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Your name is John Egbert and holy crap is this test chamber amazing or what? You've been at it for two hours now. The higher ups should've known better than to put you in a chamber full of ledges that are perfect for flinging yourself off of. Man you could soar through the air and fly through portals all day - if the scientists would let you of course. You're fully aware that they will eventually tell you to knock it off and force you out of the chamber if you don't complete it, but you could honestly care less right now. Those guys need to relax. This is the most fun you ever get to have anymore.
Despite not wanting to stop flinging yourself through portals you manage to stop flying around for two seconds. You quickly locate the companion cube that is needed for a door switch somewhere above you. A few portal placements later and you find yourself strolling through the emancipation grid and out of the chamber. You shift your weight and try and get a better grip on the portal gun you've been carrying. Man does that thing get heavy after awhile. The weird voice in the elevator lets you know that you have completed today's test chambers and tells you good job or some other silly and over used phrase.
The elevator comes to a stop and quickly opens. You step out and begin walking down the long hallway that you were presented with. As you walk past a panel opens and even before the voice is done telling you what to do you've set your portal gun down on it. It vanishes behind you and into the wall as you continue on farther and farther down the hallway. Soon enough you find yourself outside the all to familiar door. The number 413 sits on it in shiny gold letters. That's all you are to this facility. Just good 'ol number 413. This hardly bothers you as much as it used to. Sure it sucks to be known to a lot of people as just a number, but you get used to it after awhile.
You enter your room and shut the door behind you before going about your normal routine. You grab a change of clothes from the small standard closet and head into the bathroom. Fifteen minutes later and you find yourself cleaned up and awaiting the evening meal. It arrives a few minutes later through a wall panel next to your bed. It doesn't take you long to eat and begin pacing around the room. You've started doing this lately. At first it was to clear your head as you thought about the day or what the next might be like, but now it was just to move. You really hated how bored you've become with this new lifestyle of yours. Being a test subject was fun for the first few months or so, but now you just want something new to happen.
With an overly dramatic sigh you flop down onto your bed. You had heard that a new project was supposed to be starting soon. One that would require the scientists in charge to hand pick subjects and not let any random person attempt them. In the past it always seemed that you had to stand out to get picked for things. You always had to be the best. You knew that you had it in you, so why not? What else did you really have to do?
~~~
You've been blazing through these chambers like crazy. Ever since you woke up this morning and found out that you had in fact heard right about a new project starting, you've been determined to do your very best with these chambers. They've all just started blurring together at this point and sometimes you forget where one ended and another began. You do know however that the scientists are paying attention to your progress. It isn't very often that you are rerouted to a different floor in the middle of a series of test chambers. And it really isn't that often that they bump up the difficulty levels by a whole lot either. You swear its a miracle a turret or laser hasn't put a hole through you yet.
You continue on with testing until finally an elevator decides to stay still while a message for you plays. This is basically Aperture Science's way of telling you to actually pay attention to what's being said. The robotic voice comes over the speakers and politely reads out to you what you know must have been a typed message from a scientist sitting behind one of those cameras somewhere.
"Hello test subject! You have just completed all of the necessary tests for today. Congratulations. We have decided to award you for such wonderful results. You have been selected to test a brand new series of chambers in a new project headed by some of Aperture's top scientists. We will be moving you to a new resting chamber. An Aperture scientist will answer any questions you have once you arrive. Have a wonderful day. And remember, we do this for science!"
It really pains you to hear that stupid robotic voice. It can be so annoying and way to nice. Seriously, who talks like that? You don't have much time to think about it because the elevator finally begins moving. It moves down, which is a normal occurrence, but you can tell its moving a whole lot farther down than normally. Eventually it slows to a stop and the doors slide open. You're a little more hesitant than usual to step out, but you do.
The hallway you find yourself in is much like the ones on the upper levels. The one difference you manage to find however is that this hallway is full of different people in lab coats running around with their file folders or different work materials. You even spot a few robots rounding a corner up ahead. Its been a long time since you've seen this many people all at once. Its a bit odd actually. As you gawk at everything happening around you, you manage to almost run into a familiar looking face that had planted herself right in your way.
You look at the girl and instantly grin at her. "Gosh Jade is it really you? I haven't seen you around in forever!" Jade has always been a close friend of yours and she was way to smart not to become a scientist for Aperture. You've told her so a million times and helped convince her to come and work her. She used to visit you a lot when you first started testing but got moved to a new part of the facility. You guess this is where shes been hiding the whole time.
She smiles back at you and gives you a quick hug. "Its been too long John! I see you've been really working hard at those test chambers. I'm glad you did because that means we're going to see a lot more of each other." She grabs you by the arm and starts leading you further down the hall. "Well come on then we've got to get you situated."
"So are you working on whatever project this is? I think that would be so cool if we were actually working together. Oh what about the others? Is anyone else working down here too?" Its hard not to be excited and gush just a little at the thought of all of your friends being together again. You didn't realize just how much you had missed hanging out and even just talking to them, or just people in general.
Jade just laughs at you. "You'll just have to wait and see about that. We actually need to get you into your new room now though. You'll want to be well rested. First I'm supposed to give you a tour of this floor since its basically your new living quarters."
It certainly sounds like a plan to you and you let her lead you around with no objections. She doesn't really show you into any places because she says that people are probably busy working and that you'd just be interrupting anyway. Instead she just kind of leads you to a door and tells you whats behind it before taking you to the next door. You'll probably forget most of this by tomorrow anyway so you don't pay to much attention.
As you walk around you find yourself looking at all the people walking past, and more frequently the robots. Sure you've seen plenty of robots before but its still always cool to see them walking around. Most of these look like the simple errand runners that are often used to preform small tasks for very busy scientists. However every now and then you swear that you see experiments. Aperture has never really been known for huge experimentation's on humans unless they involve test chambers, but you swear that more than once you've seen a scientist walk past with what looks not quite like a human. You never really get a good look as your own companion leads you past everyone quickly.
Jades stops outside another door and turns to you. "And this is where you'll be staying! We haven't got your number put up yet so you'll have to deal with this sign for now," she explains and points at the door. You see that its just a piece of white paper with the number 413 scrawled on the middle and then taped to the door. How very advanced. Jade shoves a hand in one of her coat pockets and pulls out a pen. She draws a big smiley face in green ink under the number before turning back to you. "And now you've got the best door here, with a little smiling flare added to it!"
"Gee thanks Jade. I might just have to keep this sign up instead of an actual number now. Who wouldn't want smiley faces on their door?" you laugh at her.
"I'll be sure to tell everyone to leave your door alone then," she teases you. "Well its time you get some rest. You've got a big day tomorrow since that's the start of your new tests. I'll come and get you when we're ready for you to begin tomorrow." She moves to turn away before looking back at you. "Oh gosh I almost forgot!" She points down at your arm and you look down too. You realize shes pointing at the portal gun and that apparently both of you had forgotten that you've been carrying it around this whole time.
You carefully place it in her hands and crack your knuckles once the weight has left your arm. You make a mental note to tell Jade to work on a lighter model some time. "Well I guess I'll see ya tomorrow Jade," you tell her as you open the door to your new room. As you turn away you hear Jade moving away and call 'See-ya!' back at you from over her shoulder. You expect she needs to rush that portal gun to wherever it belongs now that she had remembered that it existed.
Your new room looks almost identical to the your previous one. You think Aperture needs to get someone to start designing these rooms better. They could be so boring and dull. To your surprise, once inside the room you find yourself to be exhausted. You'd actually done a lot of work today and the unexpected change had been nice, but you were defiantly ready for bed. With thoughts of tomorrow's test chambers could hold you got ready for bed and soon drifted off into some much needed sleep.