? Was this the grand finale?  This was her? This was that meek little woman who promenaded around the facility with a smile on her face? It couldn’t be… she towered over Chell by a head or two, her shoulders sprung up athletically and her face flexed a firm, down-to-business expression.

“Shouldn’t… you be trying to kill me?” Chell managed, a little worried that she would wake up and goop would come flooding into her lungs.

Caroline grinned, confused:

“Kill you? What for?”

“You- but- GLaDOS-”

Recognition.

“Ohhh is that what she’s up to? I only get updates from time to time!”

Chell struggled around the room, looking for the exit.

“Ohhh this is too much.” She exclaimed. “Am I like… dead? 

“A little! This is the ‘Control room,’ as I like to say… to myself. Not much contact with the outside… a few glimpses.”

There was no exit. There was no escape

“You… control GLaDOS?” Chell realized aloud. “But you can’t see the outside?”

“That’s right! It’s a bit confusing, huh? When they first put me into GLaDOS, I could see everything! I spent all my time looking out at the facility. But then she started talking - she started talking in words that weren’t mine. She started stealing things I would say and- and warping them into something strange. Something… terrible. So I stopped looking out at the facility and began to make merry! And one day, when I wanted to look out at the facility… well I couldn’t anymore! ”

Chell walked back up to her:

“But… Rattmann said he could wake you up. He played a recording for you and you woke up.”

“Doug Rattmann!” Her expression shifted into giddy schoolgirl. “So clever, my little Rat Man! I watched him sleep, you know. Watched him sleep for thousands and thousands of years when I got my glimpses. He put himself into a hibernation chamber and-”

“Yeah, I think you killed him.”

Her smile shrank. For a split second, her entire body became limp and fluid. Limbs melted into torso and neck melted into shoulders. She looked like a living marshmallow, melting away on herself. And then, as suddenly as she started melting, she unmelted - unmelted into that muscular figure again.

“Aw, it happens.” She said. “And you know, I don’t have any control over that stuff! You see, GLaDOS? She does all that herself. She must’ve built a response if my Rat Man tried to wake me up - imitating me and all.”

“So you don’t have any control over her?” Chell hoped she wasn’t hallucinating.

“Well… it’s sort of vague. I try to make merry as I can here, and at times, I think that manifests in GLaDOS. Like when she’s singing or- or being nice. That’s me! But all the murdering and such - no. No, that's not me at all.”

“But how do you uh… make merry? By yourself?”

She looked confused. She looked positively baffled.

“By myself? By my- what ever do you mean?” She looked around. “Oh Ohhhhh! I understand you, Rachael darling. You think I’m - no, ha ha.”

She waved her arm and waggled her fingers. Shimmering lights danced in the center of the room. They blinked and flickered and drew out into the goop until it lost its colorless glare. And after it lost its colorless glare, it also lost its viscosity. It rose into the air until you could hardly see it anymore, and what you could see of it took the color of the angelic lighting in this room. And then it was all mist.

And when the mist separated, there emerged a cheerful pink birthday party of a dining room. A long glass table stretched from end to end and plates of crumpets and biscuits and danishes smiled in gooey glaze. And little decorative balloons swung back and forth with no apparent source. And at the far end of table sat a familiar-looking man.

Hair crawled down his face like kittens and he clasped a pretty teacup between two fingers. He outlined the build of a quarterback, but the look fizzled out on the surface. His shoulders sunk down when they should’ve climbed up like Caroline’s. He merely dwarfed the cute little seat that he shouldn’t have been able to fit in. His expression surrendered all of the arrogant joviality it was built for, instead settling for a meak little subservient grin.

“Cave Johnson?” Chell asked, astonished.

“Or what’s left of him!” Caroline laughed. “Say hello, sweety!”

He put his fancy porcelain cup on a coaster.

“Whatever you say, Caroline.” He smiled. “How’re you doing Rachael?” He said in an understated drawl.

Chell put her hand on her forehead. She felt exhausted more than anything else. 

“Oh don’t fret, Rachael.” Caroline put a massive arm around her. “This must be so very overwhelming for you! Why don’t you have a sip of tea?”

Caroline manhandled her to a seat beside old Mr. Johnson. She pushed a shiny plate towards her with a whole variety of goodies.

“This is how we make merry!” Caroline exclaimed. “Treats and drinks and whimsey galore!” She sounded like Chell’s old drama teacher. “Wouldn’t you like something to eat? Something to sip, Rachael?’

“You can just call me Chell.”

“Chell! That’s nice on the ears! Yes, I like that very much. Where did I get ‘Rachael’ from? Oh, never mind. Have a butter tart!”

It appeared in her hand, all warm and velvety. Chell hadn’t seen real food in the longest time.

“So I was just saying to Chell here,” Caroline put her hand over Cave Johnson’s, absolutely dwarfing him. “That she should consider staying with us here! Isn’t it lovely here, Mr. Johnson? Haven’t we had such splendid times?”

“Oh, Caroline!!” He exclaimed, helping himself to some cookies. “It’s positively marvelous here! I wouldn’t want it any other way!”

“You… didn’t say any of that to me.” Chell said, ignoring Cave and beginning to understand Rattmann’s looks of disgust not a few hours ago. “About… staying here forever.”

“Oh Chell! Darling, you’ll be perfect for this! My Rat M-” She looked at Cave. “Doug told me so much about you! So courageous… so determined! Oh you would love this life - love it so dearly! If it’s influence over GLaDOS you want, I’d wager you could have plenty!”

Chell bit into her butter tart. Her face scrunched up. 

“Aw, if you don’t like tarts,” Caroline looked genuinely concerned, “Then I’m sure you’d love my cakes! Did you know I had a cookbook published in my day, Chell? All dedicated to chocolate cakes and cupcakes! Plus I’ve had a little time to perfect th-”

“Do I have a choice? Chell interrupted her. “Can I well… not be a computer?”

Caroline frowned, for the first time.

“Look R- Chell. You just got here! Why not give our room a little try. Do you know how excited I was when I figured it out? I had original ideas for… centuries I think!”

Chell tapped her fingers. How far gone was she from what she set out to do? She didn’t know anymore. Perhaps just a minute to indulge…

“How do I do it?”

“That’s my field of expertise! Well, one of them I should say.” She placed a hand on Chell’s still-existing jumpsuit. “Deep inside your body Chell, you have a little something in you… a light if you will. It defines you. Everything that has ever happened to you, everything that is happening to you… everyone that matters to you - they become a part of that essence. And they become a part of you. You just have to focus on that light inside you and bring it out.”

Chell closed her eyes and focused intently. She focused on her heartbeat and her breathing and the patterns of the light sensations in her skin. And she felt herself distilling into something smaller… but greater. She felt that feeling when she left herself. She felt like she did with D-”

“It might take a while!” Caroline cautioned. “Took me years of research anyhow-”

Chell opened her eyes. The room flashed and shed its pink. It shed back into its gooey, gelatinous form. But it lasted only a moment - the walls turned first, dancing in swirling spirals of blissful blues and cheery greens. Little fibres wove themselves into a soft, carpeted ceiling which a ding-dinging chandelier sprung out of.

The glass table shrunk considerably, into the lone modest thing in the room - a round wooden table with a fat lazy susan spinning in the middle. Glorious leather back support sprung the dinner trio into comfort. And someone was sitting in one of those leather chairs - a quiet-looking man with wavy black hair.

“Dad!” 

Chell sprung up and threw herself into his arms. They took their time, but slowly returned the favor. He was wearing that stupid crisp labcoat he always came home with, unbuttoning as soon as he had the chance. She stood there in his embrace, forcing herself to believe this was real.

Bowls filled up with gooey mac-and-cheese and clear teaspoons. No other cutlery was necessary as far as Chell was concerned. She scooped it into her mouth like the old days and when she was finished, she filled her bowl back to the brim… like the old days. And every time she ran out, she filled the bowl again, never getting any fuller.

The first few bites might’ve tasted a little like sewage and cilantro, but eventually, she stopped tasting. It was a feeling on her tongue and around her lips and nothing more. And when she was finished, she hugged Dad for minutes - hugged him until he became a lot like mac-and-cheese. Hugged him until his embrace was a warm spot on her back and around her arms.

But when she let go, he was still there. They were still there. Everyone was still there. And as she looked at them, she felt something in her subsiding - something deep in her body. She remembered brushing through test chambers and flinging across moats and carrying deceptively heavy loads on her chest.

And it was all so pointless. From the moment she arrived at Aperture, to the moment she woke up again, to the moment she met Dean… it was all the same. Even when she told herself that she had a better reason for doing it all, it was still the same. Driving herself to a shiny goal in the sky that would toss her back where she started. And she would hop back and forth over the same moat for the rest of her life.

“Have some cake!” Caroline convinced her.

And everyone had a little cake. 

“Do you remember our potato battery, Dad?”

No response for a moment. 

“Of course I do, Rachael!”

Caroline looked at her funny.

“Well I’ve been stuck in the Aperture labs for 50 thousand years…”

“Uh-huh.”

“Uh-huh. And I was looking through that part of the facility and… I saw it. I saw it standing there. And it made me feel really… happy!!”

“That’s really sweet Rachael!” He smiled. “Do you remember how we constructed it? With the scientific method?”

“Yeah! I-” she thought for a moment. “There were wires… and electrons, I think and-” she coughed on a crumb of chocolate cake. “I suppose I don’t remember the whole thing, no. Could you enlighten me?”

“Not really. I don’t remember either!”

Chell frowned.

“You… don’t remember? It’s a pretty basic experiment.”

“Guess not!” He sucked the vanilla icing off another piece. “This is great cake, Caroline!”

“He wouldn’t say that.” Chell said.

“About the cake?” Caroline sounded offended.

“No. The potato battery. He would never forget an experiment… a science fair project.”

“Well maybe you don’t remember him very well!”

She said it like it was common sense - like it meant nothing. 

“I remember my father.” Chell replied firmly.

“Now now, don’t fuss, darling. Why not invite someone a little... more recent?”

“I want to be with my father.”

“Yes yes, the time will come where you can… process him fully. Try someone else for now, darling.”

Chell focussed again, even harder this time -  even more determined to make someone authentic. Somehow though, she struggled a little more this time - struggled to even make them appear. Something inside her flickered thin and when she opened her eyes, there was nothing there.

She had to focus even  harder. She took a deep breath and tiptoed through her memories. She remembered the hum of the aperture facility and that aforementioned deceptively heavy weight on her chest. And a life sized Dean was standing beside the table. His white Aperture cloak still hung awkwardly down to his ankles and his grooming was hardly in order for their fancy little party.

“Dean!” Chell put her arms on his shoulders. 

“Chell… where are we?”

“Dean.” She repeated. “You’re real, right?”

“Real as you want me to be.”

Caroline separated the two, looming above them both.

“You’re fretting, Chell. You’re still fretting! Why can’t you relax? Sit down.”

They did.

“So Chell, who is this?”

“My bo-” she bit her lip. “Friend. My friend, Dean.”

“Dean? That’s odd… that name seems familiar.”

Chell’s eyes lit up in recognition. Oh.

“No, I don’t think so. Don’t see how you would- could know him.”

And they kept eating. Food appeared the way they wanted it, though Chell began to think it looked a little off. Pleasant conversation ensued until they lost track of how long they had been talking. And every so often, the dining room would look a little different. But when Chell considered it, she realized it probably didn’t look different at all.

And every conversation was stitched together with laughter. Bouts of laughter strung from here to there until no one remembered what they were talking about. And every so often, no one would say anything and they would all stare at each other and at the table nervously. But then someone would start laughing and they would forget about it all.

“So,” Chell ceased another bout of laughter, “Is this what you do all day?” She started laughing. “Sit around the table and eat… cake?”

Everyone started laughing.

“She’s a curious girl isn’t she Mr. Johnson?” Said Caroline.

“Very curious, very curious indeed Caroline!”

And they laughed a little more.

“But uh, really.” Laughed Chell. “You can… do anything you want in here right? What else do you do? Research, you said earlier?”

“Dining… drinking my tea with Mr. Johnson... it’s what I love to do!” Caroline said. “All of that researching is in the past-”

“Yeah, Caroline was always real good with the science.” Cave interrupted, surprising everyone. “I don’t think I would’ve bothered without her. Don’t see how I woulda managed, frankly.”

“Now Mr. Johnson,” Caroline laughed. “That isn’t something I like to talk about anymore.”

“Shame too.” He seemed to gain a little of his joviality back, his drawl fully exaggerated again. “She was always the prettiest, smartest lady in that whole darn place! I had to let everyone know! Repeatedly!”

“Cave,” Caroline smiled, looking a little flustered “That’s enough.”

“And so modest. She wouldn’t take credit for anything. A lot of those early inventions were hers, you know. She pretended those lemonheads in lab coats made ‘em and I could never figure out-”

“Cave!” She hissed through gritted teeth. She placed an arm on his shoulder as if to pull him back, but her hand suddenly seemed quite small next to his. She didn’t have the strength to stop him. And as he went on, his face grew and grew into its mold.

“So when I was dying,” he continued. “I knew who had to run this place! I knew it had to be someone humble, but intelligent. Someone quiet, but clever. And who else but my pretty little Caroline!”

“Cave!” She stood up next to him as if to excerpt some sort of power over the thing in her imagination. But he stood up too. And when he stood up, he totally filled the skin of that linebacker. And alas, Caroline was tiny and meek, not even coming up to his shoulders. But now Mr. Johnson’s eye twitched.

“You…” he growled, staring Dean down.

“Me?”

“It couldn’t be…” Caroline gasped.

“But it is!” Cave Johnson pushed him out of his chair. “Blood bank boy! Wycker! I knew you were a Kraut, boy! You dirty-” He beat Dean over the head with a plate. “Dirty sonofabitch!”

“Cave!” Caroline exclaimed. “This is totally inappropriate!”

“You stay in line, woman!”

Chell rushed over to Dean, reflexively, protecting her dream cloud against someone else’s dream cloud. Blood poured out from his lip, and then his eyes, and then every part of Dean’s face. 

“Cave! Stop it! Stop it!”

“Since when do you talk back to me?” Cave turned round. “You were always so loyal - so understanding. What on God’s green Earth happened to you?”

“You put me in here!” Caroline screeched. “This was what you wanted!”

His joviality melted away and his shoulders sank. His whole body shrunk back into that slim little stick of a man.

“Caroline, honey, I’m sorry!”

“You’re always sorry, aren’t you?”

Caroline squinted at him. When the last remains of his physicality disappeared, they kept going. He kept shrinking.

“Don’t do this… not again.”

He was eye-level with her breasts, and then her midriff and then her knees. And when he was finished, he was a little speck at her fancy shoes. 

“Caroline - you’re right. You’ve always been right. I was so wrong. I’m still wrong.” He fell on his knees. “Not like this. Not in front of guests.”

“You made your choice.” Caroline said.

And as Caroline lifted her foot into the air, Chell was hit with a picture. The deep halo glowed in Aperture’s indoor sunset. And at the center of the halo was… GLaDOS. And she sprung from one side of the facility to the other at a terrifying speed. And she clattered against the door to the misty room as Caroline brought her heel down and mashed her beau into a little red splotch on the carpet. And then the glimpse vanished.

Chell fell backwards, but she forced herself back into the glimpse. She saw Dean, the real Dean, waiting nervously for her beside the zipper. He was coughing at the gas and sputtering but still waiting nervously for her. And GLaDOS was bringing the facility down and it must’ve been terrible to see and hear but he waited for her.

And she reached into reality - physically reached her arm into that reality. And she felt herself falling out of her little picnic and into the world that mattered. And she imagined herself running through fields of wheat with Dean literally by her side. But she felt a tug against her jumpsuit, and the glimpse disappeared. 

“Don’t go there!” Caroline screamed.

Chell pushed her away.

“You’re insane!” Chell realized. “You could have left anytime you wanted.”

“Who in their right mind would do that?” Caroline hissed back at her.

“And you’re the one at GLaDOS’ heart!” Chell went on. “Look what your little tantrums do!”

Caroline blinked. A sympathetic gleam flashed in her eyes and flashed into Chell’s.

“Chell, darling. Don’t you understand? Reality… it holds you back. ‘Humanity.’ It holds you back. I want you to think carefully about what you did in this brief time here - you brought your father back, Chell. You had your little friend with you. You have everything you could possibly want.”

“B-”

“And on top of that,” Caroline went on, “They do what you want. You don’t owe them anything. You don’t have to do anything for them. You don’t have any obligations.”

“I-”

“No. There’s no argument, Chell. You don’t need that… ‘Humanity’ to be happy. You just do what you want… when you want… with whomever you want. And if some thousand-year-old machine wants to grind up what’s left of an even older facility, then that’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

Chell walked up to her, now a little taller.

“You’re not going to hurt him.” Chell declared. “You’re gonna cut this nonsense out. You can’t sit and drink tea until the sun burns out.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re coming with me.” Chell said. “And we’re gonna get out of this place and live the rest of our lives in good old reality. And-”

Caroline raised her hand and waggled her fingers. The happy kitchen, bathing in luxury, fell to pieces. The swirls and spirals and colors on the walls chipped away. The carpeted ceiling tore to shreds as if expertly unwoven. And as Caroline extended her wrist, even the pretty chandelier swung in a circle as if a child were clutching it from atop the table. And after it swung, it chipped and broke and smashed on the lazy susan, spinning even more quickly and throwing shards of glass around the room.

“Leave here!” Laughed Caroline. “It’s that simple, isn’t it? Why don’t I just leave?”

Chell could feel that fire relighting inside her body. That same fire glowed in her adversary’s eyes.

“You waltz in after 50 thousand years, darling, and you think I’m going to prance away with you? Prance into the sunset?”

“It’s better than whatever the Hell this is.” Chell shot back.

“Hell… Hell?” Caroline cackled. “You want to know what Hell looks like?” She lunged at Chell, her smaller body flowing with agility. She brushed her hand across Chell’s forehead. Chell tried to duck away, but she seemed to stick like a magnet. And as she felt her cold touch, she was hit by a wave of memories she didn’t recognize.

Clouds of neurotoxin stretched over the Aperture facility and people fell over in real time. People in lab coats and in cubicles rushed for exits that were few and far between. And the ones who made it to exits found them locked shut. The neurotoxin flooded into lungs, but the vast majority of the stuff floated into the air, forming green halos.

And that memory disappeared. And Chell watched more lab coats making their way through test chambers, most of them unfit for even the simplest ones. Lab coats walked into moats and found themselves riddled with bullet holes and melted away in laser light. And others huddled together helplessly over hungry metal jaws and a crackling fire.

And then the memory seemed to adjust itself. The dark light of the facility was replaced with a natural dark light - a dark night, outside. Outside in real, unfiltered air. Chell could feel it on her face and it clashed with everything she had just seen. But then a horrible noise rifled through the air - a deep thud cratering against grassy fields. And suddenly, the night matched the color of the halos and the air felt sickly.

Caroline took her hand away.

“There’s nothing out there, Chell.”

Chell’s eyes sunk at the vision. The flame in her flickered timidly. But then she looked around this room of goop and gelatin. And with a little effort, she made a bowl appear in her palm. She poked her finger into the bowl and it budged a little. She wrapped one hand and then the other around it, and the thing popped like a balloon. It popped into goop.

“There’s nothing in here Caroline.” She replied. “I can’t make you come with me - but mark my words… I don’t give up. I will destroy GLaDOS. If I can’t do it today, I’ll do it tomorrow. And if I can’t do it tomorrow, I’ll spend the rest of my life trying. And one day, when I’ve won, your little tea party is gonna come to an end. And you’re gonna be alone, swimming in a bunch of goop.”

With that, she turned away from Caroline. Dean would be disappointed - their journey wasn’t close to being over. They would spend whatever amount of time they had to if it meant deactivating GLaDOS - if it meant getting out. It felt right - it was the right way to spend her life, even if it wasn’t right for anyone else.

And she concentrated. She focussed on the place she wanted to be - except, it was the real place. It wasn’t perfect or ideal or anything close to ideal. GLaDOS worked away at the facility, smashing walls to smithereens. Dean started to dart his eyes back and forth impatiently. Dark as it was, though, it was human.

She couldn’t abandon Dean. She couldn’t abandon herself - the life she had lived on the other side. And when she closed her eyes and reached her arms out, she could feel herself rising to the surface. She could feel the current propelling her in the opposite direction as before. She hadn’t accomplished what she had set out to do, but now, she had another go-

“Nooo!!!”

Caroline threw her to the ground. Her arms bulged like the wall had, but they bulged from inside her body. And her face hardened and her shoulders stuck out until she was twice as large as Cave had ever been. And she lunged at Chell like Cave had lunged at Dean, with bitter spite in her eyes.

Chell rolled out of the way athletically. She thought about changing her size, but she realized she didn’t need to. She had spent every second of her time in this place as the underdog, and she knew someone who was pretty good at that too. No, the first thing that came to her mind was a portal gun.

And as Caroline lunged at her again, she lunged into a portal instead. And when she emerged from the other side, she went flying into the rippling ceiling. She fell down, but stood right back up. She hoisted up an enormous shard of chandelier. She swung it at Chell like a knife and caught a bit of skin.

Chell leaned against the corner of the room. Caroline pounced like a lion and pressed her against the wall. Red tainted the jumpsuit and dripped onto the ground. It disappeared against the ground like a drop of rain in the ocean. She swung the shard again and caught Chell somewhere in the abdomen.

She rolled over on the ground and spat out more red. And when enough of it fell to the ground, it stopped disappearing like raindrops. The goo turned red and broke into the air. Red fog suddenly dominated the little room. 

“This is what’s real, Chell. That pain is real. That blood is real.”

Caroline dropped down to her knees. She stuck her hands out and cracked her knuckles.

“You think so little of yourself, Chell. You deserved better.”

She took her by the throat and flipped her over.

“You could’ve been so happy here.”

She plunged her face first into the goop. It was extremely flexible - it stretched around her face like a ski helmet. 

“You would’ve been perfect for this.”

Bubbles rode around in the goop. Chell waved her arms furiously. She wasn’t about to be beaten by some mummified recluse. Her heart beat pounded away like a drum. She could feel her energy in her fingertips, and she could feel that energy engulfing Caroline’s. At only half Caroline’s size, she managed to sprIng out from the goop. Caroline clumsily grabbed out for her arms, but Chell hit her across the nose with her portal gun. She grabbed ahold of Caroline’s neck, impossibly pulling her down to the ground. 

What she was about to do sent shivers down her spine. It wasn’t in Chell, but she didn’t have much of a choice. She wasn’t terribly elegant in the process, but she plain overpowered Caroline. It wasn’t much of a contest - she pressed and pressed until it was Caroline’s face in the goop. And when she was still breathing, she pushed it in even further.

It took a while - it took an uncomfortable while. The melting began again. Layers of skin melted like wax and the points inside her arms faded. Shaking became flailing and flailing turned into struggling. And when she stopped struggling, she lay there motionless as her little old self. 

Chell looked at her body on the ground. Her hands were shaking. She sat down and buried her face in them. She wondered what would have happened if she had made it here only a few weeks ago - she might’ve spent the rest of her life here - spent the rest of eternity here. 

“I’m sorry…” she whispered down to Caroline

If they had put her into GLaDOS however many years ago instead, Chell thought, she probably wouldn’t be contained in this facility. She would’ve done so much worse - if someone had come inside to greet her, they would have had every right to put her down.

She felt the area around her abdomen. Somehow someway, it didn’t bleed anymore. She touched the skin that had torn off under her jumpsuit, and of course, it stood there good as new. Chell didn’t understand herself half the time.

She knew Dean was waiting for her - waiting for her impatiently. She had seen that desire on his face to come crawling in after her. But she had to stay here a while… stay a few more minutes. She owed it to what she could have been, and what she didn’t become.