A/N: Well, what do you know, finally an update! I apologize for not updating in a while - school had been eating up a lot of time for me. But now that school for the semester is for the most part over, I have time to update! And about the second portal gun thing, I tried to give a sort of technical explanation for it since, in the game, it's just like picking up an item. Also, I apologize in advance for camera placement things throughout Portal 1, considering there may be cameras that the PC/Mac/XBox version has that the PS3 does not. So if I miss any, that's why.

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Half a truth is often a great lie.
-Benjamin Franklin

Now came Test Chamber 11 - the one where, at last, the test subject would acquire the full capabilities of the dual portal device. Providing she didn't fall into acid first.

Oh, this was going to be fun.

"The Enrichment Center promises to always provide a safe testing environment," GLaDOS said over the intercom as she watched Chell enter from the elevator pathway. "In dangerous testing environments, the Enrichment Center promises to always provide useful advice." The AI resisted chuckling. "For instance, the floor here will kill you - try to avoid it.

She zoomed in with her camera as she got a good view of the area below, which the human was glancing at now: a portal gun construct rotating on its podium, the platform where it sat surrounded by thick green acid. While it was a portal gun itself, the part of the construct which shot the orange portals could be taken out and placed into the one which the human possessed. Single-portal devices had that nifty little feature.

An orange portal was fired into an alcove that neither GLaDOS nor Chell could see from that viewpoint. With a seemingly quizzical look, Chell fired her blue portal onto the wall and stepped forward, disappearing into the alcove.

GLaDOS heard a click and a ticking timer to indicate the button below had been pressed as the metal door on the other side lifted upward. A blue portal was fired through the threshold before being shut away as the human stepped through.

What if the human stepped through at the wrong time? Then she'd get vaporized by that little High Energy Pellet that she'd never see coming. Coming through a portal only to get vaporized face first would be an amusing thing to note.

However, the AI never got to hear a satisfying sound of a human being impacted then vaporized. Just watching the Energy Pellet sail on through the orange portal into its Energy Pellet Receptacle, and the Unstationary Scaffold move toward its destination so that the human could board it.

The computer looked on in interest. If anything, sailing over acid with no guardrails surrounding you was a good way to get a human nervous, and thus even more likely to fall into the corrosive substance. Any moment now, Chell might slip off the moving platform and into her bubbling, corroding demise.

But it didn't come. All that did happen was that Chell reached the second portal gun construct, which promptly unfolded as the orange portal component took its place inside the fully functioning portal gun, causing the pedestal that had held the construct to lower into the ground, raising up a button that could open the door straight ahead.

"The Device has been modified so that it can now manufacture two linked portals at once. As part of an optional test protocol, we are pleased to present an amusing fact: The Device is now more valuable than the organs and combined incomes of everyone in [subject hometown here]."

As Chell pressed the button to open the door and shot the proper portals get through through use of the Unstationary Scaffold, GLaDOS waited with a sort of glee. The next test chamber wouldn't have anything of particular threat - just to get used to having the full power of the portal device.

From here on out, the test subject would have complete control over where the portals would be placed. But with that freedom came a lack of laid-out guidance, and one slip-up could end in disaster for the human.

That, however, would be after Test Chamber 12.

"Get ready to fling yourself," GLaDOS announced as she sensed the human enter the chamber, "fl-fling into spa-" She cut off in the middle of the word "space". She would have smirked from within her chamber. "Keeping up this charade of being a pre-recorded message is quite entertaining."

Though the walls of this new room didn't have cameras able to be placed onto it, GLaDOS could still for the most part detect the human's primary movements. A portal fling or two, stepping onto the button, getting the cube...

GLaDOS turned her speakers on again as she sensed the human land near her destination. "Wheeeeeeeeee-" she said in in a drawn-out tone before sparking out. Part of her wished that she could see the look of surprise on Chell's face.

Oh well. On to the next chamber where the real dangers would begin to emerge.

The AI waited until the human stepped through the tunnel into her camera view before speaking once again, causing the human to look up. "Now that you are in control of both portals, this next test could take a very, VERY, long time. If you become lightheaded from thirst, feel free to pass out. An intubation associate will be dispatched to revive you with peptic salve and adrenaline."

There were several ways that this particular test could be solved. It was just a matter of which way the test subject would pick.

Chell looked over toward the cube up above, and shot one portal near it, and the other on the wall next to her. Instead of pulling the cube through the portal link, she got next to the cube from her place on the ledge, and used the portal gun to toss it onto the button.

Well, she can throw without breaking her arm, GLaDOS thought to herself. Though frankly, it would have been amusing if she had.

Instead of stepping through the now open door, however, Chell looked curiously at the room, seeming to tilt her gaze very slightly toward the ceiling. To the markings above each of the buttons.

Hmmm, seems like she's going to try to use those markings as a tactic.

The computer's suspicions were proven correct. The woman shot one portal over the button in the path of the High Energy Pellet before jumping off the ledge to where the cube was, then proceeding to drop the cube through, landing it squarely on the button. She also managed to knock the Pellet out of the way in the process.

How interesting.

GLaDOS watched as Chell carefully stepped on the very edge of the button where the cube had once been, and shot a portal on the ceiling as far to the left as it could go. From her position, it seemed like that portal could give her a good enough angle to jump onto the button below.

But there was a new element of danger that the human had caused herself, and it filled GLaDOS with anticipation. Because of the cube being on the lower button, the High Energy Pellets kept bouncing off the cube and ricocheting all over the place, sometimes even impacting a point right near the button the human would land on.

"What a wonderful thing thatwill be to note in her file!" the computer exclaimed to herself as she switched her camera gaze to the one in the larger room, where the Energy Pelket was knocking into the walls at all sorts of angles. "'Impacted by the Energy Pellet from her own fatal trick as a result of a pitiful human error'."

That point however, never was able to be noted down. The human landed squarely on the button and shot a portal through the now open door before shooting a portal on the wall next to her, stepping through before a pellet could come her way to vaporize her.

Despite how disappointed GLaDOS was at a lack of vaporization - though she had to admit the method the human had used was impressive - she kept up her facade as her camera view switched to the one by the elevator, where Chell stood looking quite triumphant. "As part of a previously mentioned required test protocol, we can no longer lie to you. When the testing is over, you will be missed."

Chell gave the camera a questioning glance before stepping into the elevator, and onward to Test Chamber 14.

"All subjects intending to handle high-energy gamma-leaking portal technology must be informed that they maybe informed of applicable regulatory compliance issues." GLaDOS made sure to emphasize the "may" before she said her next words. "No further compliance information is required or will be provided, and you are an excellent test subject!"

This one lacked cameras as well. However, the chamber did have a High Energy Pellet and bubbling acid involved. Unfortunately for GLaDOS's death-eager mind, Chell got through that test too. Then again, it was just as well. She'd enjoy seeing the human's death in a visual manner.

"Very, very good. A complementary victory lift has been activated in the main chamber." That, of course, was a truth enhancement - the lift was required to be there in any case.

But speaking of truth enhancement, it was time for her primary tactic as the human entered Test Chamber 15. The motivation that seemed to get test subjects moving .00324 seconds faster through the tests, which sometimes resulted in a higher chance of them dying through carelessness.

"The Enrichment Center is committed to the well-being of all participants. Cake and grief counseling will be available at the conclusion of the test. Thank you for helping us help you help us all."

The cake wasreal. It just wasn't for Chell. It was simply hidden away in a small room with a Companion Cube. The grief counseling, however, was an outright fabrication. "Better throw in two potential rewards."

Chell looked up at the camera after GLaDOS had finished her speech. Without warning, she rolled her eyes and shot a portal at the camera, then another on a wall, disconnecting the camera from its perch and causing it to fall onto the ground.

GLaDOS snarled to herself as her connection was cut off, but she kept up her monotone. "To ensure the safe performance of all authorized activities, do not destroy vital testing apparatus." She switched over to her camera placed on the opposite side of the Emancipation Grill, slightly irritated as she watched the test subject fling through the Grill. Well, next area had a High Energy Pellet and several Grills. Perhaps on thispart the test subject would fail.

Chell placed the portals in the correct way so that the Energy Pellet went through toward the second Grill, as Chell quickly stepped through it and put one on the wall and one on the ceiling above, so that the Pellet landed safely in its Receptacle.

As Chell boarded the Scaffold, GLaDOS lost visual contact as the human entered the next area. There was an Energy Pellet there, she knew, and once that was done there would be a Scaffold on which the test subject would have to move quickly from one to the other or else meet her death in acid.

However, as was clear to GLaDOS from her camera in the final room of the Chamber, the sound of smooth portaling alerted her of the human's success before arriving. But here it would be interesting. Two timers, two doors, one Energy Pellet. This was a test on swiftness more than anything, though if Chell happened to make a clumsy move she could get vaporized with just enough time to realize her mistake.

It took the human several tries, each time GLaDOS observed with interest, but eventually she solved the test and the lift was lowered.

"Did you know you can donate one or all of your vital organs to the Aperture Science self-esteem fund for girls? It's true!"

The human just seemed to shake her head as she went out of GLaDOS's sight and into the elevator.

GLaDOS, however, couldn't help but get excited now. Next was Test Chamber 16. The one with the turrets. The one where it would be so great to see the human full of holes as the turrets shot all their bullets into her soft human flesh.

For drama, she delayed the lighting up of the test chamber sign as Chell entered the chamber. "Due to mandatory scheduled maintenance, the appropriate chamber for this testing sequence is currently unavailable. It has been replaced with a live fire course designed for military androids. The Enrichment Center apologizes for the inconvenience and wishes you the best of luck."

With that, the AI opened the door and allowed Chell to enter the first room, a turret facing away from the human, though a turret far on the other side of two glass barriers spotted her and began vainly shooting.

GLaDOS felt a sense of eagerness. Even though the bullets there wouldn't reach Chell - not yet - it demonstrated just how far a turret's bullets could reach. Far enough to kill a human from a great distance if they were within the turret's line of sight.

Chell picked up this first turret with the portal gun and faced it toward the wall where it couldn't hurt her as it called "Please put me down!" As she rounded the corner, the AI observing her quickly switched the camera viewpoint to the one overlooking this turret facing the hallway. The small robot's laser sight was trained right in view of the door. If Chell got in that line of sight, she'd be met with a flurry of bullets. And GLaDOS would be able to catch the human's death directly in front of her camera.

The human stepped gingerly in front of the doorway as the turret's optic lit up. She hurriedly shot a portal behind the turret and ducked off to the side, the few bullets shot missing her by inches and instead making several dents in the wall. A quick shot of the other portal and she was past that one.

GLaDOS watched with her camera eye above the turret that was waiting on the steps. Any moment now, the human would perish by this turret's bullets.

Or not. A portal was quickly shot behind it, just as the previous one. An exclamation from the turret as it was picked up ("Hey!") and eventual relaxation as it was set down facing the wall. ("Naptime.")

"Dang it," GLaDOS muttered.

At this point, Chell went out of her camera view, so GLaDOS listened for a time. Listened to the sounds of portals being placed, bullets being shot, cries as turrets were knocked over...

GLaDOS switched her view ever toward the room with the three turrets and the Super Button, waiting eagerly to hear the human's body slam to the ground or for her to wander into the room to meet her lead-filled demise.

Suddenly, there was a quick portal shot over to the turret closest to the door, and the turret was pulled through to the other room by means of the portal gun that the human wielded. The one closer to the room's entrance met a similar fate.

Then, suddenly, a portal was shot right above the turret where GLaDOS's camera was, and the gaze of the camera turned slowly upward.

"You are kidding me," the AI said in disbelief from within her chamber.

It was Chell, who simply jumped through the portal and quickly adjusted to the angle of first being upright to falling from the ceiling. She landed squarely down on the turret, knocking it over and dodging its erratic bullets.

"Ouch!" the turret cried before the bullet plates retracted, the light of its optic fading. "No hard feelings."

The turret may not have had any hard feelings, but the AI overseeing the drama sure did. The human had defeated the turrets in her room like it was nothing, and only through an attempt at ingenuity, not even having touched the cubes with the lively little radio in the adjacent room. As if she had been doing this kind of thing her entire life.

Chell stood on the button, and was met with the red light of a turret shining at her. Quickly shooting a portal behind the turret, she stepped off the button and thus prevented the turret from seeing her. Then she disappeared from the room as she placed a portal underneath her feet, going into the small area beyond the door.

A quick camera switch and GLaDOS saw the human quietly sneak behind the turret, her presence unnoticed. And with another portal placement and movement of a turret, the human made it to the elevator.

The AI was not amused in the slightest - she had been hoping for the human to die in that test, by all means she very well should have. But a gruesome death would have to wait. Thus, GLaDOS pretended to congratulate the human, in a roundabout way.

"Well done, android. The Enrichment Center once again reminds you that Android Hell is a real place where you will be sent at the first sign of defiance." The human had sure gotten through it with the ease of an android, that was certain. Chell wasn't an android of course, but GLaDOS found the fact that the test subject got through the chamber without so much as a bullet to the arm was very irritating to her.

"There's always the fire pit," GLaDOS reminded herself to try to diffuse her irritation. "Only three more chambers to go, and the fire pit is waiting for her at the end of the last one. If she survives these next two - and that is a rather big if- I'll get to watch her burn in the final chamber!"

With a somewhat renewed anticipation, GLaDOS eagerly focused her sensors to the camera at the beginning of Test Chamber 17 as her test subject exited the elevator. This chamber had plenty of cameras around, and forced into non-portalable walls for the most part. She'd be able to track the human's every move for this test.

Most of the other tests had threatened to break the human's body, but this one was meant to break the mind - along with the vaporization threat from the Pellets. And unlike the earlier test that she had deemed impossible, this one would break the psyche by forcing the test subject to incinerate what was meant to become the test subject's friend.

"The Vital Apparatus Vent will deliver a Weighted Companion Cube in Three... Two... One..."

The cube fell from the Vent and landed on the floor with a clank. Chell stepped forward, looking at it with a kind of baffled curiosity before picking it up. Likely recognized it from that video the daughters had been shown a decade back.

"This Weighted Companion Cube will accompany you through the test chamber. Please take care of it."

GLaDOS had cameras positioned everywhere here, even one watching from the place where the two Energy Pellet Dispensers shot their deadly balls of pure energy back and forth down the two hallways.

"Oh, this will be interesting," GLaDOS said to herself as she watched Chell use the cube as a footstool to get up the stairs and place a portal on the lone wall, which the Pellet bounced off of. "She'll just try to block the Pellet with that cube of hers, then a few misplaced bounces and the Pellet will vaporize her, her only friend being the last thing she sees!"

No such thing happened in the first hallway, as the Cube remained a well-enough shield for the test subject to use. So GLaDOS continued with her monotone speech over the intercom. "The symptoms most commonly produced by Enrichment Center testing are superstition, perceiving inanimate objects as alive, and hallucinations. The Enrichment Center reminds you that the Weighted Companion Cube will never threaten to stab you, and, in fact, cannot speak."

GLaDOS continued to watch as the test subject climb up the stairway, Companion Cube squarely in front of her to avoid the energy ball's deadly touch. She watched from her camera at the end of the hallway as the Pellet bounced off of the wall, leaving burn marks in its wake. The test subject descended the steps and came to the test chamber's main area, seeing a slanted platform across from the Receptacle. Shooting the other portal onto the slanted section. GLaDOS watched as the Pellet from the first pathway traveled down the hall and through the portal, bouncing off the ceiling and landing in the slanted Receptacle, activating the first Scaffold in a line of three and deactivating the Pellet Containment Device for the second hallway.

One Scaffold up. Two to go.

The camera above the doorway focused on the human as she leapt down, Cube in tow, and went to enter the far room, going through with the Cube and gazing around before looking back at the panel that was sticking out. She went out of GLaDOS's camera view for a brief time as she went to the far end of the room and placed the Companion Cube on the button, before barely coming back into view as she shot the corresponding portal on the panel in front of her, standing by the Super Button.

Go on, GLaDOS thought to herself as she anticipated the Pellet to come zooming through. Have her move onto the button a bit too soon. Hit her. Hit her and vaporize her and-

The woman dodged the Pellet as it missed her by inches, quickly stepping onto the Button as it whizzed by and went through the now open doors, landing in the Receptacle.

Ignoring the fact that she hadn't got to see the human vaporized, GLaDOS followed her routine. "The Enrichment Center reminds you that the Weighted Companion Cube cannot speak," the computer broadcasted as she activated the second Scaffold. "In the event that the Weighted Companion Cube does speak, the Enrichment Center urges you to disregard its advice."

Too bad foolish Rattmann didn't know that. He let that insanity get the better of him.

As Chell exited the alcove, GLaDOS noticed that something seemed to catch her eye, and followed her gaze to a panel sticking outward, revealing a small alcove behind it.

It was one of the places that Rattmann had been trying to hide in. But that one had been here in a rather plain view from here, but she had never quite gotten a look inside... all she could see of it was what her camera allowed her to see.

The human seemed as curious as GLaDOS, and shot one portal onto one of the alcove's walls, and another on the wall next to her. That was a good-enough position to allow GLaDOS to get a fuller view of the hidden room as Chell entered it.

"So thiswhere he was hiding some of my cameras," GLaDOS said to herself as she noted four deactivated cameras strewn about the floor, remembering how the scientist had, in a fit of paranoia, forcibly unhooked some of the cameras and hid them away.

It seemed like he had made this one when he was losing his grip on sanity. The floor didn't look very clean, papers and cans of beans littering its surface. The pictures that could be seen had humans' heads replaced with Companion Cubes - likely used the cameras in the cameras - and there were small-print words written all over the wall, slanted and wavy as if in a frenzy.

Chell seemed just as intrigued, if not slightly creeped out. She was able to see more of the room than GLaDOS, and the computer wanted to shout at the human to just get on with the testing. But to do so would break her facade.

That Rattmann is likely dead and rotting somewhere in the depths of the facility, GLaDOS thought to herself. Good riddance.

Luckily for the observing computer, Chell resumed her testing after giving the curious little room a backward glance, as if inquiring who in the world had once occupied that space. Not that anyone would tell her, though. into the small room. The Energy Pellet puzzle in there would be easy enough as long as the test subject used her Cube like a shield properly and didn't direct it back into herself.

And yup, it worked. Using the Cube as a proper shield, that is. And with that, the third and final Scaffold rose.

Chell shot one portal by the ledge above and the other on the wall next to her, picking up the Companion Cube along with her and leaping across the three Scaffolds with ease. She went out of the camera view as she jumped to the adjacent ledge, but no matter - GLaDOS switched to the camera right near the last button, so that she would be able to see the human's beloved Companion Cube falling into the Incinerator. No tricks, no "clever" human ways to get out of it.

"You did it!" GLaDOS announced brightly as the human placed the Cube onto the Button. "The Weighted Companion Cube certainly brought you good luck. However, it cannot accompany you for the rest of the test and, unfortunately, must be euthanized.

The human looked from the camera to to the Cube.

"Please escort your Companion Cube to the Aperture Science Emergency Intelligence Incinerator."

GLaDOS eagerly moved her camera eye around with every movement the test subject made. She wasn't going to miss this!

She wanted to see the human try to uselessly unhinge the camera from the wall, or see her let out her rage and perhaps accidentally fall into the incinerator herself, or see her break down over the idea of losing her best friend, hiding in Rattmann's little place for the rest of her days before dying of thirst and starvation.

But the human didn't have any of those extreme reactions that the computer had expected. Chell didn't seem furious, or near on the verge of a mental breakdown.

She just looked... a little disappointed. Like she had developed a small bond with it - about 11.54 percent of the extreme amount GLaDOS had hoped for - but knew she had to go on without it.

As the human stepped forward to eye the Incinerator and look back at her Companion Cube, GLaDOS projected her voice again.

"Rest assured that an independent panel of ethicists has absolved the Enrichment Center, Aperture Science employees, and all test subjects of any moral responsibility for the Companion Cube euthanizing process.".

The human walked over to the open doorway around the end of GLaDOS's speech and pressed the button. The covering over the Incinerator opened, revealing its red burning depths and the smoke rising out of it. Chell went over and lifted her Companion Cube off where it rested and over to the Incinerator. With a last look - a look that was far too calm in comparison to what GLaDOS had hoped - she dropped it in.

"You euthanized your faithful Companion Cube more quickly than any test subject on record," GLaDOS said as she opened the door to the elevator. "Congratulations."

Of course the human had done it more quickly than any test subject on record - Chell was the onlytest subject on record.

As Chell headed off into the elevator, with a last glance at the Incinerator before the doors shut, the AI mused to herself.

"Okay, so her reaction to the Companion Cube euthanizing process was far less than I expected. But there's still a little bit of testing to do." The computer couldn't help but feel a sense of glee as she thought of it - the final two chambers would have some excitement, no doubt about it. Test Chamber 18 had so many hazards that it would have to be some sort of miracle if Chell made it through alive.

And if that failed... there was the fire pit in Test Chamber 19. The inescapable trap, the one that would finish off the test subject as she burned to her death.

And GLaDOS couldn't wait.

"Only a matter of time, Chell," the computer hissed, not hiding her eagerness as she said the words in her central chamber. "Only a matter of time."

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A/N: Whew, FINALLY got that chapter done! Yeah, the next chapter is going to have from Test Chamber 18 to the end of Portal 1, plus those last parts of the Lab Rat comic. So yup, the upcoming chapter is the last time we're gonna see Doug Rattmann in this thing. But anyway, till next chapter! Remember to review!