Want You Gone

[Chapter Eighteen: The Itch]

I trundled my way through the room that lie ahead of us. It involved a lot of flinging myself around, which I personally didn't have the energy for, but GLaDOS sure did. She was more eager than ever to get back to her facility and take Wheatley down, but I was dreading even seeing him again. What would I say? What would he do?

I made it up to a room in which all three mobility gels were pouring out. Great, I thought. I'll probably need these. I was right about that, of course. The conversion gel would be especially helpful in getting out of there. I managed my way onto a platform, high above where I had started out in the room. I used the lunar conversion gel to tunnel my way into a small room, separated off by a metal grate, that thankfully, my portals could travel through. 

From the room, I walked into a large shaft. There were three tubes, and an air vent traveling up it. Keeping in mind that one of my portals was still placed underneath the dripping gel, I threw another up onto a panel that launched it into the vents. From there, I took cover as the gel was blown all throughout the shaft, allowing me portalling access to almost every surface in the room. "Perfect..." I whispered. "Now, to get up there..."

I travelled my way up and portalled my way into the room above, where all of the tubes seemed to meet. On the ceiling of the room, was a large vault door, much like the one I had seen before, that led me to the testing spheres. The metal pipes spiraled around, and it was unclear where they actually connected, but I figured that they would be the least of my concern. I ignored the gel tanks and made my way up to a higher platform, studying the other aspects of the room. 

There was a busted up control room in the corner, that I assumed would get the vault door opened, and so that's where I set my sights. Across from the room, up near the ceiling, was a portal surface. "Portal there," I thought out loud as I shot one up. Below me, on the ground, was another. "And portal there." 

Jumping through, I launched into the control room, landing harshly and stumbling into the wall with an oof. Gaining my bearings, I eyed the red button that was on a small control panel, dizzily. It must have been the hatch override button. As I reached over, hand hovering above the button, GLaDOS scared me back with her sudden gasp. 

"Wait! I've got an idea!" I stumbled back from the button. "Huh-?"

"That poster! Go look at it for a second, would you?" I eyed the room in a daze, not immediately spotting where I was supposed to go. I must have taken too long to find it, for she spoke up, "Okay, you didn't have time to stop, I understand, but that WAS actually important."

 I blinked rapidly, and then spotted what she was talking about. On the wall next to the button, was a poster, that read, "Know Your Paradoxes! In the event of a Rouge AI..." 

I stepped closer to get a good look at it. "Paradoxes...?" 

"Paradoxes." GLaDOS echoed. "No A.I. can resist thinking about them. I know how we can BEAT him." I paused for a moment. Well, if I had know that before, I wouldn't be in this mess at all. I nodded to her, understandingly, and went to hit the hatch override button. Once I did, the hatch on the ceiling released a large wave of pressure, then began to lower slowly from the ceiling by cables. 

It opened up, slowly, dangling down, and filtering a bright light into the room. A set of pipes, seemingly connecting to the facility above, came down to connect with the ones in the room. "That's probably taking the gel up into the Enrichment Center..." I noted. "Oh, great. That's the last thing that moron needs at his disposal."

A lift began to lower from the opening that the vault door had created, and I hopped down from the control room to jump onto it. It looked a little suspicious, but considering the location, it wasn't too out of left field for the lift back up to be a simple platform suspended by weak-looking cables. I stepped on slowly, as it to test whether or not it was safe. The gates to the lift creaked shut behind me, and now I was in for the ride. I took a deep breath and glanced to GLaDOS. "What's the plan...?" I asked as the lift began to slowly rise into the ceiling.