Want You Gone

[Chapter Four: The Incinerator Room]

It seemed like forever, falling down the dark pit. I could feel the heat from below. It made me wonder, where would I land? Would I get lucky and land on a steel beam? Or would I fall straight to my doom into a burning heap of scrap metal and trashed turrets? After a moment of nothing to accompany me but darkness and gravity, I saw a light. This was it. The end of my road. Or so I thought, until I fell through the opening and slammed down onto a platform. I let my body curl over itself upon landing to at least try to reduce the impact, but the ache still shot it's way up my legs. If it wasn't for the boots, I would be toast. Look, I don't care how scientifically invalid these things seem, whoever created them is a genious among men.

After a short moment to process what had happened, I rose to my feet again to face the room in which I had landed. Directly in front of me, was a drop-off into a pit of burning junk. The heat of the room had caused beads of sweat to quickly form and drip down my face. Lucky for me, I wouldn't have to jump into the pit. One of the first things I noticed was the metal beams that were held above it by wires, other beams, and anything else that could be considered an unstable ruin. Great, I'm definitely going to have to walk across that, and I may or may not make it to the other side safely. 

"Here we are. The Incinerator Room. Be careful not to trip over any parts of me that didn't get completely burned when you threw them down here." GLaDOS chimed in from a speaker somewhere in the room, causing me to look up from the pit of fire. I wasn't certain where her voice was coming from, but I noticed that there were a few cameras hung about on the walls. Even way down here, she was keeping a close eye on me. The urge to make a rude symbol at the camera was nearly overwhelming, but I considered the consequences of it, and it really didn't seem all that worth it. 

I took a deep breath and looked back to the pit. "The dual portal device should be around here somewhere. Once you find it, we can start testing. Just like old times." GLaDOS seemed to sigh. I thought over how much her voice seemed to change since she has woken up as I began to walk cautiously over the fallen crossbeams that would serve as my bridge across the pit. Some of the obstructions were moved out of the way by mechanical arms as I passed by them, allowing me room to walk safely. Must have been her  doing, but it made me wonder why she was trying to make it easier on me. Pity, perhaps?

Whatever the reason, I was almost grateful for the assistance. Almost. I wasn't going to forget so soon how she had killed my ally and thrown me down a seemingly endless pit.  When I had finally made it across, I dropped down slightly into another, more closed off room. The whole place was just an absolute mess, but I wasn't judging. I didn't know what happened outside, but it was odd how whatever it was managed to affect even the lower parts of Aperture Laboratories. I made my way across the room, and out of the corner of my eye, a few sparks flew from under a few fallen wall panels. "There it is... Hold on," The wall panels were lifted just enough for me to see what was underneath. Sure enough, it was the Portal gun. It looked older, a little more beaten than the one I had dropped just moments before. Then I realized, I knew this one. 

Leaning to pick it up, I noticed a few scuffs and dents in it, some of which I had caused in my first run of this place, who knew how long before I destroyed GLaDOS the first time. I smiled and held it firmly, wanting to tell it, 'hey old friend, I missed you.' The mechanical menace pulled me from my thoughts once again with her voice. "Good. You have a dual portal device. There should be a way back to the testing area up ahead." I shook my head. The testing area, of course. She wants it all to be just like it was before. She wants me to do what I came here to do in the first place. Aimlessly solver these puzzles, aimlessly move forward, for what? For science? Who was collecting the data? What was it being used for? There's nothing left of civilization. 

I shook my head once more. I wasn't getting any closer to escaping by standing here, so I shimmied my shoulders and threw up a portal on the nearest surface that would allow me to, and the other on the ceiling in the next room over. It was so nice to have control over both of them again. I had almost forgotten the naive fun that I used to have with them before I realized that I would never leave the facility again. I pushed the memory aside and walked through the portal, falling down into the other room. Again, I face roadblocks, so I follow the same procedure: portal my way into the next room. It had been a long time, but I hadn't forgotten the routine. This gun was going to be crucial to me in this place. 

"Once testing starts, I'm required by protocol to keep interaction with you to a minimum. Luckily, we haven't started testing yet. This will be our only chance to talk." GLaDOS hummed through the speakers. What is there to talk about? Why would you want to talk to me? It's not like I have the ability to talk back at the moment... I looked at the nearest camera expectantly, so that maybe she would keep talking. "Do you know the biggest lesson I learned from what you did?" She began. I tilted my head at the camera, then shook my head. No, but do tell. This should be interesting. "I discovered I have a sort of black-box quick-save feature. In the event of a catastrophic failure, the last two minutes of my life are preserved for analysis."

I was puzzled by this. What was she implying? I gave her a look that reflected my confusion. "I was able - well, forced really - to relive you killing me. Again and again. Forever." She continued. I nodded and continued to move on, trying not to stay in once place for too long. Why did I need to dwell at one camera to communicate with her when she had them littered all over? I moved along, trying to find out where she was hiding the first test chamber. I figured that's where she would have wanted me to go. However, as I walked away, she continued to talk. She had become the new, slightly more competent Wheatley. I felt bad for replacing him so soon.

"You know, if you'd done that to somebody else, they might devote their existence to exacting revenge." She said in an almost scolding tone, as if she were a mother trying to explain the consequences of her child's actions. "Luckily I'm a bigger person than that." I almost scoffed. "I'm happy to put this all behind us and get back to work. After all, we've got a lot to do, and only sixty more years to do it. More or less. I don't have the actuarial tables in front of me." I stopped walking again and located the next nearest camera, giving it a good stare-down. Sorry, what's that supposed to mean?  How badly I wanted to speak to her, but I couldn't physically manage a single sound. She didn't say anything else, even after I stared her down, so I continued to move forward. I could see the round door at the end of the hall, hidden mostly by rubble. GLaDOS got to work to move it out of the way so that I could get through. 

"I'll just move that out of the way for you. This place really is a wreck." She sighed. "At any rate... the important thing is, you're back. With me. And now I'm onto all your little tricks. So there's nothing to stop us from testing for the rest of your life." She growled as I approached the door and entered the elevator room. I stared up the elevator shaft as junk was vaccumed up and the elevator surfaced. I almost didn't trust it enough to step in, but I did so anyways, against all of my better judgement. As the elevator moved down into the next chamber, GLaDOS seemed to chuckle, almost. "After that, who knows? I might take up a hobby. Reanimating the dead, maybe..."

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WOWEE, THAT WAS A LITTLE BIT OF A LENGTHY LAD, HUH? 

I'm sorry I waited so long to update, I suddenly got a big rush of motivation and might even draft several new chapters tonight. I'm just feeling it lately, I guess. 

I'm actually thinking of taking this in a direction that the game didn't go and eventually have Chell start to talk, slowly but surely, just to spice it up. Is that anything? Is that good? Should I do that?

Thanks so much if you read this far! I don't actually know how long this one is in comparison to the others but each chapter takes me anywhere from 1-3 hours to type out because it requires a lot of back-and-forth referencing scenes from the game, watching them over, and then writing them down, all the while, still trying to give it my own creative twist so that it isn't a carbon-copy. I'm having fun with it though, so I hope you're enjoying it too!

Bye now, see you in the next oneee!