"Hello"
Mel shot up- her new, somewhat clunky body rattling against the metal table she found herself on, her eyes eye wide open.
"Wh-where am I?" she asked, clutching her portal gun.
"Voice pattern not recognized, please contact a licensed Appleture Laboratories scientist for assistance" the male voice responded.
She drew a blank, and realized she must've somehow been brought to the horse-equivalent of Aperture. She felt like laying back down and curling into the fetal position, sitting there until she turned into a pile of rust- a shiver somehow made its way down her spine as she feared this might be a very real possibility.
'What?' she thought 'How the hell can it not recognize my voice?'
She tried her portal gun, she fiddled with it for a few minutes before she got it to work, a red portal appearing on the opposite wall- she realized this was pointless, as there was a door just to her left. She stood, her metal knees squeaking ever-so-slightly as she did. She shivered again as she walked to the door, her footsteps muffled against the carpeted floor. She opened the door, and poked her head out- finding nothing but emptiness filling the halls outside. She ventured forward, gripping her gun as if it would be yanked from her grasp.
"H-Hello? Is an-anyone there?"
"Voice pattern not recognized, please contact a licensed Appleture Laboratories scientist for assistance" the voice said again.
'Oh shut up...' she thought, wishing she could disable the voice.
She continued walking, finding nothing and no-one about. Her hopes were dashed, as she realized that finding Max again was highly unlikely.
She turned the corner, finding more of the white floors and walls extending down the hall. Though, there was something sitting in the hall, just a few feet away. It looked like an even smaller version of those horses she'd met in the building- both of its eyes were closed, as if it were sleeping, standing up. She hesitantly edged closer, careful not to disturb the sleeping horse as she attempted to move around it.
She shrieked as its eyes snapped open, revealing two orbs, completely black. The orbs then turned into glowing red eyes, the pupils turning into a radial pattern, just as the real turrets did.
"Power, on" it said.
'Oh sh-'
"Searching"
Panicking, she ran back down the hall, from the direction she came, in order to avoid being shot at. She sighed in relief as the horse-like turret powered down, staring ahead with its red eyes.
'A puzzle, huh? Guess this really is Aper- Appleture' she thought, feeling her eye roll at the pun.
She edged closer once more, her portal gun at the ready.
The horse-turret actually seemed to acknowledge she was there, and kept its eyes trained on her as she crept forward.
"Searching" it said again.
She fumbled with her gun, scrambling to activate the portal as two panels popped out from the sides of the horse, revealing its guns.
She fired in the nick of time, summoning an yellow portal beneath the horse-turret. The turret disappeared, falling through the portal as Mel sighed in relief. She fiddled with the gun, before managing to cancel both portals, trapping the horse-like turret in the room she'd woken up in.
'That was close...' she thought, her figurative adrenaline dying down, forcing her to fall into a kneeling position.
She blinked a few times, calming herself, before standing up. She kept her gun ready, just in case there were any more turrets waiting- and if her guess was correct, there would be.
Max trooped through the dense foliage, his legs kicking up dirt and leaves as he walked the trail, searching for any sign of Mel.
His only clues were Mel's footprints, and the direction in which she'd fled, giving him little to work with in terms of finding her. His metal foot caught a twisted tree root poking out of the dirt, and found himself tumbling forward, sending his gun forward as he dropped it, landing face-first on the forest floor. He grumbled to himself as he pushed himself up, seeing the indentation of his 'face' planted in the dirt. He rubbed it out, scrubbing the ground as to erase any sign that he was ever there- the less of these horses that knew about either of them, the better. That kicked his mind into overdrive- what if the horses captured her? What if they experimented on her?
Well, that should be a given, she was a robot built for testing, after all.
He mentally slapped himself as he convinced himself that neither he nor Mel were actually robots- well they were, but they weren't this way initially. He took a few steps, searching the heavy brush for his gun, thinking it easy since the natural colors of the forest floor would contrast greatly with the black-and-white paint-job of the portal gun. He pushed a set of leaves attached to a bush aside, and found the Aperture logo peeking at him through the foliage. He picked it up, and gripped it tightly, making a mental note to never lose it again- as well as keeping it with him at all times. And so, he continued walking, gazing up at the high canopies of the forest as he went, keeping an eye out for anymore of the horses, or whatever else decided to leap out and attack him. He soon lost interest in the forest, however, as his attention was drawn back to the portal gun in his hands. If he was honest with himself, he was positively gushing on the inside, amazed by the fact that a real-life, working portal gun was secured in his grasp- he was, however, confused as to how it worked; based on anything he'd seen that Valve released, the gun held a tiny black hole inside, powering the thing, but how he and Mel actually passed through portals was a whole other ball game. Based on what he knew, quantum tunneling only worked with small particles- nothing larger than that should be able to tunnel like that. But hey! They were in a world full of talking horses and who-knew-what-else, so why shouldn't weapons from a game work as well? Still though, he made another note to himself to inspect the inner-workings of the gun- he shivered at the implications of what could happen if he either lost the gun, or one of the horses found it.
The glint of something ahead caught his eye, and he ran forward, clearing the heavy brush as there was a break in the clearing up ahead. He made it out, and saw a dingy and run-down shed, the faded metal dully reflecting the sunlight as it stood. The hinges appeared to be rusted beyond repair, needing desperately to be replaced, and freed from their torment of holding the aging door right-side up. He looked around, and saw no-one in the immediate vicinity, taking this to mean this was at least one of the entrances into the Enrichment Center. He took a step forward, and knocked- he held his breath as he waited for it to open.
...
...
...
The door remained in position, glued shut, denying him access. He knocked harder this time, thinking he hadn't done it hard enough the first time. The dull, rusting door still didn't give, frustrating the test bot as he turned to leave.
He was a good few feet away, before a small pad appeared next to the door, sliding out brokenly as it sparked with age, the off-white keys dirtied with time. He placed his fingers on the pad, prepared to start punching in numbers, hoping to hit the right combination of letters in order to allow him access. A spark filled the space between one of his fingers as it neared the pad, and the effect was immediate. He felt pain shoot through his entire body as his eye twitched randomly, swerving randomly this way and that as hundreds upon hundreds of lines of code filtered into his head, blocking his vision completely as he felt like being dropped into a volcano during a nuclear meltdown. The pain ebbed as the code receded, allowing him the gift of sight once more as his eye stopped rotating. He shook his head as he held a hand to it, the seemingly-random event now just a memory in his mind. His hand reached down to the pad, as if automatically, and punched in a five-digit code, his right hand dancing across the pad as it did so.
The space inside the shed depressurized, as the tumblers in the lock unlatched, forcing the aged door open as the hinges squealed in agony- as if protesting the stress it was under. He cautiously peeked in, and found himself being pulled forcibly into the dark, gaping hole behind the door.
The door closed of its own accord, locking itself once more as the pad sputtered, slipping back into the wall.
All was silent.
Mel swore as she ducked down a hallway, running as fast as her legs could carry her, the source of her distress peppering the wall with dozens of bullets, all attempting to take a bite out of her.
She sighed in relief as the bullets stopped, warranting her to stop, her non-existent lungs burning.
There was nothingness in the hall, just her shallow breaths. She quickly surveyed the area before moving on, checking for any stray turrets that might've been looking for her.
Lady Luck wasn't in her favor, however, as the floor suddenly dropped out from under her. She flailed her arms as her voice echoed off the walls of the trap, echoing upwards as she fell, the darkness consuming her entirely- it wasn't too long before the light from the floor above was nothing more than a speck, appearing as a tiny pinprick in the black horizon.
She landed violently, her entire body rattling harshly against the new floor- she shook her head, then made a check for her gun, making sure it was secured on her form. She stood up, and tipped over, her slender body clattering once more as she slipped yet again, trying to get up. She soon found the source of the problem- there, laying on the floor, just inches away, was her leg, separated at the knee, broken and loose wires hanging out of the kneecap. She fainted, her processors shutting off as they dealt with the shock.
The last thing she remembered, was a blurry mix of red and orange above her, before losing consciousness completely- her eye closing in sleep.