Chapter Text
Walls and floors shifted around the pair of subjects. “Let me just clean up this place a bit,” BRIAN chimed, as if Dan and Ross were merely unexpected guests in his home. “You know, I had so many other tests for you to complete, it really is a shame that you skipped over all of them.”
“Where’s Holly?!” Ross shouted, invigorated by his newfound memory.
“You again.” BRIAN’s tone fell flat. “I thought those scientists would have programmed the idiocy out of you, but it just goes to show that they can’t do anything right.”
“We’re not in your test chambers anymore.” Dan’s voice had a new intensity behind, fueled by bitterness and exhaustion. “Take us where we want to go.”
There was a cold silence, BRIAN finally at a loss for words, if only for a moment. “You’ll have to go to the incinerator if you even hope to see what you’re looking for. Maybe once you see how hopeless your endeavors are, you’ll finally cooperate.”
Dan ignored BRIAN’s threat and set off toward the incinerator. He was already steeling himself for what he might see.
Dan disinterestedly shuffled out of his office and toward the big presentation room in the building. He wasn’t walking nearly as fast as his assistant would have liked, judging by how excited and fidgety he was, but Dan couldn’t bring himself to get excited. It all just felt dull.
The crowd that was gathered in the presentation room moved aside, letting Dan go to the front. A huge projector was playing live footage from the test chambers and Dan found himself not wanting to look. But the chatter around him wasn’t sullen or dodgy. It was frantic and full of disbelief.
“He’s doing it!”
“Of course he’s doing it, he invented the gun, didn’t he?”
“I can’t believe he’s the first one to finish the tests.”
Dan finally pulled his head up, letting himself focus on the projection. Barry commanded the area of the chamber, controlling the Portal Gun with a true fluidity and talent. But Barry wasn’t in the familiar, white-walled room that made up an actual test chamber.
Rather, Barry bolted around a darker room, with cords splaying all along the ground. Only a few white, portal-friendly walls lay scattered around in particular places. And in the center of the room, frantically swiveling to keep up with Barry was the massive robotic body which BRIAN commanded, his red eye glowing with intensity. Dan felt his breath hitch with nerves.
The chatter in Dan’s immediate vicinity became more hushed, perhaps afraid of catching the attention of their boss. But a few things could still be picked up if Dan focused on them.
“Why would he shut down BRIAN? It’s out biggest success.”
“It’d be a waste for him to be shut down, wouldn’t it? We’d have to design another robot to oversee the tests.”
It seemed like victory was just around the corner and the whooping and hollering of encouragement only grew louder. Everyone was on the edge of their seats, hanging on to the possibility that a test subject might return from the chambers unharmed.
Barry fell to his knees, causing the crowd to fall incredibly silent and still. Barry’s hands gripped at the concrete floor as his body heaved for fresh air. Dan gripped at the railing of the balcony with a similar intensity.
A single voice seemed to carry over the whole crowd. “BRIAN released neurotoxin in the room.”
The muttering began again, this time more sullen, more familiar.
“He wasn’t fast enough.”
“Such a shame.”
“He was so close.”
Dan threw himself out of the room desperately, trying to ignore the sound of Barry’s hacking coughs as the neurotoxin killed him from the inside out. There wasn’t anyone left as far as Dan was concerned. Everyone was dead and it was all because of BRIAN.