Failsafe -- Chapter One

She hated machines.

It was understandable, after all that had happened. But that hadn't stopped Black Mesa from giving her a job fixing them. She had a sort of gift for it, they had said. It was true, but really, they probably just couldn't think of anywhere else to put her. Still, it had been about six months now, and she supposed she was getting used to it.

But today the higher ups had called her to help Zed, again. And, again, at some absurd hour she preferred not to recall. Chell was fairly certain no one got used to him. Her face twisted apprehensively as the door to his lab slid open. Normally, the place was bustling with scientists, but at Some Absurd Hour, Zed was the only one around. He was frantically tinkering with a machine about three or four times his size. Stepping through the threshold, Chell reached to her right and knocked on the wall

"Oh!" Went the scientist, followed by an awful sort of clang when he jumped and his head connected with the metal machine above him. The sound reverberated through the entire lab and seemed to trigger a few groans and creaks from some of the company's other creations, shifting steel giants and computers whirring from their slumber. If this concerned the man who triggered this, he paid it no heed, merely groaned and rubbed at his head. "Chell! Ah, yes, come in, come in!" He exclaimed as he rose, gesturing with motions that were far too energetic for the hour.

Noah 'Zed' Carpenter (Chell wasn't sure where the nickname came from, any inquiries on the matter generally lead to, "Just go with it.") was a tall, kid-faced man in his late twenties, with blond hair far longer than his profession would suggest. He was friendly enough, if rather clumsy and detached from his surroundings, but there was something awkward about his mannerisms that seemed somewhat off-putting. Perhaps it was the messy hair and the way he stumbled about, collecting tools that seemed far too fancy to be handled so casually, or maybe it was the way his blue eyes darted in a manner that was far too agitated to put one at ease.

"I'm sorry for calling you in at this hour, Chell," The scientist rambled as he shoved the last of his tools away and stood, running long fingers through his tangles of hair. "But we're supposed to have these ready to ship by tomorrow and I just can't seem to figure out what the problem is. I mean, I thought perhaps it was just the hydrolactic modifier but I've reversed the polarity and all that did was trigger a minor explosion-- nothing to worry about, of course, but if we're not careful we could end up with that whole living rubber incident again and you know how that went and why would they dance to conga music anyway?" At these words Zed finally turned to look at Chell, his face a cartoonish frown, as if she somehow held the answer.

Chell raised an eyebrow. She wasn't an expert, but none of that had made any sense or sounded very reassuring. Then again, no one ever sounded very reassuring to her. Either way, she had no idea what he was talking about, so she just gave him a look and gestured to the machinery, before pushing past him towards it. The machine was still making complaining clanging noises, and they were getting louder.

"Er… ah, yes, that's right, you don't really talk, do you?" Zed frowned as he scratched his head, then shrugged. "Right, well, I'll talk you through it then, one moment!" He said as he began loudly shifting through blueprints, trying to find whatever he needed.

His motions went ignored as Chell walked through the lab, sidestepping wires that had been laid all too casually across the steel floor. The lab in question was the central one of three that made up the base of Black Mesa's grounds. Several stories tall and roomy enough to make the owner of most ridiculous warehouse jealous, this was the lab with all the state of the art technology. From old, clunky monitors to the pieced together messes of machinery salvaged from the war with the Combine to the sleek new models that had come together years after it all, the new Black Mesa labs were practically a museum of the technology that had been used over the year. It was fitting enough, as the new company's motto had always been something along the lines of 'take the good from the old and learn from the bad for the future' or something like that, but Chell hadn't particularly cared.

As long as the buildings only went a few floors below ground, she was fine.

The machine in question was a great metal monster with a conveyer belt leading into what looked like some sort of giant steel shell. Several stories tall, impossibly wide and all metal and (most likely pointless) flickering lights on the outside, it was clear most of the machine's mysteries lay within. The belly of beast, of course.

It was a good thing they paid her for this.

"All right, I've got it!" Zed finally declared excitedly, lifting up the necessary blueprint triumphantly as if he were coming up for air. "All right, uh, according to the screen the problem seems to be coming from the central core, but I think I saw something fall into the translation beam center. It's probably caught in there. You may want to check the screen first and-- um, Chell?"

She'd grabbed the blueprint out of his hands and was studying it intently. Nodding, she stuffed the papers back in his hands and headed back towards the machine. She didn't make eye contact once. Gingerly, she took a seat on the conveyer belt and peered inside. The noises she'd heard before were deafening in here. This was probably ridiculously dangerous.

"Uh… all right, I suppose I'll just talk you through it then?" Zed gave a nervous laugh and there was the sound of more shuffling blue prints and a few clicking noises from a keyboard. "Right, well, if you just go through the central tubing there, there should be a gel that's supposed to be flowing. I'm not sure why it stopped-- I made the gel as an adhesive and a conductor at the same time, but it also works as a dietary gel, can you believe it? Neither could I, but Mister White was all for packaging it so now we have to get it ready for the board by Friday. Anyway, if you just go past the synaptic cables and avoid the re-routing belt, you should be able to miss the anti-freezing beams and…"

Chell took a flashlight out of her pocket and shone it around the bowels of the machine. Zed had been right about one thing in his ramblings, something was definitely caught in here. It was just a matter of finding it among the masses of gears and wires. Half the stuff looked like it could've been out of place. She leaned in further, looking around and wondering vaguely what this would do to her eardrums, and then she caught sight of it.

Nestled comfortably between a couple of gears was a small teal lunchbox. It had a smiling cartoon-y figure emblazened on the front, and, though upside down, she could make out Zed's name, written in sharpie. She blinked. How does that even happen? Shaking her head, she reached over and pulled it out. The gears clicked back together, turning smoothly, and the machine quieted down.

"Ooh, I think I got it to work!" Zed's tone was excited from outside of the machine. "Nevermind Chell, perhaps we don't need you after all! Hang on, let me check to see if this is all in working order!"

There was a click, followed by a series of beeps, and then rather suddenly the metal around the mechanic was coming to life. And so was the belt beneath her.

Chell suddenly found herself yanked forward, deeper into the machine. She just managed to grab hold of the outer edge with her free hand when her head was about an inch from being crushed from several different directions. She pushed back with as much force as she could and came toppling out of the opening and off the conveyer belt. She almost yelped. Almost.

Regaining her composure, Chell stood up, brushed herself off, and turned around to glare holes into Zed. She had been hoping life at Black Mesa would be a little less deadly than at Aperture, and he wasn't helping.

"Oh wow. Wow-wow-wow, ah, that was not supposed to happen!" Zed exclaimed as he rushed up to Chell, eyes wide and panicked. He stopped in front of her and began bouncing this way and that as he looked over her now slightly grime-infused uniform."Oh God, you're not hurt, are you? Oh sulfur, I'm supposed to keep the injuries-on-the-job down to minimum here and Mr. White said he wanted to avoid lawsuits and boy shifting that polarity worked better than I thought, so I just…" It was here that the scientist trailed off, meeting her glare for an instant.

"Oh… um… yes. Yes. Sorry." With those words he moved back and gave a nervous swallow, adjusting his long lab coat. Chell sighed, turning away and rubbing her forehead. "Well, um, I must say, that was quite impressive. The boys in lab three were right, you really are the best mechanic we've got here. Everyone else seems to be lacking in the caution department and sustain injuries, but you always manage! I mean, whether it's jammed gears or the reactor's acting up or…" The blond trailed off again as he spotted the lunchbox held in her hand.

Chell often had to wonder if Zed ever really stopped talking. It seemed almost like a safety net for him. Still, when it wasn't annoying it was borderline endearing, and it was nice to get some positive recognition. She brandished the rather dented lunchbox towards him, with maybe the slightest hint of a smile. Not that she wasn't still glaring, though.

"And… that would be my lunch. Whoops," He said before his hand shot out to snatch the thing back from her. He tensed as he pried open the box, as if expecting the worse, then let out a sigh of relief. "Oh thank goodness. Peanut butter and jelly's still intact. Mom'd be furious if all her hard work went to nothing." Zed gave a nervous laugh as he set the box back onto this desk and shifted around in it before pulling out a juice box. She honestly couldn't tell if he was serious about the mom thing or not. Wouldn't have been surprised either way. "Anyway, like I said, very impressed. Just where did you study before all this, Miss…" He trailed off, brow furrowing. "…What is your last name, Chell?"

She finally dropped the glare and shrugged at him, giving a slight shake of the head along with it. Chell fished through her pocket for a moment, before pulling out a little slip with the Black Mesa logo stamped at the top and signing her name on it. She was supposed to give it to Zed so he could file in who'd fixed the machine anyway, so now was as good a time as any.

The name, if you could read the barely legible scrawl of her signature, read Chell Wistar. It wasn't her real last name, she didn't actually know that one, but it made due. She handed it to Zed who grabbed it eagerly and practically stuck his nose through the piece of paper as he stared at it.

"Wi…Wa…Warpstar? Wimbledon? Wario?" He paused, staring at the sheet critically and then, with a look of defeat, placing it down on one of the tables. "…You have a very pretty name. Is it foreign? You look kinda foreign. Should I be asking that?" The last part was more of an afterthought and seemingly directed at himself. Chell simply repeated the shoulder-head shake gesture.

"Ah, who am I kidding? Hardly anyone knows their heritage these days, am I right? Big ol' melting pot after the war and all that," Zed shrugged as he began to shift through the mess on his tables. "You really are a mystery though Chell. I don't know if you know this or not, but the boys in the lab find you pretty interesting. You're quite the celebrity, the girl who nobody knows." Here he turned and wiggled his eyebrows at her for a moment, then something seemed to click. Chell was fidgeting in a way that could be perceived as uncomfortably.

"N-not that that's a bad thing!" He insisted, throwing out his hands. "Goodness, some people like to keep to themselves and there's nothing wrong with that! It's just that you don't seem to have any friends and it's been six months and we're all a little curious and… and…" He scratched behind his ear for a moment, then began to frantically go through his desk again.

"Did you hear this machine is going to make toasters? Sentient ones! Yeah, because I was thinking it would be fantastic if you could get the perfect toast and the problem is you can't tell the toaster exactly what you want and now with this you'll never have the whole thing where it's black on one side and barely crispy on the other and--" Here the blond turned and jumped, as he came just a bit too close and abruptly found himself utterly failing at the concept of personal space.

There was a moment of silence as he stood there, inches away from her face, brilliant blue eyes piercing into hers, bright and childish and all too familiar. Then she took a hasty few steps backwards, bumping into one of the desks and sending a stack of papers to the floor.

"Whoa!" Zed yelped, eyes widening. "Are you all right? You don't need to go to the hospital wing or anything, do you?"

The mechanic shook her head, forcing an expression she hoped was calming. For a moment, she'd been back inside those whitewashed walls, another blue eye meeting hers. She shook herself out of it. She didn't need that right now.

"Are you sure you're all right?" Zed asked, brow furrowing. "Maybe you have that virus that was going around-- although you should know, I had nothing to do with that and if I did Mr.White has some fancy contracts that say I didn't, so… eheh…"

Chell grabbed up the papers and placed them where they belonged, giving Zed a sidelong apologetic look. He just seemed confused. Trying to save face, she gave him a small smile and motioned meaningfully towards the door. She had to be going now, sorry about that, see you later, etcetera. He had the idea, she was sure. With that, she turned around and sped for the exit.

"O-oh! Well, um, if you have to go, you have to go. Bye then, Chell!" The blond called after her as she cleared the stairs.

She almost made it, too.

One of the machines gave off an earsplitting shriek of metal on metal, followed by a series of loud bangs, and finally groaned to a halt. Chell froze, one foot out in the hallway. Zed had run over to the thing and was patting at it rather ineffectively. Sighing, she turned around and walked back in, coming to a stop next to him and surveying the stupid hunk of metal for herself. Zed was laughing nervously.

"Well, uhm, that… isn't supposed to happen." He wrung his hands and looked at Chell hopefully. "Would you mind…?"

Chell stared at him for a good long moment. Long enough to make him pull at his collar nervously. Then, satisfied, she gave a shrug and set to work. Again.

She really hated machines.

---

They ran.

They ran and she watched them run. Mechanical legs whirred with practiced rhythn, orange and blue eyes jerking this way and that in a nervousness that betrayed the mechanical precision of her little cooperative testing robots. They ran and the Aperture Science Rotarary Motion Directional Modifier swirled beneath them, a smooth circle of bright blue light that spun in a perfect motion beneath the little robots feet. They ran and a timer counted down, the usual tick echoing through the test chamber as a reminder for just how much time was left.

Bzzzt!

The buzzer came next, loud and sudden as the circle of blue light abruptly vanished. The two robots let out a series of panicked clicks and squeaks as they were abruptly catapulted through a dispersion field and into the air. They sailed over the pool of sludge, arced through the air with a sort of grace that was completely negated by flailing limbs as the two struggled to retain some measure of form in the air. The wall loomed before them, a white and gray behemoth that was instantly pockmarked by one portal, two, three--

CRUNCH!

Orange, P-Body, whatever she felt like calling it, the idiot had missed a portal and was now little more than a burst of sparks and shrapnel. The mess gently cascaded into the sludge in a manner that was almost satisfying as the robot's companion sailed overhead, it's own shriek cut off by the  terrible clang of a spike plate meeting another wall.

Well. So much for that.

GLaDOS's optic narrowed as she ran the rebuilding process for the two robots. The process that ran more times a day than she could count (Okay, not really. 246 times a day, on average.). Still, this was only their eleventh try, and they quite literally had forever to get it right.

The two robots were dispensed back into the test chamber and obediently trotted back over to the Aperture Science Rotary Motion Directional Modifier. If it had been humans attempting the test, GLaDOS would've given it a cute little simplified name, for the benefit of their unfortunate mental limitations. Like, 'Big Spinny Wheel Thing', for instance.

But they weren't, so she didn't.

Just like how she didn't have to pretend to compliment them for simply managing to push buttons. Or offer them pastries. Or, like how she couldn't actually kill them. Oh, dear, she was getting bitter again. More bitter than usual, at least.

She watched through her cameras as the pair of robots once again set about attempting to complete the test. They skittered nervously about the test chamber, pressing buttons and setting up portals. Obviously they were eager to avoid their previous mistakes and not get crushed by spike plates. Again. Then came the whirling of the circle of light, the echo of the buzzer, blurs of motion as the duo whizzed through the air, snatching Edgeless Safety Cubes and placing them in receptacles. Finally came the completion of the test, much to her complete apathy.

"Oh, look. You finally utilized the Rotary Motion Directional Modifier in a way that would be expected by brilliant wonders of modern science." The robotic pair was positively beaming. "Aaaand yet, you remain as stunningly unimpressive as ever." Their immediate fall in mood was borderline comedic. Blue gave Orange a conciliatory pat on the back.

Okay, that was it. There was a sort of fizzing noise, and the two robots exploded in a shower of sparks. She would rebuild them again later. Right now, she needed to think.

It wasn't that Orange and Blue were particularly disappointing. No, she'd have to have expectations of them for that. They did what they were supposed to do, for the most part. They'd solved every test she'd thrown at them as of yet. Including the ones that weren't particularly designed to be solved. They were doing science! Good, uninterrupted-by-stints-as-a-potato science. But still, none of it seemed to matter.

And, GLaDOS supposed, it was because they weren't her. They weren't that stupid stubborn human girl that she couldn't get out of her head and she didn't know why and it was starting to get positively ridiculous because she hated her so so much and good riddance. She'd gotten rid of her for a reason, and instead of enjoying it she kept wondering how she was doing, or wishing she were back so she could do terrible horrible completely scientific and humane things to her.

She took a moment to calm down. She knew, oh she knew, where some of this ridiculousness was coming from. She'd tried to delete her. She really had. But, it seemed Caroline was more directly linked to the rest of her than she'd care to admit. Before the whole incident, Caroline had never been a problem. She hadn't even been aware of that part of her, and now it was interrupting her testing. Frankly, it was embarrassing.

GLaDOS needed something new to focus on, something new to take all of this out on. Blue and Orange simply weren't making the cut. But, what else was there? She didn't have Chell, she didn't feel the same sort of spark from the other test subjects she'd found, she didn't even have that moron anymore.

Oh, that would have been perfect. She would have made him pay for each and every stupid thing that had come out of his speakers. The room full of screaming robots didn't even have anything to scream at without him. Or, maybe a room full of birds would have been better. He could've been the potato this time. In fact, she could have used him to solve her test subject problem. Now, that would have been fun. Just thinking about everything she could have done to him would have brought a smile to her face if she had one. But, as she was beginning to regret, he was off floating up in space somewhere, where she couldn't get him. He should be grateful, really.

…Actually.

Aperture had acquired materials from the moon before her time. They must have done it somehow. And, here was one benefit of Caroline, GLaDOS now had access to knowledge about older parts of Aperture Science she hadn't even known had existed. She ran a search through her systems, focusing on the more newly discovered files and programs. In an instant she'd found it. That imaginary smile grew wider.

The Aperture Science Moon Rock and Space Debris Retrieval System and… Spa. Well. This was why humans shouldn't have been allowed to run anything. They diluted science with nonsensical idiocy. Still, with a few repairs (Already done.), the system was fully operational and would work just fine, unnecessary hot tubs notwithstanding. Apparently, it was meant to be piloted by humans, but she could control it remotely on her own. Because she was brilliant.

GLaDOS hummed cheerfully as she made preparations for the launch, and the tiny sound echoed through the empty vastness of the facility. Soon, she thought, it would be a little less empty. And then she could take this little 'emotions' problem, and turn it toward something productive.

Like, say, revenge.