Chapter Text
“GOOD MORNING, AND WELCOME TO THE APERTURE SCIENCE POTATO SCIENCE INITIATIVE CENTER!”
Bella had heard this automated voice every day as she stepped into work . She was always sick of the announcer on the intercom. She always wondered why they had to play that message every time an employee walked into the area.
“THE ENRICHMENT CENTER WOULD LIKE TO INFORM YOU THAT TODAY IS THE ANNUAL BRING YOUR DAUGHTER TO WORK DAY”
Bella looked up as this was the first time she had heard this in a long while, and as expected there were hundreds of children bumbling about with their parents. There were several what she could only presume to be science fair experiments lined up on tables in the halls. She remembered the first time she was taken out of school to stay over at her dad's old office building to bring your kid to work every two years.
She smiled at the thought of being a kid again, not having worries, responsibilities, or work.
Her job was quite boring if she had to say. Mundane average, little to no effort.. It was as easy as cutting potatoes.
No, really,. her job was actually cutting potatoes.
She walked over to her office and sat down on one of the hard, dirty office chairs, as the good ones were too expensive.to make even if the company had billions.
She stretched her arms and yawned as she began her day as always.
She pressed one of the buttons to turn on a robotic arm, the arm powered on and started to slowly hand her roots, and she began chopping them in half.
She began to wonder why her job even existed, as the engineers could just make a potato cutting machine themselves.
She figured that they just needed a job to give her since she figured an actual job requires communication, which she physically lacks.
Living mute has always effected her ever since childhood.
Memories of teachers yelling at her to speak up.
Memories of people saying horrible stuff upfront and not being able to tell them to leave her alone.
Memories of nobody wanting to be near her.
She just shrugged it off, as she had been dealing with this for years and had just gotten used to solidarity. Plus, she already had the job and got at least a small sum of money from it, and she got back to chopping. She thought yet again.
Why do the engineers need this many potatoes anyway?
She looked intently at the dull colored root in thought. Then shrugged it off yet again.
Bella had always dreamt of becoming an engineer and making “real” science.
Ever since she was young she was fascinated by the concept.
She used to take the family TV then tore it apart and put it back together, and gamble a lot of random parts together and thought of it as a "master invention".
She smiled, thinking back on the old days, when times were simpler, nobody to fear, no work to worry about.
Suddenly, she snapped out of her daze with a friendly voice her way.
“Ay there!”
It was Virgil, her coworker. He swept back his long dark hair and put up a big smile. Bella just looked at him puzzled, as Virgil wasn’t normally in such a cheerful mood. He hardly even left his office to get food since he was such a workaholic. He was also the head engineer which put a lot of pressure on him.
“Guess who just got a new promotion?” Virgil yapped excitedly in a tone that was quite unusual for cold and bleary demeanor.
Bella turned her desk chair over to him, stood up, and gave him an uninterested slow clap.
Clap.
Clap.
Clap.
Bella didn't really like any of the employees in Aperture, she preferred to keep interaction with them at a minimum since to her, everyone there was an absolute nutcase with no common human decency. Though, she still was happy for Virgil and his successes.
He was the only one she could really stand. He was a very kind person which to her were quite
“What was that all about?’’ asked Virgil in a joking tone. Bella just chuckled.
“You know what is strange though? It’s that they never said what it was for, I've also heard people have been skipping work lately after receiving raises or promotions. Even more than usual.". Said Virgil slightly worried.
“It's almost like they’ve been disappearing”
He looked down worryingly but shot up afterwards.
“Maybe they’ve all realized how bad this place really is hehe”.
He chuckled as if he wanted to try and reassure himself he wouldn't go missing either.
He then proceeded to walk out of Bella’s office and yelled out to her,
“I'll be in the employee lounge if you wanna join me-”
Bella then proceeded to chop, like before as she saw the rusty haired man walk off into the distance getting smaller and smaller.
IV
Virgil
Virgil was just sitting down in the employees lounge with a cup o’ coffee and an Aperture Times magazine, he was supposed to be at work in the maintenance room where he would go days without food working on a project. As he was the top engineer in the right wing, but he thought it was a good time to just relax because he's going to partake in a life altering test anyway. It was supposed to improve his work abilities or something like that. He didn't really know why the scientists called it that anyway but he shrugged it off as the worst they could do is put eyes on his back, right?
He was then greeted by a familiar sly voice.
“Oh hello there gorgeous~”
Virgil blushed slightly and looked up. He could only see a tall dark haired man with a rainbow tie leaning by the door frame.
“H-hello to you too,” said Virgil in a flustered, shy mess of a sentence.
Virgil didn't know the name of this guy but has had some feelings for them for quite a while. He didn't see him often though because the guy worked at basically the exact opposite wing of the Aperture facility.
The guy then flipped back his hair and gave Virgil a cheeky smile, then walked off into the corridor. He always dreamt of maybe hanging out with him some time, or better yet asking him his name. But alas, he couldn't even work up the courage to talk to him. He sighed, and took a sip of the black and bitter caffeine filled drink.
Then his drink shook a bit as two, what he can only presume were scientists, walked up to him. He looked up and got a good look at them.
“Hello sir,”
one of them declared.
“It says here you are appointed for a test in exactly a minute”
said one of the men.
He had a nicely fit blue tie and lab coat, with short, nicely kept, brown hair. He was one of the lead engineers on the G.L.a.D.O.S project. His name was Bradly.
The other one, which looked like they haven't slept in eons, with scuffed hair and droopy eyes, just motioned Virgil to stand up. Virgil didn't even know this guy or his name. He felt like he knew him or had seen him before somehow.
“Whatever you say I guess.” said Virgil as he got up and started down the hallway with the scientists.
“It's over here in, uh, covertio- I mean test room 17’’.
The “Test room” door had a crossed out Surgical personality sphere conversion room and repair center on it lightly highlighted with red.
Virgil looked at them as if they were about to do something horrible, but he kept his cool so as not to show he was absolutely terrified. Then, the well kept scientist opened the compact door with a seemingly large key code. The door creaked open and Virgil studied the room. There were lots of wires and surgical tools surrounding the walls, with a little rust colored metal robot thing covered with a brown tropical print over on a table.
Then he looked at the middle, which had some kind of surgical table
What the hell is going on here?
Wait their not gonna-
“Its for science”
Uttered one of the scientists under their breath but just enough for Virgil to hear.
Virgil was cut from his thoughts when he felt an aching feeling in his gut and a sharp pain in his back as he fell to the floor. His vision blurred as he slowly creeped away from consciousness.
II
Bella
Bella was at her desk daydreaming as her boring job had nothing interesting happen, ever. She missed her youth and would often day daydream of her high school years and all the crazy shit that went on back then. Heartbreak, drama, action. She usually was never apart of all of it but damn she thought it was fun to watch. That's all she needed, not to be cooped up in a little office cutting goddamn potatoes.
Nothing really ever happened in Bella’s adult life. She got up, got ready for work, fed her cat Olive, went to work, went home, ate, and the cycle repeated. This cycle has repeated for over 6 long years. A few interesting things happening here and there but not much.. This cycle was about to end on this day. Today was the day it all was about to go down.
Someone with a lab coat entered Bella's office. This guy was tall and had short black hair pulled back with a freshly shaved goatee. He approached Bella and cleared his voice.
“Hello there Ms. Williams, I'm here to inform you that today we will be finally launching G.L.a.D.O.S after 15 long years of work. I am pleased to inform you that we have a special role for you in powering her on. ''
The person then handed Bella some sort of directions sheet and left as if he was very excited to see the machine up and running. Bella took a look at the sheet. And as expected of Aperture, it was a three hour walk to get there.
She sighed heavily as got up and headed out of her office. She braced herself for what could happen next.