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Getting captured by Civil Protection was stupid, but the reason Chell got caught made it even stupider.
Chell paced the close confines of the interrogation room. An officer tossed her in here roughly an hour ago. Maybe more, maybe less? Chell's grasp on time remained tenuous even after returning to the surface.
She'd been careful. Outrageously careful. All she had to do was gather intel. Note the coming and goings of the guard throughout the day. A low-risk assignment for her first solo outing. She couldn't stay holed up in the Resistance base anymore, and while she tried to pitch in on group missions, Chell worked best alone. Some habits die hard, and spending 99999 years relying on no one but herself was a tough habit to break.
And that had turned out just great. Dried blood crusted her lips. She had the swollen beginnings of a black eye. There were headcrabs more aesthetically pleasing than her.
The assignment really had been going fine. Chell camped out in the dilapidated remains of a hotel, perfectly positioned outside the plaza. She felt a tiny swell of pride. The work wasn’t challenging or significant, but she was doing something . Returning to the surface only to find a world enslaved by the Combine was disheartening. But in that dusty little lobby, scribbling down times in her notebook, Chell was fighting back. It was small and it was tedious, but she was fighting back.
Until an officer spotted her.
Chell ran. What else was she supposed to do? She hoped the officer would just give up the chase, but instead one officer became two, then two became four. Chell was equal parts fast and stubborn, but she didn't know the layout of City 14 the way they did. As they closed in on her, Chell’s mind raced for a potential exit. Then, as she turned a corner straight into a dead end, it appeared.
A white surface.
Looking back, Chell didn't know why she did it. Had to be pure reflex. Wasting seconds she could not afford to lose, her arm shot out as if to aim. Why did she try shooting at a wall with a device she no longer had with technology the outside world definitely did not possess? Great question!
See, in theory, she would’ve shot a portal at the wall then the accompanying one through a broken window in a warehouse up ahead. It was brilliant.
In theory.
In execution, they caught her.
So yeah. From a few doors down came a scream that rattled Chell to her bones. That’s going to be you soon, pointed out a voice that was not her own. Chell shot the surveillance camera a glare. Sure, her heart was pounding, but whoever was watching her didn’t need to know that.
Chell shook out her arms, trying to expel some of the tension. There was a timer counting down her minutes of solitude, and Chell had no idea how many she had left. The Resistance had prepped her for this scenario. Exactly what would happen in this room. Chell wished that knowledge brought her some relief.
But anyone who knew what went down in a Civil Protection interrogation could only hope the building exploded.
She wouldn't talk. No matter what they did to her. No matter how long they kept her in isolation, no matter how many bones they broke-
Oh god, this was really happening.
Chell let out a slow, deliberate exhale. Enough catastrophizing. Now was a time to focus on the positives. They hadn't strapped her into the chair - were those stains on the vinyl dried blood? Not worth dwelling on. Chell was alone, giving her a small window to cobble together an even worse plan than the one that got her captured. Oh! And she wasn't dead.
...Yet.
Just then, the lock clicked open, and two Civil Protection officers filed into the interrogation room. As badly as Chell wanted to back into the corner like a rapid dog, she stood her ground.
"Citizen," one said in that unnervingly distorted voice. "You have been brought in under suspicion of treason."
Suddenly, that whole positive thinking technique wasn't doing it for Chell.
The other officer chimed in, "What were you doing outside the Citadel?” Chell didn’t respond. He looked knowingly to the other officer then added, “Look, we’re on your side. The more you help us, the more we can help you."
Yeah, Chell wasn't doing that.
These thinly veiled threats were standard Combine interrogation procedure. Standard, in that if Chell didn't give up everything she knew about the Resistance, she'd be coming out of this room in a body bag. Even if she did tell them everything, the body bag was still on the table. Civil Protection was about as civil as a boot grinding into Chell's neck.
But if her plan worked, she wouldn't be in this predicament for much longer.
Only the plan was a big if. Earlier, in the two minutes Chell came to terms with her imminent capture, she used her radio to send out a distress signal. Not to the base. When Civil Protection confiscated her radio, they’d trace the signal straight to the Resistance, and that was something they generally did not want.
But Chell had one other option.
“Tell you what,” an officer said, “why don’t you share who exactly you were broadcasting to in upper Michigan?”
It was strictly a last resort. A Hail Mary to end all Hail Maries. Chell lifted her chin. Any minute now and-
"Hey!"
One of the officers shoved her up against the wall. Before Chell could push him off, he pressed a meaty arm against her throat.
"My partner asked you a question," he growled.
Chell clawed at the officer’s arm, but he was twice her size. Irrational as it sounded, Chell hadn’t truly grasped that she was in danger. She perceived it only in the abstract. The events currently playing out were happening to someone else, not her. Only now, pressure on her throat mounting, did it sink in. Nobody knew where she was. No one would look for her; not out of cruelty, but out of survival for the Resistance. She was on her own.
Maybe deep down, that was why she’d been clinging to that distress signal like a piece of driftwood. But what if the signal hadn’t been received?
Or worse.
It had been ignored.
Spots flitted across her vision. The officers were exchanging words- did it really matter what when Chell knew the outcome? She'd had a good run as a Resistance fighter. Short. Depressingly short. The officer pinning her against the wall laughed and reached for his baton. Chell closed her eyes, waiting for the first blow.
"Oh. So this is what you've been up to."
A volt of recognition shot through Chell. That voice dripping with contempt. Her eyes opened. Although the room had not shifted in appearance, Chell could feel her presence in the building down to its very foundation.
She had actually showed up.
The Civil Protection officer pointed his gun at the speaker, as if that would solve the problem. "Identify yourself!"
"This is embarrassing, even for you," GLaDOS drawled, ignoring the officers altogether. "Not only did you let yourself get captured, you let the skeletal remains of Black Mesa get the drop on you. Honestly, I should just leave you here to die. That would be much less humiliating for you."
A flurry of emotions collided into Chell. Mainly disbelief that their paths had crossed again. A surreal comfort at hearing a familiar voice. Her legs felt wobbly, like they'd collapse with just one push. A part of her wanted to cry? If she escaped (when not if, come on, positive thinking), she'd sit with these feelings. Maybe try those meditations Barney was always recommending.
For right now, Chell could only watch the chaos unfold.
To Civil Protection's credit, they immediately sprang into action. The officer halfway to crushing her windpipe released her and grabbed his radio. "Control, we've got a hostile presence somewhere in the building."
Through the tinny speaker up in the corner, GLaDOS' artificial laugh filled up the entire room. "It's not me you should be worried about. Would you like to hear something fun about the woman in your custody?"
The officers went still. They looked to Chell, as if she was going to answer that question. Heat crept into her cheeks. Since when did the room get so quiet?
"She's a killing machine. Not an ounce of morality. Honestly, I'm astonished you're comfortable even being in the same room with her."
For a "killing machine," Chell felt pretty helpless. No weapons, no plan, just the flimsiest scrap of hope. Was GLaDOS here to help her? Or was she simply taking this valuable opportunity to finish her off for good?
"I have another fun fact for you," GLaDOS continued. "That woman, the killing machine? Well, she's granted me access to your entire compound. I see there's lots of interesting things in storage. Oh. Look at that."
GLaDOS paused. Tension pressed from all sides of the room. Was she bluffing? Chell hadn’t given her access to anything. There was no way for GLaDOS to infiltrate the place remotely. Right?
"You have a fresh supply of neurotoxin."
Chell's eyes went wide. She wasn't.
"I'd just hate for this to go to waste."
She wasn't.
What was Chell thinking? Of course she was. The officers exchanged looks, weighing their options. Interrogate the prisoner or track down the scary voice threatening to release a deadly gas into the entire building? Beneath those opaque masks, their faces probably mirrored the terror plastered on Chell's face. If the two of them shared half a brain cell, they’d take GLaDOS’ threat seriously.
Only Black Mesa's track record for assessing threats was historically abysmal.
"There."
From deep within the building, Chell heard the faintest hissing sound.
"You didn't need these vents for anything important, right?"
Shouts erupted from outside. "How did she..." one officer started, but then the reality of the situation kicked in, and the two officers bolted. The door to the interrogation room slammed shut, locking automatically.
Chell let out a gasp she didn't realize she'd been holding in. She grabbed the chair for support. Her heart was racing. She could still feel that officer's arm pressed against her throat. If those officers had stayed in that room, they would've killed her. Chell had brushed against death before. Hell, she'd prevented a nuclear meltdown.
But not like that.
Not so intimate.
If GLaDOS noticed her former adversary near-hyperventilating, she responded with all the comfort of a chainsaw. "I would have intervened sooner, but I had to be sure that emaciated figure on camera was you."
Chell was relatively certain she hadn't gained or lost a significant amount of weight since leaving Aperture. Maybe this was GLaDOS’ way of saying Nice to see you.
“You look terrible, by the way,” GLaDOS said. “The surface really hasn’t treated you well.”
Maybe not. Chell put a hand to her bleeding lip, which had split open again during the scuffle with the Civil Protection officer. GLaDOS no doubt meant every insult she’d just hurled at her. But her heartbeat was slowing down to normal. The staticky panic in her head was fading. Amazing. Only the dulcet tones of mockery could calm her nerves.
At this, she couldn’t help but smile.
“You're awfully cheerful,” GLaDOS observed. “Given you’re locked in a room with no way out. Which I suppose is why you need me.” She sounded only mildly inconvenienced by these circumstances, which was honestly how she sounded regarding any aspect of Chell’s life. “You do realize my day does not revolve around you? I was in the middle of a test when you contacted me. I lost valuable data.”
Yes, the real victim here was GLaDOS. Not like Chell had narrowly escaped a drawn-out torture session.
"You didn't happen to develop an immunity to deadly neurotoxin, did you? Just checking."
Chell glared into the lens of surveillance camera. Even though they were thousands of miles apart, GLaDOS felt only an arm's length away. Chell could picture her in the main chamber, chassis reared back, delighting in Chell's predicament. Of course she'd solved Chell's problem by creating a bigger, deadlier problem for her to figure out. Chell wasn't sure when the neurotoxin would reach this side of the building, but she'd rather not stick around to find out.
"How bad is it?"
Her neck. So GLaDOS did catch that. There was no emotion attached to the question. To GLaDOS, it was likely nothing more than a data point. Chell put a hand to throat, wincing. Yeah. Pretty bad.
"Well, you won't die. Yet. You have twenty minutes." The lock clicked open. "Go put that penchant for destruction of property to good use."
Chell's feet shifted, the task ahead of her settling in, her focus zoning in on nothing but one simple goal. Get out. With bittersweet awareness, she realized this was the way she felt entering a test chamber. After all, wasn't this the same? All she had to do was move the right pieces into place, and she'd be out.
She reached for the doorknob, feeling equal parts thrilled and terrified when it turned.
“And Chell?”
At the sound of her own name, Chell halted. Something stirred in her that she did not have the time to unpack.
"Try not to die."
Chell looked back to the camera, a familiar spark of determination in her eyes.
She didn't plan to.
Chell's return to the base was met with gasps. After she failed to show up at the checkpoint, everyone assumed the worst. As much as she hated to dwell on it, she wasn't the first scout they'd lost. Especially after the reemergence of that Freeman guy, the Combine had doubled down on security. Her escape was getting her more attention than any of the successful assignments she'd helped on. A few of her cohorts tried asking how she'd made it out all on her own, but Chell kept her answers vague.
She was safe. The details of how didn't matter.
The only time Chell came close to spilling everything was that night in the arms of her lover.
Alyx ran her fingers through Chell's hair. "You're really not gonna tell me?" she said.
With a playful shake of her head, Chell kissed her. There weren't enough words in the human language for her to describe the relationship between her and GLaDOS. For better or worse -worse, probably- nobody knew her like GLaDOS. Some late nights, staring up at the ceiling, Chell wondered if GLaDOS felt likewise. They were written into each other's code. Impossible to untangle.
Yeah, no way GLaDOS shared the sentiment. Imagining Chell keeling over was probably the only time she ever crossed her vindictive mind.
Still.
She'd intervened.
Chell didn't know what that meant. If it even meant anything. But she was alive. And she wasn't leaving this bed until she had demonstrated to Alyx exactly how thankful she was to be here. Might take all night. Chell wanted to be thorough.
Alyx pulled away from her, curiosity still tugging at her features. "Is it an ex? Do you have some computer genius ex you're not telling me about?"
Something like that.