2283: Portal 3 Aperture Again! – Chapter 8

 

Author: terminalvelocityrunner
Media: Video Game
Topic:  Portal
Genre: Humor/Sci-Fi
URL: Chapter 8
Critiqued by Ghostcat

 

 

 

Hello, dear Patrons, and welcome to another chapter. Don’t worry, this one is short and doesn’t have a vague warning of suggestiveness.

What happened in the last chapter? After TSue did some Sue things, it was discovered that her arms can turn into core transfer terminals, among other things. Chell then forced GLaDOS and TSue to swap places, although it isn’t clear if TSue is now in GLaDOS’ android body or her mainframe body. TSue also lost her shit because GLaDOS said something bad about the Sonic games – because meta humor is meta, I guess.

To the fic!

“Oh come on, you two bots were made for testing!” Said T.

Which is apparently going to involve the testing robots from the co-op mode.

“It’s not like I’m telling you to test the toxic water in the chambers” She was trying to get the two Aperture testing bots to test out a new gel. She called it Combustion gel as it would catch fire and then blow up.

Did they really need to invent another substance that would burn and/or explode? I can think of several common materials that would fit the bill without even straining myself. Does this particular gel do anything special or different from, say, gasoline or napalm?

Atlas Made some beeping noises at T and P-body made some that sounded like laughter.

Why does P-Body get to laugh while Atlas is reduced to making R2-D2 noises?

“I am on the same if not higher level than GLaDOS!

:snorts:

I doubt that.

Let’s try a different approach! I will turn you both into 8-bit video game consoles if you don’t get into that elevator right now!” said T. The two bots made frantic beeping noises as they rushed into the elevator.

Why would that be a credible threat? GLaDOS regularly disintegrated these robots just to transport them from one room to another. Offering to make them into stationary game consoles that aren’t broken apart every five minutes sounds more like an upgrade.

“Hey T, how’s it going?” asked Chell. “Oh, FUCKING GREAT! The testing bots are disobeying me and the turrets are all defective!

Are they? I thought TSue had special turrets that only she could touch without them exploding in bullets, or whatever that nonsense was.

The repair core I think it’s name is Vergil (meet the cores reference)

:headdesk:

Making obscure references to in-canon material can be clever, but adding in an Author’s Note specifically pointing out the obscure reference is just annoying.

is, quote on quote, ‘repairing’ the turrets by disassembling them,

Well … Technically, if you were going to repair something you would probably have to take it apart first to get to the problem. In this case, the turrets were made by TSue so they are probably better off being taken apart.

and GLaDOS is filling up my body’s drives with crap on the periodic table of the elements and science fiction novels most likely!” said T.

Those are weirdly specific things to be concerned about. And doesn’t TSue have the knowledge of all the cosmos, or something like that? She should already have basic information like the periodic tables in her data banks, unless it was removed to make room for obscure information on ancient dyes. Also, I think they call science fiction “speculative fiction” now, so who knows what it will be called in the near future. Just “fiction”, probably.

“So is there anything I can do?” asked Chell.

You managed to swap TSue and GLaDOS, giving TSue control of Aperture and a few robots while GLaDOS is now wearing the body of the ruler of the multiverse, effectively putting her in control of everything outside Aperture. I think you’ve done plenty.

“Actually, there is. I need you to go down to the breaker room and turn up the incinerators’ flames. They are overflowing with defective units and if we don’t clean them out, they will overflow into the main facilities!” Said T.

TSue was just complaining that the rogue core was taking apart all the turrets to “repair” them, but now she’s complaining that the incinerators are too full of defective units. That seems counter-intuitive. Is the core discarding the pieces of the turrets they are taking apart instead of assembling them? Does being taken apart somehow make the turrets defective, or were they defective before?

“I’ll be right there. Anything else?” asked Chell. “Nope” said T as she went back to looking through the cameras. Chell nodded and left.

Having done nothing but serve as a convenient way to let the Sue vent, Chell is now put back on the bus until the author needs to have more plot happen.

“Now where are those android fucks?!” Said T.

If they’re smart, they left the fic.

“There! There you are! You know I can see you wherever you are hiding!” P-body made several beeps.

Which is over there :waves towards a random section of the Void: probably.

“Oh don’t give me that bull about you being on your way there now! I can clearly see you are in the supply depot!” Said T.

Which is totally a place that has always existed and wasn’t made up by the author just now.

Atlas made worried hand gestures and some quick beeps. “You know as well as I do that you two don’t use freaking batteries! You run on Aperture Science Limitless Power Cells! Now get inside the damn elevator!” said T.

A battery is a portable source of power, typically consisting of one or more cells where chemical energy is converted into electrical energy. No matter what you call them, those “Limitless Power Cells” are batteries. And they probably aren’t as limitless as the name would imply, since all batteries eventually run out of juice; even TSue, whose power source is made from the core of an imploding star, had to replace her battery. These disposable scrubs aren’t going to have anything nearly that powerful in them.

They looked at each other and shrugged before walking over to said elevator and getting into it. “I swear I’m going to walk in front of the turrets and say ‘who wants to shoot me up!?'” Said T.

Pretty much everyone who has ever met you wants to shoot you. And would you really have to ask the turrets to shoot you? They tend to fire at anything that wanders into their range.

“Me! I want to shoot you to death! Can I?! Pleeeeeeeease?!” piped a turret from the corner.

Random Turret is my new favorite character.

“No?, now get back in the transport tube!” shouted T. “Awwwwwww!” said The turret as it walked toward the open tube.

Apparently this turret can actually move under its own power, which is a new feature that previous turrets didn’t have. The closest thing were the Frankenturrets, which had random legs that twitched, but I don’t remember them moving very well. It must be one of those special turrets TSue made that would explode into clouds of death, or what have you, if anyone other than her even touched them – which probably means it would be completely unable to harm TSue, even if she asked it to.

(Breaker Room)

:headdesk:

“ok, I turned up the furnace fires, but there is one switch I’m wondering about. It says Testing Results Stimulus Controls” said Chell as she turned it all the way up. “Oh well, it’s probably not important!” She said as she left.

Just as predicted, Chell shows up, does some plot, and then leaves again. And immediately fiddles with something she should know not to touch, because this is Aperture Science and everything wants to kill you.

Presumably this is a reference to the second game’s revelation that GLaDOS received some sort of stimulus once the tests were completed, a stimulus that she very quickly built up a resistance to but continued to test for the sake of science. When Wheatley took over the testing tracks, he received the same stimulus and also built up a resistance very quickly so he started trying to find ways to increase the amount he received from in various ways. Given Wheatley’s reaction to the first few stimuli, I assume this is going to be the equivalent of TSue have non-stop orgasms once the stimulus is triggered.

(Central AI chamber)

:repeatedly headdesks:

This author was lazy before, but now it is just getting insulting.

T was monitoring the test results when a wave of pleasure shot through her. “Oh god, what was that?!” she groaned. Several more followed the first over the next few minutes. “Ok T, I…what’s wrong with you?” asked Chell. “I don’t know…it’s like these huge rushes of euphoria every few seconds!” whined T.

I really hate being right some times.

“I think I might know what’s going on.

I seriously doubt that, but go on.

You see, the reason why I love to test products so much isn’t just because of my love for science.

…Yeah, it kind of was the reason. GLaDOS even states several times that she does it for the science.

When they built me, they wanted to make sure that products would be tested no matter what happened.

Which they actually succeeded in doing, since GLaDOS ran tests in Aperture even when all of the human workers were dead and there was no one to actually benefit from all the science.

They did it by forcing a sort of orgasm every time a test progressed any.

I frickin’ knew it.

Wait, the stimulus was triggered anytime there was progress in a test? Some of those tests require multiple steps, so did she get a jolt each time a section was completed? If that was the case, she would have built up a resistance even faster, probably before the first test was finished.

It was supposed to be like a reward system or something.

Which it was, since GLaDOS only got the stimulus once a test was successfully completed. However, as I mentioned, she built up a resistance to it after a few times so it didn’t really work as a reward anymore.

It is controlled by a switch labeled as Test Results Stimulus Controls.

Which was installed in the Breaker Room instead of somewhere where it would actually make sense to put it, apparently.

The higher the setting, the more the feeling” said GLaDOS as she walked in.

I don’t really think that’s how that should work.

“Chell. Did you touch anything else in the breaker room?” asked T weakly.

Also – Hi! Welcome back, little plot bunny.

“Ohhhhh, I’ll go turn it back down right away” said Chell. “Please hurry!” Whimpered T.

Hop right back to the place you were just in to touch the thing you should have known not to touch in the first place. I assume this orgasm switch is going to serve as a catalyst for some sort of unorthodox sexy times between the characters, but I can’t tell who is going to sex up whom.

“This is Aperture!” said GLaDOS.

You could have fooled me, sister.

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