//------------------------------//
// GLaDOS is to Blame 
// Story: The Multiverse in a Nutshell 
// by Pennington Inkwell 
//------------------------------//

The tests were getting more complicated, but it was nothing Sunset couldn't handle with the help of the wormhole gun. What was beginning to frighten her, however, was the fact that in every chamber, she could see more offices and observation rooms, but no sign of anyone in them, and the tests were growing more dangerous.

First, they added pits. Some were too deep to see the bottom of, others were filled with oily, toxic-looking slime.



Sunset quickly made it a priority to follow THAT instruction. Luckily, the portals made it easy to skirt around or avoid the pits completely.

The lasers, on the other hand, required much more... personal interaction. Sunset was forced to pick up lens-covered blocks and use them to redirect the lasers and use them to activate other devices. She cringed every time she had to come so close to the deadly beams, she could feel the heat radiating off of them almost burning her skin. The first time she'd tried to move one, she'd stumbled and nearly lost her head. Luckily for her, she'd managed to twist herself out of the way and only lose a few strands of hair, but the experience had left her shaken.

And every time, she would manage to complete the chamber, and another elevator would be waiting for her, ready to carry her deeper down. Sunset was losing track of time, she couldn't tell if it had been hours or days she'd been locked in Aperture Science.

Sunset was in the middle of completing another test when the next "glitch" happened. Just as she was lining up her next shot with the wormhole, a panel of the wall beside her parted from the rest, pushed outwards on a piston until there was a gap large enough that Sunset knew she could fit through it.

Sunset stared at the gap, then at the security camera.



Sunset pondered the idea of remaining obedient. Admittedly, it did sound safer to comply with the voice. But these tests were growing more and more deadly, and she still hadn't seen any sign of a living person outside of the strange instructions coming over the loudspeakers. If she didn't do something soon, it was very possible she would make some mistake, be scorched by a laser or fall into the acid, crushed in a moving panel and never found, just like a jammed elevator.

"I thought you said that I can't follow simple instructions? Isn't it all there in my file?" Without waiting for a response, Sunset slipped through the gap and out of the testing chamber.



Sunset took a deep breath of freedom. Even if she was still stuck in Aperture Science, SHE was finally the one choosing the path.

From the outside, Sunset could see more clearly how the chambers were constructed. Every panel of the walls was housed on a mechanical arm, each held specifically in their designated place. Sunset could tell that the entire facility was built to be modular, everything could be deconstructed and rearranged at a moment's notice.

The tests could literally go on forever... As long as they can keep coming up with more designs! No wonder she mentioned that this was the "PERPETUAL Testing Initiative!"

 The voice was muffled, now, and a quick scan of the area informed Sunset that there were no security cameras watching her. She was genuinely outside of the voice's reach. 

"Fat chance..." Sunset muttered.

Sunset hopped up and down on the surface she was standing on, testing it for stability. Unlike the walls, she was standing on firm concrete, certain to remain stationary. Now, a new question presented itself.

"Which way should I go?" Sunset tapped her chin in thought. There were no signs of any stairs in either direction, so the idea of escape seems frivolous. That meant that her first priority was finding the only friend she had in this place.



Knowing what I do about Penn, he's probably breezing through the early tests, same as I did, but I got a head start because I picked up the wormhole gun early, which means... He's probably in a testing chamber further up!

Sunset glanced back and forth down the path formed by the two walls, trying to ascertain any possible sign of which direction led to a stairwell. Any place with an elevator had to have a stairwell in case of emergencies, right?

Wait... the creepy lady on the intercom said that building this was all handled in-house... they might not have to stick to safety protocols. Heck, the test chambers sure don't!

With a sigh of defeat, Sunset began walking forward. The direction was purely arbitrary, but it had to lead someplace she could get her bearings, right?


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Sunset wasn't certain how one could become even more lost after starting in the middle of a place they knew absolutely nothing about, but she'd managed it. She'd wandered her way across cold concrete, down metal catwalks, past gigantic pipelines funneling more blocks and other testing parts, past gigantic safe doors and more windows into empty offices, all too high to reach and break into. She'd taken every staircase and ramp she could find leading upwards, but it seemed as though for every path up, she'd been forced down two more leading down. And all of that didn't even mention the fact that she had failed to take into account the fact that the testing chambers were all sealed, which meant that she could have passed Penn without even realizing it because she had no way to look inside. Now she was standing on a steel catwalk over a dark pit she couldn't see the bottom of, weighing her options once again.

She could go back into the testing chambers, apologize to a security camera, shout at the walls until they opened to let her back in, something like that. The chambers may have been dangerous, but at least they were leading her SOMEWHERE. There was a linear path to be followed there.

Alternatively, she could continue wandering behind the walls, scurrying about like some kind of rat in the insulation. But this was getting her... well, she couldn't accurately say it was getting her NOWHERE, but it wasn't getting her anywhere she recognized. Sunset reached down, taking hold of the geode around her neck. The pulsing it had been doing earlier had stopped. Her "friendship compass" was shut off for the moment. She sighed, letting it fall back to lay against her chest.

"Come on... There's GOT to be a way to find Penn somewhere around here!" she groaned.

A second later, all of the lights around her shut themselves off, plunging her into total darkness.

 the voice whispered.

She was EVERYWHERE. No matter how far Sunset went, how long she walked or how much she distanced herself from the testing chambers, that voice always found a new corner to echo out of, a new way to taunt or torment her, it was starting to drive her insane!

"No, I'm NOT!" Sunset shouted, hoping the voice could hear her.

 the voice whispered, slowly fading away as it reached the end of the thinly-veiled threat.

Sunset tried very hard not to think about the fact that she was.

She failed.

Alone and in the dark, Sunset could feel hot tears beginning to brim up in her eyes. She wanted to hold them back, to not cry. This wasn't the time or the place for crying, this was the time and place to get up, feel her way out of the dark, and find her friend!

But something about being alone in the dark made crying too easy.

Sunset sat down on the catwalk, pulling her legs tight against her chest and letting the tears begin to flow. This is just temporary, she told herself, I just need to get it out of my system. Then I'll get back to finding a way out of here.

Sunset shut her eyes and sobbed quietly into her knees, letting the stress and fear finally overwhelm her enough to force their way out through her tears. She wasn't certain how long she stayed that way, but the next time she opened her eyes, she was no longer in total darkness.

Two pinpricks of pink light had appeared in the darkness, hovering just above the place that she remembered the other guardrail being. The moment Sunset saw them, her breath caught in her throat and she froze in place, unsure whether or not she was in danger.

The lights tilted and blinked, forcing Sunset to recognize that she was staring into a pair of glowing eyes.


"Why have you stopped?"


This one had the voice of a woman again, but... this one was different from the one that had been torturing her. It sounded more... earnest, if the term could be applied to a robot.

Sunset looked down, not that she could see anything else in the total darkness. "I'm tired... I just needed to rest!"


"So close to your goal?"


Sunset glanced up again, taking her own turn to be confused. "Close to my goal? I'm totally lost!"


"You are searching for Elijah, correct?"


"How do you know that? And how do you know Penn's real name?"


"You are approximately twenty meters from the testing chamber he has been trapped in for the past five hours, twenty-two minutes and eighteen seconds."


"WHAT?" Sunset grabbed the guardrail and jumped to her feet. "You mean he's RIGHT HERE?"


"Negative, he is approximately twenty meters to what would currently be your 'one o'clock' orientation."


Sunset spun her head back and forth, looking for a way into the nearby testing chambers. Of course, there was nothing. She let out a long sigh. "Getting there in the dark might be difficult, though... I mean, I've seen how far of a drop it is under here! One wrong step and I'll be a goner..."


"May I be of assistance?"


Below the pink eyes, Sunset watched a diamond-shaped light begin to glow, quickly brightening into a beam that illuminated the walkway in front of her.

"That's perfect, thank you!" Sunset eagerly took her first step forward, only to stop again as a new thought crossed her mind. She turned to look at her rescuer, only to find herself nearly blinded by the light and unable to make them out. "Wait... how can I trust you? You appeared out of nowhere right after I finally broke down crying, you just HAPPEN to have a flashlight when I'm trapped in the dark, and you tell me my friend is just around the corner if I follow you into a testing chamber? This all seems a little too suspicious to me."


"Affirmative, this would be monumentally coincidental, the odds of such and event occurring by random in a facility of this size are approximately three million, two hundred and seventy five thousand, six hundred and thirty eight to one. This, however, is not a coincidence. I have been following you for some time..."


Sunset folded her arms, her suspicions seemingly confirmed.


"...seeing as how I had no other means at this time to assure that you would remain on the correct path after I released you from the testing chamber."


Sunset stepped back, the strange robot's confession not exactly what she had been expecting.

"Wait, but nobody LET me out, that was because of a glitch, just like the elevator!"

The pink eyes turned to her again, tilting expectantly.


"The intelligence controlling this facility is highly flawed, but it does not suffer from malfunctions of that kind. Nor was the elevator an accident. If allowed to continue, you were slated to be the 'control group' for a test that was impossible to complete without the use of the portal gun. Following the recording of your following accidental death or psychological breakdown, your unicorn-turned-human body would have been recovered and dissected to determine what physiological differences exist between you and native humans."


Sunset felt a lump rise in her throat as she was hit with the full weight of how close she had come to death. She looked down at the device in her hands, suddenly grateful to the fact that it had saved her life without her ever knowing.


"Delivering you to a portal gun was a time-buying measure to allow me to access the test chamber controls long enough to free you. Now, it would be illogical to have gone to such extreme lengths to preserve your life and free you if I intended to lead you to your death, correct?"


Sunset sighed and nodded. "Sorry, I guess I'm just on edge after everything that's happened. I guess I owe you for saving me, huh?"


"You owe me nothing, I was simply following my prime directive. Now, shall we proceed?"


Sunset nodded, beginning to take careful steps down the walkway. "If you don't mind me asking, if you're not part of Aperture Science, who are you? And what are you doing here?"


"I am the Integrated Superior Intelligence System. You may call me I.S.I.S., as in the name of the Egyptian goddess. My purpose in coming here was to document the contents and designation of this dimensional rift."


"Why would you want to do that?"


"I am seeking to generate a map of these new intersected universes. Such a map would prove useful in determining how to navigate the more obscure or less accessible worlds and warn others of the more dangerous. Collecting data regarding other biological life and the differences in physical laws between worlds would also be desirable. Other universes could provide valuable resources."


"But... what are you expecting to find down here? I mean, it doesn't look like there's much life down here!"


"Affirmative, however, this facility has created a handheld wormhole generator. While limited in its current form, such technology could prove useful in the future. In addition, the intelligence controlling this facility is quite clearly violating my own prime directive to protect the lives and agency of others. As such, it must be altered, disabled, or destroyed immediately. I have been attempting to do so since my arrival, but this unit lacks the necessary processing power to do so directly."


"Well, thank you for rescuing me. If there's any way I can help, I want to!" Sunset smiled, relieved that her suspicions had been seemingly for nothing.


Your desire to help has been noted and accounted for. You have my gratitude."


In a sweeping motion, the light moved off the walkway and up to the nearby wall, pointing to a single panel.


"If you would be so kind as to aim there, I shall open a passageway into the testing chamber where Elijah is being held."


Sunset paused again, one more question coming to mind. "He told me his friends called him 'Penn.' Why don't you? And how do you know him?"


"Simple: I do not use nicknames. I find them excessively casual. And as for my familiarity, I am only authorized to tell you that he is closely related to my creator."


"'Closely related?' Like how?"


"That is all I am authorized to tell you regarding my creator. Now, this line of questioning is consuming unnecessary time. Shall we proceed?"


Sunset resisted the urge to insist. As suspicious as that particular answer sounded, Isis had been more than accommodating to the rest of her questions, and she was right about wasting time. Sunset sighed and raised the wormhole gun to point at the spot the light was illuminating.

"Fine, I'm ready."


"Good. I shall go establish a hardline connection in order to force the panel open temporarily. It is possible that my prior means of entry has been accounted for. Be prepared to be swift."


With that, the light switched off and the eyes disappeared, leaving Sunset once alone in the dark. Sunset narrowed her focus, trying to make certain her aim didn't waver without any visible points of reference.

Finally, Sunset spotted a change, a crack of light in the darkness that quickly widened into a wide gap, one that let Sunset see a white wall on the other side. Instantly, she pulled the trigger, sending an orb of blue light sailing through the air. The projectile flew through to the other side with ease, creating a blue portal inside the room. A millisecond later, the panel slammed shut, once again locking her outside. It was too late, however. Sunset had her way in. She switched the gun to its orange setting, making certain she couldn't accidentally reset the blue. After another minute or so of waiting in the dark, the pink eyes of Isis returned.


"Were you successful?"


Sunset grinned and nodded. "Affirmative! Now we just need a place to put the orange and we'll be in!"

The diamond-shaped light once again illuminated the walkway, pointing further into the dark.


 Records indicate a portal-receptive surface at the end of this walkway. Let us proceed."


Sunset nodded, beginning to walk forward with one hand firmly clutching the rail. As they moved forward, she noticed the sound of small clattering on the opposite rail, where Isis was.

"Are you... walking on the railing?"


"Affirmative."


"But you're still not even at eye level with me?"


"Affirmative."


"I guess you're not very big, are you?"


"That is relative."


Sunset chuckled softly, the first time she'd genuinely laughed all day.

"Sorry, I guess you're right. Am I ever going to get to see what you really look like?"


"If you mean the true form of this particular unit, you shall soon see shortly when we enter a properly lit area. However, my avatar and main processor are unlikely to be relevant until we depart Aperture Science. Please fire the portal gun directly to your nine o'clock."


Sunset sighed, left with more questions than answers as she turned and fired. An orange portal appeared, leading into a new room with proper lighting. The vantage point was high, however, high enough off the ground to make her stomach turn. She could hear familiar voices coming from the other side, however.

"So anyway, he bursts into my room and he grabs my lucky snorkel, and I'm like 'Hey, you can't have that! That snorkel's been just like a snorkel to me!'"



"I think we're in the right place!" Sunset whispered, leaning halfway through the portal to peer inside. "But how are we going to get down?"


"Be hasty! If the panel is moved, the portal will be disturbed and dissipate!"


"Hey, Isis, are you sure this is a good- WAUGH!" Sunset was interrupted as a hard object slammed into her back, sending her tumbling through the portal.

"AAAAAAAAA- OOF!"

Out of instinct, Sunset landed on her feet, fully expecting to break one or both legs from the fall. Instead, while the stop was sudden, she found herself remarkably unharmed. Immediately, she spun on her heel, ready to give the robot a piece of her mind.

"Are you CRAZY, Isis? I could have... been... hurt?"

The panel she had come out of had moved, extending out and away from the wall, and the portal was gone. She swallowed nervously as the panel moved back into place, once again sealing her inside the testing chamber.

I guess she was right about needing to be hasty, but pushing me like that was WAY out of line!



The mysterious voice sounded anything but happy to see Sunset, but Sunset felt her heart leap at the confirmation that she wasn't alone.

"And I took out his appendix and he gave me a colonic irrigation, yes indeed you better believe- SUNNY? Is that you?"

Sunset's head snapped in the direction of Penn's voice. The sight that greeted her was... unexpected, to say the least.

In the corner of the room, someone had placed two portals, one on the ground and the other on the ceiling directly above it. A blurry figure was rapidly falling between them in what was apparently an infinite loop of gravity, looking as if they had long ago reached terminal velocity. Sunset slowly approached the looping figure, examining the situation. Without moving one or both portals, they had no possible means of escape, and doing so only had one foreseeable consequence: splat.

"Penn?"

"SuNsEt!" he cried in elation, his voice marred by the Doppler effect as he passed her multiple times over the course of her name. Up close, the effect was much more noticeable.

"Penn! Are you okay?"



"DoInG GREAT!"

"How did you even get into this situation?"

"I GoT bOrEd?"



Sunset sighed.

"It'S oKaY! CaN yOu ToSs Me OnE oF yOuR bOoTs?"

"My boots?"

"YeAh!"

Sunset wanted to ask why, but trying to understand him mid-flight was beginning to get old. She knelt down and quickly undid the straps keeping her right boot on her foot before removing it and tossing it into the portal. After a few seconds of unintelligible grunts, Penn finally responded.

"ThAnKs! NoW sTaNd BaCk!"

Sunset followed his instructions, stepping away. A second later, the bottom portal disappeared and Penn slammed into the ground, miraculously landing on his boot-clad right foot without injury. Sunset's jaw dropped in shock.

"H-how did you- HOW?"

Penn craned his neck from side to side, stretching with a satisfied hum as he hopped up and down on the boot.

"Hm? Well, it's easy with Aperture's 'long fall boots!' Gyroscopic, able to withstand terminal velocity falls, you'd have to TRY to get hurt from falling with these babies on!"

I guess that explains why Isis had no problem pushing me off a high ledge.



"Had enough of us already? I hadn't even finished telling you about my vacation in Albuquerque!"



A set of panels rose out of a nearby acid pool, providing a path to the other side of the room.

"Alright, alright! We're going! No need to get testy, GLaDOS!" Penn groaned, motioning for Sunset to follow as he stepped out onto the new path.

"GLaDOS?" Sunset asked, quickly catching up to walk abreast with him. "Is that her name?"

"The Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System! GLaDOS, for short!"

Immediately, the panel in front of them separated, causing the path to end suddenly.



Sunset turned back, only to realize that the path behind them had been retracted, leaving them stranded in the center of a lake of acid. Penn suddenly looked very anxious, glancing back at the security camera with a chuckle.

"What are you talking about? It was right in the detention center brochure, wasn't it?"



The platform shuddered, beginning to lower itself down into the acid. Immediately, Sunset began looking for a solution, and one presented itself. She took aim at the far wall on dry land, firing her blue portal. Switching to orange, she immediately fired at their feet, creating a portal underneath them. The two of them instantly fell thought the portal, landing in a heap on the other side. Sunset was surprised at how soft her landing had been... until she realized that she had fallen on top of Penn, planting her elbow firmly in his back.

"Ow..."

Sunset ignored him, flipping another switch she'd discovered earlier and turning off both portals so the acid wouldn't follow them through as the platform was fully submerged. She sighed with relief and rolled to the side, finally allowing Penn back onto his feet.

"A little warning next time, Sunny?" he muttered as the two of them dusted themselves off.

"You're welcome."

Just as the two of them were about to step through the doorway out of the testing chamber, it suddenly sealed itself off, leaving them trapped. Penn sighed, turning back to face the room's security camera with his arms held wide, only a portal gun of his own in his hands.

"First you tell us to go, now you want us to stay? This is starting to feel like a song by The Clash!"



Penn sighed, as if the attempt on their lives hadn't just happened and this was only a minor inconvenience. He turned to look at Sunset, one eyebrow raised.

"I guess it's kind of pointless to try and keep secrets at this point, isn't it?"

Sunset sighed in return. "Probably not. She already knows everything you know about me, so-"

"We're looking for WORK, here!" Penn shouted, slouching back against the wall.

Sunset froze, absolutely NOT following where he was going with this.

"We used to work over at Black Mesa, but those idiots were so reckless, they caused a resonance cascade! In their own facility!" He sighed, pressing the palm of his free hand up against his forehead. "I mean, SERIOUSLY? We tried to warn them, but nooooo, everything was 'within acceptable deviation!' They were so busy trying to outpace Aperture, they threw aside all safety concerns! How short-sighted can you get? Am I right, Sunset?"

Sunset nodded, not daring to speak out of fear of breaking the ruse.

"So, when it all hit the fan at once, we already had a way out planned! We grabbed all the data they had on Aperture, wiped the servers, set up a couple false identities and started a road trip to Michigan to come apply at a REAL lab!" he shrugged nonchalantly. "Of course, the two of us have been lab partners for YEARS, so it was a 'both-or-nothing' deal, you know? Lucky for us, you brought us here on your own! UNlucky for us, our resumes were in the car, so we couldn't exactly pull out our credentials to show you we shouldn't be IN the P.T.I., we'd be better-suited for running it!"

Sunset waited with baited breath, praying that Penn's story would check out. There was a brief moment of silence as Sunset watched the security camera swivel back and forth between the two of them.



The door slid open again, allowing Penn and Sunset to pass through. Sunset breathed a sigh of relief as Penn gave a grateful wave to the camera as they both made their way to the elevator.

"Whatever you say, boss!"

It was a close fit, but soon they were both crammed into the cylindrical elevator. The moment the doors were shut, Sunset breathed a sigh of relief.

"Good job back there!"

"You, too. Quick thinking with the portals, you're pretty good with that gun." Penn's face didn't match his compliment, however. His brow was furrowed and his smile pulled down into a worried frown. There was clearly something on his mind.

"Sunset, we need to get out of here as soon as possible."

"Why? Didn't GLaDOS say there would be interviews after the next test? REAL people! We can explain that this is a misunderstanding and-"

"There aren't any SCIENTISTS in Aperture SCIENCE, Sunset! GLaDOS already gassed them all..." Penn muttered, turning to glare at the doors of the elevator. "In fact, the only living people are the current test subjects."

A pit opened up just below Sunset's stomach as she was filled with dread. "Then, that means..."

"She's technically not LYING if we never finish the test." Penn sighed and shook his head, looking Sunset dead in the eye. "Why do you think I was stalling for time in there?"

"The next test is certain to kill us."