Angie's Story

The young scientist groggily woke. She blinked her eyes, seeing only darkness. "Where am I?" She asked herself aloud.

She tried to sit up, and hit her head on some kind of barrier just a few inches above her head. Surprised, she fell back against the faded cushion which had served as her pillow over the past year. The confused woman would have panicked, but she felt so tired. And hungry. She couldn't recall her last meal... She hadn't eaten since she'd put herself in this casket-like container. She couldn't recall why she'd put herself in it...

The female reached out, out of habit, and her hand grasped a small lever adjacent her hip. She gave a feeble tug. The lever didn't budge.

"Must have rusted." She muttered. The scientist, in her early twenties, mustered whatever strength she had left, and pulled the lever towards herself. It groaned loudly, and finally released a small mechanism with was holding the top of the casket down. She took a few deep breaths, exhausted just from that small amount of exertion. After a moment to recover, and pushed the lid of her container away from her. It swung open on a hinge.

Sitting up, several lights flickered on, and lit up the small, dark chamber. She felt a cold piece of metal slid against her neck, it was a dog tag. Was she part of the military? She wondered. It read:

Angelina Kame

With her name, memories flooded back to Angie. Memories of losing her family, and coming to Aperture to make something of herself. Then... something happened. "What happened?" She wondered aloud to herself.

She had met Pete, a towering man who could've been a football player. He had become her only friend. Even when Cave Johnson, the founder of Aperture Science put his trusted assistant into a computer. And Peter had put himself in suspended animation, with Angie... She looked to her right, and saw a rust covered container identical to her own, just the right size to be a coffin. She knew instantly that it contained her friend.

Angie swung her legs over the edge of her casket, and set her long-fall-boot-equipped feet on the ground. As soon as she set her full weight on her legs, they gave out, and she collapsed. Angie groaned, and struggled to get up. She got on her hands and knees to be more stable. Looked at her arms, she realized they were much thinner than they had been. She needed to eat something soon.

She crawled across the room to Pete's casket, and opened it. "Pete... I think we were right. Aperture is no more." She said in a weak voice.



Many floor above the two scientists, hundreds of test subjects slept peacefully. Well... the one who weren't dead, slept peacefully. The entirety of the Relaxation center groaned as it swung across empty air. The crash echoed for minutes, which seemed to carry on for hours. Ceilings collapsed, walls caved in, the beds, along with the bodies of test subjects sleeping in them were thrown through the air. Most of what used to be a temporary 'home' for the test subjects fell into the depths of a pit that knew no end.

One small section of the Relaxation Center was catapulted into a huge broken test chamber. It landed right side up, and managed to stop without much damage. The occupants were thrown around a bit, though they survived, having been rudely awakened.

There were three surviving rooms. And three surviving test subjects.

For a moment, silence fell over the cavern-like test chamber. The echoing groans from the catastrophic crash of the Relaxation Center finally faded away. For the moment, all was still. Three side of the enormous room were complete. But on one side the floor, walls, and ceiling ended, and a huge, endless area continued as far as the eye could see. Dust, or perhaps smoke hung in the air, lit up by lights on huge railed panels in the far distance.

About a third of the intact portion of the center hung off the edge of this gaping expanse which never seemed to end.

Light filtered through the ceiling of the test chamber. Vines crept down the walls through skylights in the ceiling. Pieces of the once immaculate testing area had fallen, and littered the area. Ceiling fragments, wall panels, and portal surfaces were all scattered, and misplaced.

A large, three foot wide red button sat in the far corner of the room. A large, cube shaped box covered in lichen sat on a high ledge, just big enough for it to sit on. The section of wall just behind it was made of a white material, on which a portal could be shot, given that a portal gun was present.

After another long moment, small sounds traveled to those ears that were listening. Sounds of small footsteps, and scuttling, and movement. As well as an indistinct voice muttering to itself. Sounds echoed, magnified by the unexplainable, cavernous, pit.




Angie stared down at her friend. Her legs trembled with the effort of standing. She was almost sure she saw him start to stir when suddenly it was too much. Her weakened body gave out, an she lost all strength in her limbs, falling to the cold floor. She tried to get up, but she lacked the physical power, and the will. Her stomach gnawed at her from the inside, as if trying to eat itself in the absence of food. She knew there was some dry food which she and Pete had stored with them in suspended animation.

She felt herself losing her grip in the world of the conscious, and fought to stay awake. She looked back at the isolated chamber that had kept her alive this past year. She managed to crawl on shaky limbs to it, and reach up, feeling blindly around the inside until her hand met an item. Not the food she was looking for... The dual portal gun. She knew it would be her key to escape. Holding it made her feel a little better...

She couldn't think on the subject any more as she collapsed like a house of cards, unconscious.

Angie's eyes fluttered open. Someone was poking her... She blinked a few times to clear her vision, and saw Pete looking down at her. She managed a small smile, being glad to see a familiar face.

"Time to wake up, this place could crumble." He told her. Angie looked down at her right hand, now equipped with the dual portal gun. She nodded to Pete, and managed to stand up on wobbly legs. Her long-fall boots helped her to stay balanced as she peered into her the encasing that had been her 'home' for nearly a year. She saw the small synthetic-leather satchel that held freeze dried food. She needed to eat something before she died of starvation. She opened the leather flap over the top, and pulled out a couple bags of trail mix. It looked like a three course meal to her.

She handed one of the bags to Pete, and opened the second for herself. She popped a handful of the dried fruits and nuts in her mouth, swallowing quickly. For all she cared, she had just eaten a full meal. Immediately she felt stronger, and more stable.

"Alright, we need to get moving before the ceiling collapses on us. I think something happened up there." She gestured to the ceiling, then shouldered the her small satchel. "If the elevator isn't out of commission we should be able to get out quickly." She said in a shaky voice.

Angie walked across the small office-like room. Old computers beyond repair sat in the corners of the room. Her feet crunched on old paper, broken glass, and porcelain. An old, stone stairway lead up into one of the more recent parts of Aperture Science. She took her first step up, and froze. She smelled something familiar, and deadly at that. "Neurotoxin..." She muttered quietly.

She climbed the steps, and arrived at the top of the stairway. Her eyes widened. Aperture was not what it used to be...

She found herself on a metal platform, about a hundred feet wide, and a hundred and fifty long. They were surrounded by a lake of muddy brown liquid. Neurotoxin. Around the edge of the platform was a railing. In some places the railing had had become so rusted that it had fallen into the lake. Angie decided not to trust these railings, or even go near them. "What do you make of this?" She asked Pete, gesturing to everything in sight.

Following Angie through the office and up the stairway Pete looked around the platform to find out they were above the deadliest pool they would ever come across. "Apparently they abandoned this place, somehow some neurotoxin tanks ruptured and flooded the room down there" He said, partly answering Angie's question "At least there are no sharks" he added jokingly before getting serious again and started to examine his surroundings.

Below them, a brown pool of deadly neurotoxin, above, a ceiling with a few cracks and broken light bulbs, showing the place's abandonment, with a few vines growing out of some of the cracks on the walls.

"We could try these out" He finally said, showing his portal gun. "This platform doesn't look really safe." he pointed to the rusty areas "We could create a portal on the ground below us and one in the ceiling at the end of the platform, and hope it doesn't break when we fall." Pete explained his quick plan then added "Unless you want to walk across."

Angie gave a short chuckle. At the moment, she didn't want to walk anywhere. "I like the portal idea." She said to Pete with a quick nod. Angie had never actually used a portal gun before... she had never even been in one of the tests she had helped to design. She stared down at the mechanism she'd seen work so many times. It couldn't be that hard... could it?

Angie aimed it at the dirty white surface below her feet, and with a single thought a blue wisp hit the ground, creating an oval shape, about six feet tall, and three feet wide. She stepped off of it, knowing that the moment she shot the second, orange portal, she would be able to fall through the blue opening, and come out of the orange oval. the concept made her head spin. But as she'd been told so many times before, when it came to portal technology, you didn't think about how it worked. You just did it.

A second later she directed the portal gun across the platform, and shot an orange wisp accurately, hitting the ceiling. A wide oval opened itself up. Peering across, through it, she could almost swear she could see herself within it. Angie shivered, and again told herself not to think about how it worked. Portal science had always been something that intrigued her. Just because... she couldn't figure it out. Every law of nature argued against it. And yet...

Angie took a deep breath, and looked down at the blue oval. Now she could see through it, as if she was standing right above the orange portal, looking down at the floor, from the ceiling. Before she could start thinking about it too hard, she jumped into it, and appeared a hundred feet away, falling the eight feet to the ground. With how undernourished she was, that fall would have jarred her, and possibly broken a bone. But luckily the flawlessly designed boots she was wearing took all the impact of the fall, and directed the energy elsewhere.

She heard the platform groan under her weight, but it seemed to hold steady. She waved Pete over, gesturing for him to follow.

Angie glanced around as she waited for her friend. Looking towards the center of the back wall, a circular door stood. Sparks flew from the jammed exit. Angie watched it curiously as it struggled to open and close, but the mechanism was broken. Through it was a dark passageway. This was the only exit unless the two were willing to cross the lake of neurotoxin.



Meanwhile, in decomposing test chamber, the voices of the test subjects filled the void silence. In the otherwise quite outside the small intact section of the Relaxation Center, a metal railway lead through an old door. Other than the bottomless pit, this appeared to be the only exit.

Angie heard her friend warn her as he got ready to portal jump. She moved out from underneath the orange portal, and watched as Pete dropped through, seeming to appear from through the ceiling. Again telling her scientist brain not to think about how portals worked, she quietly agreed that they had to be careful.

She nodded, as Pete gestured to the door struggling to open and close. She pursed her lips, seeing sparks fly out of it in different directions. Angie gingerly walked towards it. She could feel the stability of the platform beneath her increasing as the got closer to the walls. "It's more steady here." She said quietly, fearing that if they stood in one place for too long she or Pete would break through and fall into a lake of deadly poison. Dying of neurotoxin... Not her favorite pass-time.

She cautiously reached the door. Angie figured her best bet was to prop the door open. She examined the floor, and found a suitable candidate; a three foot long pipe. She picked it up in frail hands, and jammed it in between the two electronic sliding doors. The mechanism whirred, no longer able to move. Angie gave a small smile of satisfaction, then started walking through the doors. She suddenly froze. She knew this portion of Aperture like the back of her hand. Through these doors was a huge dome, that seemed the descend endlessly down. Metal railways spanned through empty air, and trailed off like spiderwebs to different sections of Aperture.

She stood back from the door, knowing that there would be a small tube-like lift which, if it was still operational, could bring them higher, where they would need to go if they wanted to get out. But to do that, the acrophobic young scientist would need to cross the railway which lead over the bottomless expanse.

Angie told herself she was being ridiculous. Living and working at Aperture had required her to cross the bridge ways multiple times a day. Even then she had struggled with it. Angie steeled herself to get across it, and grit her teeth. She stepped through the complaining door, and paled at the sight before her. She shut her eyes, and tried not to listen to the echoing creaks, and groans of the decomposing center. The grate she was standing on felt stable enough. She was sure she would be safe to cross. But her paralyzing fear would stop her. She knew it.

She dared to crack an eyelid open, and immediately backed up, and felt for the wall behind her to know she was safe. Angie chastised herself for well-known phobia (In truth she suffered from three). She told herself she was being ridiculous. That didn't stop her from looking anywhere but where she could fall.

Angie forced her fear away, and took her first step out onto the rail that would lead her to the lift. She moved stiffly, then froze completely. On shaky limbs she walked back. "I can't do it." She said, almost angry with herself.

~

While the recently awakened test subjects began to interact, a small mechanical whir echoed through the cavern. The sound reached the ears of Abigail, though the other two, older test subjects remain unaware of it. The sound of metal joints moving against each other also echo out. Again, this is for the most part, unnoticed.

Underneath the old, decomposing bed where Abigail hid. A small red light glowed.

"Hello." The turret's animated voice said clearly.

The core felt itself slowly freed from the overbearing weight of the panels. As the last one was lifted away, it felt more free than it had in days. It seemed the vibrate for a moment, and the dust lifted away, off of it. It squinted up happily at the female human who had saved it. She looked tired. The core almost felt badly for her. After all, she had just put hereslf through a lot to get it out.

It blinked it's single, large purple eye at her. It a now recognizably masculine voice, it spoke in a faintly Irish accent. "Oh thank you, you have no idea how annoying those were." He rolled his eye at the panels. The core manuvered himsel to roll around on the floor a bit, but couldn't do much moving. "Uh... could you do me another favor, and pick me up? I'm not much good without my railing..." He admitted.

"Oh it that a child?" He piped up, drastically changing the subject as he spotted Abigail through the window. "I've never seen a human child before! Wow this is really my lucky day aint it? I get saved by a pretty lady, and I get to meet a child! Wow." He seemed to stare, awed, at nothing for a moment.

"Oh my name's Charlie by the way! Not the most creative name, I know. My mum was a computer, who can blame her? Anyway, they call me the Loquacious Core. I have absolutely no idea what that means! Do you? I sure don't!" He rattled, bobbing slightly on the ground with excitement. "It sounds kinda like... Oh I dunno. Quiet? Starts with a 'q' I guess, but what's that mean? Loquacious, loquacious... well it sounds cool don' it?" He made a small shrugging motion, and continued talking endlessly.

"So what's your name?" He asked, blinking up at Lin with his one florescent eye.

~

Meanwhile, Dave and Abigail are left alone in the room together. Both see Lin jump out the window to assist a struggling purple light.
The ground began to shake underfoot, and wildly tossed them. The ground shifted, and moved. It seemed something was operating Aperture again. but that hadn't happened since... Well, since the GLaDOS had been... disabled.

~

Charlie looked up at Lin. "Oh no... that may not be good. C'mon, you can tell me later! We need to get out of this test chamber. See that door up there?" He looked over to his side and up at a round door. It looked rusted, and stuck open. "That'll lead us to the elevator."

~

(In response to flieslikeabrick having abandoned Pete)

Angie's hand trembled on the railing. "P-Pete?" She called back. "Um. There's heights." She gulped. "Again." She heard a chuckle from her friend. He was accustomed to her fears. Luckily... He'd always been there for her when she just couldn't quite manage on her own. Over the past few years Angie had known him, she'd grown feelings for him. She wouldn't admit it of course. He'd never seemed to show any interest in her in that way. She was perfectly happy being friends though. And he was a wonderful friend to have. Especially when she felt like she was dangling off a cliff. Which she did.

"What is it-" Pete stopped. "It's the railways huh?" He stooped, and walked through the door, stooping to allow his tall height through. Once he was on the relatively steady railing, he placed a steady hand on Angie's shoulder. "Nothing to fear, I," He paused for dramatic affect. "Am here." Angie smiled. He could always make her feel better. She nodded, feeling a little safer, and stepped forward onto the railing that would lead to the elevator. "I'm right behind you." Pete promised. Angie felt a little safer, but the heights still made her heart flutter around in her chest.

They walked at a slow, steady pace until they were about three fourths of the way across. The railway was rusted here. Looking up, Angie was able to see that a leaky pipe above had dripped water down on it for the past year. No wonder it had rusted. She flashed a concerned look at Pete. He motioned for her to continue.

The railway creaked, and groaned loudly. The earsplitting noise made the two cover their ears. The rusted railway beneath them bent with their combined weight. Angie's eyes widened in panic. She felt a pair of strong hands shove her forward roughly. Her frail frame tumbled just far enough that she could grab hold to a strong part of the railway. She heard a deafening snap behind her as the rusted rail fell apart. Her head whipped around just in time to see her best friend scrambling for a hold.

"Pete!" She shrieked, reached a thin hand towards him.

"Angie run! Go! There's no time for me!" He shouted.

"But-"

"GO!" He commanded forcibly, cutting her off. Angie moved backwards, unaccustomed to Pete raising his voice at her. Her heart cried out loudly as he was unable to find a handhold, and plummeted into the bottomless nothing that made up the dome.

"No!" Angie cried. "Pete!" She thought she heard him call out her name, just before a crash resounded. And faded. Angie's voice cracked. "Pete..." She let out a sob, which wracked her body painfully. What was she going to do now? He had been her only friend. He meant everything to her... A part of her told her to go down here and find him. And make sure that he wasn't still alive. The other half of her told her that nobody could have survived that fall.

Angie knew what Pete would want. She stood, and slowly walked into the lift. She hoped it still worked, otherwise she'd be trapped, since the bridge had collapsed. Angie was surprised to find it fully operational. From the inside, she pulled a lever, and began her ascent. Angie swallowed her emotional pain, and tried to think logically.

She was at the near rock-bottom off Aperture. She would need to be very careful to find her way back up. She had miles and miles to go.

(Anybody feel free to adopt Pete and have him somehow have survived the fall!)