Chapter Text
There were words that Chell knew without knowing why, words that only became clear when something brushed across her memory or when her experience thus far failed to provide a suitable substitute. Words like espresso, or receptionist, or overhead technology deployment system -- they hovered in the back of her mind, ready for some trigger to draw them forth.
The word that rose now, stripped of any context it had once possessed, was orrery. GLaDOS hadn't been built to the same pattern here, not with less space and more restrictions and the cold to deal with, and just possibly the engineers had started to have some inkling of what they were constructing. Instead of dangling from the ceiling, here she stood like an idol on a dais, and the orbs that were her body -- or that Chell had assumed were -- spun in complicated orbits around a central spindle of light like the Combine's reactors, followed by dozens of smaller orbs. Each eye turned to regard her as it spun, like a model of the planets turning to look at a comet.
But the voice, the voice was the same.
Well. I don't suppose you have an excuse for being out so late? Nor for the mess you've made of this place? I could say I expected better of you, but we both know that would be a lie.
Chell took a step forward, scanning the room. Only one screen hung on the wall here, flashing the same frenetic images that she suspected mirrored GLaDOS' thought processes. This one, though, showed a lot more fire and a lot less cake. She circled the orrery of GLaDOS' being, returning the gaze of the eyes, trying to find a vulnerable spot.
So what do you think of the big wide world? You were in such a hurry to get out there, after all. Was it everything you hoped for?
No terminals, no phone . . . no sign that anyone had been in here even before GLaDOS went insane. Here she hadn't needed any wires to cut. She might not even have needed the neurotoxin.
I admit I briefly thought you'd do better out there. And by 'do better' I mean 'die quickly.' But after I found out you'd lasted a little while, I decided to give you one last chance. So don't say I never did anything nice for you.
The base of the plinth shimmered in a way that couldn't quite be accounted for by the glow of the reactor spindle. Chell tentatively tapped at it with the crowbar, aiming at one of the eyes as it slid by. A violet ripple spread out in the air, and instead of a clank the only sound was a dull thump. Selective field, she thought, something like the ones the Combine had. At least I didn't waste a shot on it.
So here's my suggestion: You go on back to your vault, take a nap, and think it over. Where else are you going to go? To the same people who threatened to kill you if you fell into someone else's hands? I hardly think so.
Her voice shifted, becoming quieter, more insinuating. Don't think I didn't notice what kind of crowd you've fallen in with. GLaDOS heaved an electronic version of a sigh. You're even wearing their colors. It doesn't suit you, she added in a mock whisper.
For the first time, Chell felt a twinge of admiration for the programmers who'd designed GLaDOS. After all, it couldn't have been easy to make a machine sound catty.
Let's not even get into the question of your uninvited guests. They might have done more damage, but what you've done pains me more, since unlike them you knew what you were doing.
All right, that's an overstatement.
But at least you've demonstrated that you're a little better at following directions these days. The screen flickered to a single image and remained, the sudden stillness drawing her eye. It now showed a camera feed, somewhere in the hall she'd left behind. Calhoun stood in profile where she'd left him, bashing the butt of his pulse rifle against the door control panel. Not that it would have been that much of a loss. I mean, really. He's no weighted companion cube, is he?
Chell gazed at the screen, the ASHPD forgotten in her hands. He'd moved on from smashing the panel to fiddling with the wires within, his mouth moving as he worked. Cursing, probably; she could almost hear what he must be saying, the tone of his voice.
She cleared her throat. "He's all right," she said.
GLaDOS stopped. Every whirling orb screeched to a halt, every secondary piece of machinery did the same, and even the screen froze, first stilling Calhoun's image, then blotting it out with white. Each of the six eyes -- all gold, she noticed, no differentiation of purpose here -- turned to face Chell.
DON'T YOU TALK BACK TO ME!
The words were so loud Chell's ears rang, and somewhere back in the vents of the building something teetered and crashed to the floor. The eyes started to move again, slowly this time but gaining speed, and one by one a new set opened, smaller and brilliant green. Not personality cores, not the center of GLaDOS' being, but something else, something malevolent.
I had something a lot more painless planned for you, GLaDOS went on, her artificial serenity even more dissonant now. But someone -- and I'm not naming any names -- brought her friends, and they hogged all the neurotoxin. So you really have only yourself to blame for this.
A line of green light shot from the closest eye, sizzling the air past her and leaving a scorchmark on the wall. A second laser grazed her arm, leaving a long burnt line across the suit -- and the heat she felt told her that the suit could only do so much against these. She finally dodged, opening up a portal behind her. Maybe she could do what she'd done in the Enrichment Center, destroy GLaDOS with her own weapons.
All this could have been avoided if you'd known when to quit. It's sad, when you think about it. Not when I think about it, though.
The first few beams that shot through the portal only glanced off GLaDOS' shield, and if a robot eye could look smug, she'd have sworn that was the look they were giving her. No luck that way. There had to be a way past the shield . . . the lasers had no trouble getting out, after all, or perhaps it was tailored to let them through. But there was at least one part of the orrery that wasn't shielded.
She opened a portal up near the top of the room and leapt into it just as another laser clipped her heel. The suit began to mutter in her ear about compromised integrity -- but there, right where the reactor beam passed into the orrery itself, a walkway circled the beam. It wasn't much, barely wide enough to hold a portal, but it was something. She fired just as she hit the forcefield on the way down, smacking her shoulder against it.
Well, you certainly haven't learned agility while you've been away.
Hitting the ground hurt even more than hitting the field, and she had just enough presence of mind to roll out of the way of the lasers. But she'd landed near her portal, and the view through it showed lasers and spinning eyes. She jumped inside, clinging to the walkway.
There wasn't much room to stand; on one side of the walkway, the reactor beam nearly crisped her hair, on the other, orbs and lasers and a hundred other pieces whizzed by so fast they could take her head off. But from here, she could follow the tracks, watch their complicated dance and make sense of it. Ignore the lasers, leave them for now . . . they're not the heart of her, they're just a distraction. What's important are those six gold eyes.
Six eyes. Six shots. It would be cutting it close, but . . . She drew Calhoun's revolver and took aim, but the orbs moved too fast.
If you think I won't hurt you just because you're inside me, think again. A single laser turned inward, and the resulting flare nearly drove Chell back into the beam. She sidestepped -- and it didn't follow. Or at least for a second it paused, and the rising orb behind her told her why: GLaDOS had learned from their last fight. She wasn't going to let Chell trick her into shooting herself again. Where the orbs were, the lasers would not fire . . . but the pattern of where they were and when was too hard to immediately decipher. If I could just slow one down, or stop it . . .
She hesitated (not quite long enough for the lasers to find her), and a slow, manic smile touched her lips. Gauging the path of the next orb to touch down next to her, she lifted the crowbar, turned, and wedged it into the track.
The eye slammed into the crowbar, jarring into place, and a high metallic shriek went up, more of straining metal than of pain. Before GLaDOS could say anything Chell put the revolver against the eye and fired. The report, deafeningly loud, seemed to run all the way up her arm to her spine, but the eye shattered under the shot, dying away in a wash of static. One down.
GLaDOS sighed again, though this time there was a mechanical edge to it very like someone gritting her teeth. Violence? Since when has that ever solved anything? A laser glanced across Chell's shoulder as she yanked the crowbar free, and she hissed from the sudden heat and -- now -- pain as the last of the suit's charge failed. Anything for you, I mean?
Chell cast a dirty look at the screen -- just visible through the interstices of the tracks -- and stuck the crowbar into another track. This eye turned to glare at her as it struck the crowbar, the gold unsettlingly compound.
You really don't have any idea --
Another shot, and another dead eye.
-- what you're doing, do you?
Chell ignored her, dragging the crowbar loose. The orbs spun faster now, harder to follow, and there were fewer safe spots where the lasers wouldn't touch her. She wedged the crowbar into place, mentally cursed as an eye shot smoothly past, and replaced it on the next track.
You didn't kill me before. What makes you think it'll work this time?
At that she hesitated. For a second she had a hideous vision of an endless game of cat and mouse, of getting free over and over only for GLaDOS to pull her back every time she thought she was safe.
It's not that I wouldn't love to string you along, but what's the point? Nothing you do here matters. My entire system is backed up and ready on the Bor -- rrrr -- rrr --
Her voice caught up in a repeating burr, unintelligible and mechanical. Chell took advantage of the moment to set the crowbar properly this time, then snuck a glance at the screen. The twitching images gave way to static, and for just a second she caught a glimpse of a bearded, bespectacled face.
-- RRR -- okay, let's talk.
Chell smiled, shook her head, and shot the third orb as it crashed against the crowbar. Whoever that was, if he'd destroyed GLaDOS' backups, she owed him a beer. That was if they still had beer in this strange new world. I'll ask Calhoun. He'll know.
She dragged the crowbar free and ran to the far side of the walkway, following the remaining three eyes. Green light shot past her face, but she kept on, watching the pattern.
They would have killed you, you know. They said as much in that transmission. If I hadn't fixed it, they would have. See how I take care of you, even when you're not here?
There. She slammed the crowbar into place just as an eye went whizzing past, and the crash it made against the iron was almost enough to knock it off its track.
I'm the only one with your best interests at heart. Trust me. It's much safer here with me.
If Chell still had breath to laugh, she would have. Instead she shot the orb -- four down -- and yanked away the crowbar before it had even stopped smoking.
This isn't a game, Chell! There's no cake for killing me!
So now you're using my name. She slammed the crowbar into the next track so hard it sent an electrical tingle up her arm. And there never was any cake. She raised the revolver as the penultimate orb came whistling down the track.
A green beam struck her square in the chest -- not enough to pierce the suit, but enough to punch her back a step. She staggered back, just avoiding the edge of the walkway, but her finger twitched on the trigger, and her shot went wild.
Gasping for breath, Chell turned and fired her last shot at the smirking eye. It shattered, but too late: the damage had been done. Six shots, five eyes down, and that was it. Calhoun's revolver was useless now.
Wait. Wait, wait, wait. I think I understand now.
Chell stared at the empty revolver, a chill creeping down her neck despite the ever-present heat of the reactor.
You wouldn't do this if you knew, GLaDOS said slowly, her tone taking on a note of gleeful realization. You wouldn't have done any of this if you understood. Therefore you don't know. There must have been a glitch in the mnemonic transfer, a faulty backup. You can't even begin to know what's going on. But I do.
The crowbar, she thought desperately, trying to drown out GLaDOS' words as she holstered the revolver. I could just smash the last orb . . . but how to keep it still? I can't just whack at it in passing.
Do you know why this place seemed so familiar, Chell? Maybe you think you do, you think you remember, but I can tell you right now it's all a lie. You think any of that is real?
Chell raised her head, staring at the last gold eye. It swiveled to watch her in turn, inscrutable in its arc.
But I know. I'm the only one who knows who you were. What you were. What you still are. I can give that back to you.
Even the lasers had paused, she realized; none of them had fired on her, despite the clear opening she'd given them. She choked up on the crowbar with both hands, holding it so tight the edges began to bite into her gloved palms.
A thin edge of smoke rose up around her. For a second she mistook it for the remnants of of GLaDOS' shattered parts or the reactor beam itself, but it wasn't either. It was her -- or, more specifically, the suit, and the charred dent the last laser had put in it. She raised her hand to wave the smoke away, then paused.
The dent was in the same place as the hole in the broken gray breastplate that made the centerpiece of Dr. Green's makeshift memorial.
Chell made an inarticulate noise, spun, and jammed her left heelspring into the track of the last eye. The eye slammed into her, and the shock traveled all the way up to her bones. She hissed as the heel spring twisted under the impact, deforming under the strain.
GLaDOS' last eye turned to stare at her, dilating in near-human shock. What are you doing?
For answer, Chell raised the crowbar in both hands and brought it down point-first against the orb. The resulting impact twisted her heel spring even further, but a shower of sparks went up from the eye.
No! You'll never know! You'll never --
Oh, I know enough, Chell thought, punctuating each thought with a whack. I know all I need to.
I know my name is Chell.
I know Calhoun's got my back.
And I know you end here.
GLaDOS gave one last wail, and the eye shattered under her assault, pieces springing free of the track as if to attack Chell. Behind her, the reactor beam shuddered, then flared white. Chell flung up her hands as the room exploded around her.
The sound of dripping water and metal creaking pulled her back to consciousness, or a close approximation. I've been here before, she thought through the haze of pain. I've already done the whole lying-in-the-wreckage thing. Can we move on to the next part?
Only now no one's going to come in and find me. Crap.
She opened her eyes and sat up. Where GLaDOS had been was now a crater of broken masonry and steel, shards of lenses and lasers scattered across it like the remnants of a tray of glassware. A fragment of track was still tangled in her left heel spring, and when she pulled it free she could see the damage: the spring was twisted completely out of alignment, and though she hadn't yet broken anything, when she stood, the strain on her bones came damn close.
Not gonna try a portal jump like this, she thought, and felt around for the ASHPD. It was there, still slung over her shoulder, and the crowbar lay a few feet away. And Calhoun's empty revolver was still in its holster.
Calhoun. She hobbled forward a few steps, then stopped. A twisted wreck of concrete and rebar blocked the door she'd come through. She couldn't tell if it was just from the explosion, or if that whole part of the building had fallen in . . . but there was a vent, its grate blocked by a tangle of rebar. She unslung the ASHPD, praying it still worked, and fired.
The blue glimmer of a portal appeared through the grate. Sighing, she opened an orange portal in the narrow space between wreckage and crater and crawled through.
No gunfire. No voices. No sound at all, and this vent turned away from the blocked door, taking her further down the hall than she wanted to be. She tucked her bad leg under her and kicked out the closing grate, and emerged --
-- on top of a heap of deactivated turrets.
The white shells clattered under her feet, and she stumbled, lurching against the wall. One or two gave out feeble, diminished beeps, but that was it. They filled this end of the hall, a dozen at least, and there were more up ahead.
And at the far end of the hall, where the last test chamber had been, where she had left him, the glass doors bore a long, descending streak of blood.
Chell kicked dead turrets out of her way as she tried to run. Calhoun sat at the end of the streak, propped up against the doors, the rifle still braced against his lap. For a moment she couldn't breathe -- but he raised his head, blinking blood out of his eyes. A smile spread across his face. "You made it."
She dropped down next to him. There was a lot of blood, and she was sure there was more she couldn't yet see . . .
"You took care of her?" he asked, not taking his eyes from her face.
Chell nodded, tapping the revolver. With your help.
"That's good." He drew a deep, ragged breath. "I think I understand why you didn't want me to go with you," he added, pointing with the rifle. She looked over her shoulder to see an Aperture Science loudspeaker, the same kind that GLaDOS had used to taunt her through the back halls of the Enrichment Center, a panel hanging askew beside it. This one, though, was riddled with holes. "She wanted to talk. I didn't want to listen." Calhoun shook his head. "Stupid to waste the ammo . . . but I could hear some of what she was yelling at you, and I figured that was plenty."
Something groaned and crashed further in the building, and Chell realized for the first time that she wasn't cold because she was scared or hurt, she was cold because the Arctic chill had started to creep into the previously isolated parts of the facility. She slung the ASHPD out of her way, took Calhoun's arm, and pulled it across her shoulders.
"Next time, though, I'm coming with you. Okay?" His eyes unfocused as she shifted his weight, but he didn't protest, and he kept breathing. That was important.
Her left heelspring twisted further as she got to her feet, protesting under their combined weight. Chell gritted her teeth and hitched his arm further across her shoulders, then froze as Calhoun's cheek brushed hers.
Memory flashed around her, so strong it nearly flooded out the pain: a stubbled cheek against hers, spring sunlight through blinds, and a pungent, delicious scent. And more: two voices, one of which she thought was her own, talking about . . . about work . . . A lazy morning, coffee on a Sunday, sharing stories from the new contract. The image faded around her, leaving her with only the wrecked hallway and Calhoun's labored breathing beside her . . . and where was he now, the man who'd made that coffee, the source of this tactile memory?
Gone. Gone for a long time. Even if GLaDOS was right about the reality of her memories, the loss she felt was true. But now, now she was here and alive, and the thing that mattered from this memory was not the man she'd lost, not the scent of coffee, but grousing about a particular thing, one among the many irrationalities they both had to deal with, one that had become almost a joke: they'll toss all safeguards out the window programming that thing or testing on the ship, but God forbid . . .
She lurched forward a step and whacked her elbow against the closest wall panel. Nothing, and the creaks from deep in the facility were growing louder. On to the next.
"That doesn't sound good," Calhoun muttered drowsily. "I'm slowing you down . . . maybe you better leave me behind."
. . . God forbid they break even one OSHA regulation, so every fifty feet . . .
Next panel. Nothing. Next -- and this one had a hollow sound to it. Chell smiled grimly and hit it again, so that the panel sprang free, revealing a stack of white boxes within. She crouched, setting Calhoun down against the wall.
"Chell, I'm serious." He opened his eyes and tried to focus on her. "Leave me. I mean, we got that thing, we kept the Combine out, that's what's important --"
Every fifty feet, there has to be a first-aid station. "You talk too much," Chell said, and smacked him in the stomach with a medkit.
Two medkits more, and he could stand, though his face was still pale and he wouldn't stop staring at her. "You can talk," he said finally, wonderingly.
Chell grinned and nodded.
"Oh, for the love of --" He shook his head and laughed, and the sound of it was stronger than his earlier strained chuckle. "Fine. Be that way, then." He got to his feet, wincing a little, and held out his hand.
Chell accepted the hand up, staggering a little on her broken heelspring. "I can talk. Can't fly a helicopter. Think next time you try to be noble."
"That's pretty rich, coming from you." But he didn't seem inclined to move or let go, not till another crash and thump from deeper inside startled both of them. "Right. Helicopter. Should be this way."
It was, out through a broken door and onto a snowy ledge that might once have overlooked the picnic tables. Chell's memory murmured again, a whisper of landing here once in better days and worse weather, but she ignored it in favor of dragging the body of a Combine soldier out of the remaining intact helicopter. Calhoun settled into the pilot's seat with a sigh. "Systems, check, fuel, check . . . we should have enough to get to White Forest at least, if not City 12 . . . should be a gunsight in back, if you could take that we should be able to face anything that might be waiting . . ."
She found the gunsight at the other end of the helicopter: a screen showing a panoramic view from the rear, apparently for the helicopter's mounted gun. Through the screen, the Aperture Science Contingency Site and Storage Facility caved in on itself like an iceberg calving, and she felt a faint, final twinge at the sight -- not regret, but loss, loss long accepted.
"Check . . . check . . . okay. Let's see what kind of chatter's out there."
A whine of static blared through the helicopter, resolving into a woman's voice. "-- anyone hear me? Any resistance member, come in, come in please --"
"Mother of God," Calhoun whispered, and seized the radio. "Alyx, is that you?"
Even through the static, Chell could hear her gasp. "Barney? What are you doing this far north?"
Calhoun glanced back at her and started to grin. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you. Hang on, I've got your position. You folks all right?"
"I'm okay, but Gordon's hurt --" Her voice caught. "It's pretty bad."
"Sit tight. We'll be there soon." The engine started up, and he took the controls. "What do you think, Chell? Ready to go be the cavalry?"
"Sounds fun," she said distantly, watching as the facility began to recede below them. Another wall, the one that had faced the lobby, fell in as they rose, and the crater where GLaDOS had been began to spread outward, reducing halls and offices and Relaxation Vaults and hiding places to rubble. The empty spot in her memories, the indefinable blank that had supplied her with so many familiar moments, quieted. And GLaDOS' last words --
It doesn't matter, she thought, and stood, holding on to the gunsight to keep herself upright. I'm alive. Calhoun's alive. These two people, they'll stay alive -- and all because GLaDOS isn't.
She came to stand behind Calhoun, putting a hand on his shoulder to steady herself. Without looking up, he covered her hand with his, just for a second. Yes. We're all still alive.
THE END