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PiFactory — Misplaced
Published: 2011-10-16 22:41:17 +0000 UTC; Views: 518; Favourites: 8; Downloads: 3
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"Hello, Susan. I think I have something here that belongs to you."The programmer glanced up, mouth dropping open in a mixture of shock and mild horror as she spotted the mismatched pair standing in the door of her office.
With a little gasp, she sprang to her feet, crossing the room in a few swift strides and furiously scolding the child cradled in the older woman's arms as she moved.
"Chell! I told you to stay right here! Have you been bothering Miss Caroline again?"
The girl's only response was to bury her face against the woman's neck. Turning to her employer and nearly wringing her hands with anxiety, Susan spluttered out what she hoped would pass for an adequate apology.
"Ma'am, I am so sorry-"
The older woman cut her off, smiling gently and bouncing the child lightly in her arms.
"Oh, nonsense. We had a good time, didn't we, chickadee?"
She turned to give her companion a warm, conspiratorial grin, and the little girl smiled shyly in response, hiding her face behind a chubby hand.
Chuckling lightly, and giving her a little kiss on the nose, Caroline surrendered her burden to the arms of its parent.
"How old is she, now?"
Susan accepted the girl with a yielding smile, gently smoothing a loose lock of hair off of her daughter's forehead.
"Oh, right in the middle of the terrible twos. And believe you me, they are terrible. Arnold and I can't get her to sit still for long, can we, kiddo?"
Chell smiled even wider, bringing up her other hand to cover her face, and both women couldn't help but return the expression.
"Well, she's certainly a little adventurer. Awfully quiet, too. Made it all the way down to the GLaDOS chamber, and we didn't even know she was there until she tugged on my coat."
A shadow seemed to pass over her face as she mentioned the skeletal supercomputer, and Susan gnawed guiltily at her lip for a moment before finally speaking up.
"Ma'am, this may be out of line to ask, but you... you don't really-"
Closing her eyes and sighing wearily, Caroline shook her head.
"No, Susan. I don't. But you and I both know that 'no' isn't an option around here."
The younger woman pressed her lips together and stared at the floor, struggling to find the right words to express her regret. Her employer spared her the trouble by speaking first.
"Don't be like that. I know your feelings on the subject, and trust me, the blame isn't on you, in my mind."
Susan closed her eyes, nearly trembling with relief.
"Thank you, ma'am. That's... probably the best thing I could ever have hoped to hear from you."
A hand slid gently onto her shoulder, and she opened her eyes to find the older woman smiling at her with an expression somewhere between sorrow and encouragement.
"We should talk more often. I'd like to know how your part of the project is coming along. And I wouldn't say no to spending some more time with this little rascal, either, if you ever need someone to watch her."
Feeling a similar smile creep across her own face, Susan met her employer's eyes.
"I might just take you up on that, ma'am."
For a moment, neither of them moved, reluctant to dispel the warmth of their understanding. Then, finally, Caroline turned.
"Well, I'd best be going. We have a lot to do if we want to get her operational before the bankruptcy pulls us under. Have a pleasant evening, Susan."
Hoisting her child further up against her hip, the programmer nodded pleasantly.
"Same to you, ma'am. Say goodbye to Miss Caroline, Chell."
The little girl stared solemnly for a moment, one fist in her mouth, before lifting her other hand, opening and closing it in an unskilled imitation of a wave.
The older woman paused in the doorway to return the gesture, letting out a laugh that nearly bordered on a sob before vanishing into the dark hallway beyond the door.
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Comments: 32
This fic is awesome! And it fits, I think. Like how Caroline could have considered Chell her Bambino. :3
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The best way to stop writing Portal fics is to just write them ALL and be done with it. So, moar plz.
YES, another fic that DOESN'T portray Chell as Caroline's daughter! I call that progress!
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But how could she be? The ages are off. Caroline was like... ancient when she was a tiny kiddo, if she was a young woman back in the 50's.
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That's my argument, too. And even though there's a better biological possibility of Cave being Chell's father, considering his overall health at the time, it's just as unlikely.
Myself and a few other people have actually nerded out a timeline of everyone's supposed ages. It's very, VERY unlikely. I really hope Valve doesn't retcon it, though.
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I've tried to nerd out a timeline, too, and fit it up with Half-Life, but I think my math's a little bit... off...
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Here's a loose timeline i worked out: [link] It mentions a link to the Half-Life Wikia's timeline, which, i know, is just a wiki but has a lot of evidence and good proof.
I don't think it's YOUR math that's off. I think it's VALVE's.
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Yeah, my initial math put Chell at 16, and I was like, "Noooooonononono, impossible, double-check your dates and additions, girl." I mean, she definitely looks younger than Alyx, but not that young. I need to stop hastily doing things like this 5 minutes before Physics lecture XD
There's also the thought of "how much time passed between the Seven Hour War and Portal?" If it took place dead in the midpoint between Half-Life 1 and 2, then it would make sense for Chell to have been a kid on Bring Your Daughter to Work day, because that's just about 10 years of GLaDOS being in full control, and slowly testing everybody to death, assuming she started with the employees. The file, though... that's the off bit. Maybe the interview was conducted shortly before testing as part of protocol, or something? I dunno.
Seriously, ValvE, I think you accidentally the whole timestream XD
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I don't think BYDTWD happened the same day as the Black Mesa Incident. In-game, there's not really evidence to support this. Besides, in the 'potato room,' there is a banner using continuous feed paper and what looks like some sort of tape printer. None of the papers on the projects are typed. This tells me that BYDTWD may have happened in the late 80s or early 90s, when this technology was just going commercial.
Also, i noticed something the other day. In the first day care room, there's a bunch of desks and a projector screen with a blurry brown Aperture logo. Guess where else this projector screen shows up? The 1983 sector of Old Aperture. Since the Black Mesa Incident happened around 2003-2008, it's safe to assume the two events did NOT happen at the same time.
Haha. sorry. Your awesome story post isn't the best place to post all this stuff.
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Eh, no, it's fine. It'll go to a "View More" eventually.
My only argument there is that I don't think that the entire company could go silent for years without attracting some notice from someone. The idea I got from the Wiki's timeline is that BYDTWD happened a few days before Black Mesa, which totally screwed up the planet's space-time integrity, and would have served as an adequate distraction from the fact that a major science corporation had seemingly just vanished into thin air.
They were pretty much teetering on the brink of failure at that point, too, so they might have just recycled some old tech to use as amusements for the kids because they didn't have the resources to use the new stuff. Or all the new stuff was going toward GLaDOS. I have no idea, but I think it would seem Aperture-ish to just stick a bunch of kids in a room with an ancient projector and stuff, and go "There, be entertained!" And now I'm laughing thinking about that. Like, there was a scientist standing around at a loss for what to do about all these little girls totally ignoring the old projector and climbing all over the desks and stuff XD
I dunno, the Half-Life universe is seriously borked in the time sector. And the G-man doesn't help things by yanking people in and out of the timeline at uncertain intervals. I think all we can do for the moment is keep calm and apply headcanon XD
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Considering Aperture was testing their OWN employees (probably against their will, and probably killing some of them), secrecy was probably a priority. Considering they were a financial failure at that time (and still rather jokingly considered themselves competing with Black Mesa), i don't think they were as high-profile as they make themselves out to be.
Hahah, i can totally see them recycling all that old paper that way. I wonder what they had playing on that projector.
Yeah, Valve is probably gonna 'fix' it later anyway. Confused headcanon is the only thing we have to go on. X3
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Agreed on the secrecy. Look at the whole "would anyone file a police report if you went missing" thing in Chell's file. But if Kleiner's comments at the end of Episode 2 are anything to go by (and they're probably not, since it's really just my interpretation of his reference to Aperture as a "colleague,") then at least Black Mesa still considered them a competitor. Although I could easily see the rest of the world seeing them as kind of a joke, and being like, "Aperture? When was the last time they made anything useful? I wonder how they're still in business."
Waaaait a minute, I just checked the Wiki timeline, too, and Test Shaft 09 was sealed off in 1961, but there are chambers in there from the 70's and 80's!? What is going on I don't even.
Ohhh, yeah, if I could draw... I can just see them climbing all over everything like little monkeys, throwing paper airplanes, chasing each other around the room, getting into little girl-fights, etc, while this old promotional video about Aperture is playing, and there's this scientist up front like, "Now girls, you need to settle- come on, please sit- No, Beth, stop pulling Lizzie's hair plea- Get down from there, now-" I think that's a new headcanon right thar XP Maybe after I wrap up Extrication, I should go back and do BYDTWD.
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"there's this scientist up front like, "Now girls, you need to settle- come on, please sit- No, Beth, stop pulling Lizzie's hair plea- Get down from there, now-" "
And it's Doug. :3
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Absolutely XD
And then Henry comes and takes them down to the Central AI Room, and he's like "Phew! Glad that's over." And then GLaDOS happens. Poor Doug can't catch a break
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THAT's why she went insane. Kids drive anyone crazy enough to kill! -goes to post new crack theory-
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They probably tried to climb all over her, too XD
And now I'm looking at the png of Chell's science fair project and going "Asdgfehwgfkgfk her little handwriting ohmygooooooood C:>" The fact that she wrote the B in "observations" backwards just absolutely turned my heart to warm goo.
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"odservations" seems appropriate for her :3
Also, the whole board seems backwards. Shouldn't the materials and procedures be on the left and the observations and data on the right? Every other poster is structured like that.
Maybe Chell's dyslexic. That would make me feel a LOT better about placing the wrong color portals half the time :3
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That would explain so much XD
And hey, if she's theoretically been in the facility since she was tiny, she would have had no chance to improve her handwriting, right? Now I'm dying laughing thinking of a stoic, srs bsns adult Chell writing in this horrible kindergarten scrawl.
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-nervous laugh- yes, srs bsns adults have such mature handwriting, don't they? ahah... -hides own notes-
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Mine are covered in half-rate doodles of headcrabs and antlions, so... not much different
But just... Chell. The silent determinator. The woman you can't kill even by blowing her up and sucking her out into space... mixing up D and B all the time. Like, I picture her being SO INTENSE and holding up a notepad with this preschooler writing all over it. And the people she's trying to communicate with are like, "'Bangerous?' What the hell-?"
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Doug is shamed by Chell's graffiti. I wish i could draw; this is excellent fodder.
And now i have a picture of Chell riding an antlion writing out misspelled notes and throwing them at Gordon, srs bsns written all over her face...
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I think my brain just broke from the sheer awesomeness of that last bit. She's like some kind of note-slinging outlaw with her trusty steed XD
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And she rounds up headcrabs. Poison ones. Because she's that awesome. Also, by now, she's probably pretty resistant to neurotoxin.
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Now I'm totally seeing a Poison Zombie trying to get all eat-y on her, and she just smacks it with a rolled up newspaper and yells at it silently with lots of gesticulating, and it cowers like a naughty pet XD
This is kind of scary... I kind of had the thought of her working as an antlion wrangler at one point during the development of the backstory for Extrication. I may have to keep it, now. It... it makes more sense in context :{
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oh man, i wish i could draw! That is the funniest thing i've heard in a while!
Okay, that's it. I'm drawing SOMEthing out of this convo. If nothing else (and with your agreement, unless you'd like to undertake such a task) a fanfic of BYDTWD with poor Doug and GLaDOS getting swamped by 10-year-old girls.
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Absolutely. Go for it.
And now I'm seeing all of the little girls having a frilly tea party with firstgame!GLaDOS. "Do you take neurotoxin in your tea, Miss Chell?"
...
That's it, I-I think we can now say that my brain is officially made of crack cocaine XD
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We all go a little crack sometimes.
In the meantime, i have to learn how to draw an antlion...
firstgame!GLaDOS is awesome GLaDOS. I love her dome head, and her little crosshair eye. She's not as expressive, and that's actually kinda creepy. But it would look hilarious topped with a big, floppy purple sunhat.
"I AM Missus Nesbit!"
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Yeah, anything I write related to BYDTWD will probably end up being... excessively tragic. It has kind of been writing itself out in my head over the past few days, and... oh, headcanon says was not a fun day to be GLaDOS, Chell OR Doug :/
Now I feel like I rely too much on headcanon. But really, that's half the fun of this fandom, to me. Seeing everyone's interpretations of the events and characters.
And the supercomputer and the girls grow up as BFFLs, and they have sleepovers in the AI chamber during the middle school years and gossip about boys XD "Oh. my. god. You have a crush on him? Girl, you are pulling my circuits." What have I done?
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i could see that, and it's disturbing. Not to mention GLaDOS would be the ONE person i would not wanna tell my secrets to.
She's like that friend that calls up your crush and makes you talk to them. And then she just laughs at your discomfort and nervousness.
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Catfights would be brutal. Think of all that neurotoxin...
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Neurotoxin, nail polish, pillow feathers, spilled Sprite, couch cushions, turret parts, hair brushes, cubes....everything would be flying.
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