Subject 3281; Chell's Story

Remembrances

"Welcome one and all," said a booming voice that sounded quite like the wheelchair-ridden man's authoritataive one, though much youger, and much, much healthier. The voice continued from a speaker on the wall, "to Aperture Science Innovators' first annual Take your Daughter to Work Day."

A young dark haired girl—maybe thirteen or even fourteen this time—looked up to the man walking beside her. The man's face was turned towards a colleague at the other side of the room, and he didn't seem to be paying a mite of attention to her. The girl, his daughter no doubt, sighed and turned away.

Her father had practically dragged her here to his place of business in the middle of a heavy school week, just so she could listen to some boring pre-recorded announcements, look at dozens of potato-related projects—including one she herself had been required to make—and to be ignored the whole day? It had appeared so, and her father didn't seem as if he was going to start paying attention to her now.

She sighed once more, and took to looking about the large room, full of proud men and women showing various display cases to scores of young girls.

One read, "1984; The Year of Science!" Inside the display was a strange, oblong white gun-looking contraption, a small portrait of a man and a woman—the woman was the girl's mother—standing side by side, and, for some obscure reason, what looked to be a cross between a hand grenade, and a lemon. The girl's eyes flicked to and from the various displays as she waited by her father, but she didn't leave his side. The man may not have cared three straws about her, but he had still brought her here. Besides, he was the only scientist here she knew of that might tell her where the exit was.

The two stood there for a minute or so, until something her father said sparked his daughter's curiosity, and she ducked her head to appear as inconspicuous as possible. He hadn't said anything to her specifically, but he was standing right next to her, so it would've been hard not to overhear him when the exchange took place.

"It's a shame," he had said to a fellow Aperture employee, "that the Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System isn't stable yet; we could've given these kids a real show. As it is," her father continued, "all of the scientific bits and pieces they are seeing here could be considered 'second-rate science.'"

"You know," said the man he was talking to, "you could take a group of them down to the Enrichment Center, show them around and whatnot. Heck," he added with a laugh, "we could even make testing a scheduled activity next year!"

The girl looked up. Testing in the Enrichment Center? The thought intrigued her, as she had heard both her father and her mother blather on about that place back at the house. Her eyebrows furrowed as her thoughts turned to her mother. She couldn't quite remember the last time she had seen her—but that could mean anything, she told herself, anything. Her mother was most likely away on vacation since the old CEO had died, as her father had told her. Most likely.

"You know," said her father, snapping the girl from her thoughts. "That idea has some merit. I'll see what I can do about it in the future, but in the meantime—"

"Sir," said the girl, cutting her father off mid-sentence, "couldn't you just take me to the Enrichment Center? The information there might be useful for my upcoming physics paper." She had no such paper to write, but, without the knowledge that his daughter was a seamless liar—it came with being a highschool-psychiatrist diagnosed sociopath—the man turned to her and seemed to consider the girl's sudden words. They both knew that the girl was working many grades ahead of most fourteen year olds, and the work was beginnng to pile up. At least, that's what she had lead her father to believe.