User blog:Sunshineandravioli/New Initiative - Chapter 1



Greetings, carbon-based lifeforms of the , and welcome to the maiden presentation of the Professor Layton and Portal crossover fan fiction, New Initiative. Chosen by the users of  out of several candidates, New Initiative will be posted on a biweekly basis starting today. Protocol requires us to report that the fan fiction is rated  for mild violence, language and suggestive content, and may contain  from the items Portal and Portal 2, along with potential minor spoilers from the item Professor Layton and the Unwound Future. We thank you, members of the , for your enthusiasm and support in this venture, and sincerely hope you will enjoy this initial installment.

~ Love and Ravioli,  Sunshine  ♥ 00:44, February 2, 2012 (UTC)

Chapter 1: [introductory component]
Layton began to slowly awaken.

Now, unlike most people, he was not particularly fond of waking up, as for him waking up meant that either a brief cognitive test was going to be run before he was forced back into slumber, or he was about to be sent through more testing. It wasn’t that he disliked the testing in general – on the contrary, he quite enjoyed the intellectual challenges they presented, and of course the brief freedom from his cell and cryogenic slumber – but the rather common brushes with death and his overseer’s blatant disregard for his happiness or safety did tend to put a damper on the few positives of being a glorified lab rat. Lights flickered on above him to shine in his eyes, and from the corner of the room he heard an unusually and maddeningly upbeat tune emanate from the radio he’d never figured out how to turn off. He grimaced, making no attempt to get up just yet, partially because he had little desire to go through the monotony of the testing or, worse, the cognitive check, and partially because there was a certain numbness in his limbs that alerted him that they were still convinced he was asleep.

“GOOD MORNING, SUNSHINE,” an electronic voice crooned in a sickly-sweet tone dripping with sarcasm and sadistic excitement alike. He’d never actually met this voice face-to-face, but through his years as an (unwilling yet) obedient test subject, he’d garnered bits and pieces of information about her – firstly, that it was a “her”, except that “she” was actually a remarkably advanced piece of artificial intelligence that ran every inch of the Enrichment Center, as she called it, but took particular joy in sending unfortunate humans (and the occasional robot she managed to scrounge up, he’d learned) through seemingly-arbitrary tests. While he couldn’t tell for sure – after all, he’d never met or spoken to any other test subjects; they were secluded from each other – Layton theorized that his robotic overseer particularly enjoyed watching him, and probably any other test subjects, struggle through the testing and delighted in watching them fail or passive-aggressively tormenting them, seeming to find him an especially entertaining target.

Yet another reason for him not to get up. He shut his eyes, wondering if he could will himself back into cryogenic slumber.

Unfortunately for him, she was intent on getting him on his feet, and displayed this quite pointedly by lifting his bed from a horizontal to a vertical position, sending him careening off it with a brief yelp of surprise. “COME NOW, SLEEPYHEAD, WE HAVE NO TIME TO WASTE,” she directed, seeming undeterred when Layton threw a mildly irritated look in the general direction of the camera he knew full and well she used to keep tabs on him. “ON A SEMI-RELATED NOTE, HERE’S A FUN FACT: DID YOU KNOW ‘BEAUTY REST’ DOES NOT ACTUALLY DO ANYTHING TO IMPROVE YOUR APPEARANCE? AT LEAST, IT WOULD APPEAR THAT WAY BASED ON MY YEARS OF STUDYING YOU.”

He merely sighed under his breath in response. Such was the passive-aggressive nature of his overseer, throwing out arbitrary insults disguised under that gentle electronic tone, seemingly for little purpose besides her own entertainment (and perhaps in an attempt to throw him off during testing, though Layton highly suspected the former was the case). Silent as usual, having found that attempting communication with her did little good besides giving her the opportunity to mock him further, he habitually adjusted the orange jumpsuit all test subjects were required to wear as he awaited some form of explanation on why she’d awoken him on this particular occasion.

“ARE WE GOOD AND AWAKE NOW?” She inquired with false cheer, reminding her test subject of an especially bitter teacher chiding a student who’d just fallen asleep in class through the worst possible punishment: sarcasm. “I SHOULD HOPE SO, BECAUSE YOU ARE GOING TO WANT TO HAVE ALL YOUR LITTLE BRITISH WITS ABOUT YOU TODAY. I HAVE A SPECIAL SURPRISE FOR YOU.”

Now, unlike most people, he was not particularly fond of surprises, as more often than not his overseer’s “surprises” tended to be of the distinctly unpleasant variety. He also wasn’t especially fond of the robotic woman’s constant needling concerning the fact that he was British. Yes, he’d been born in London and he’d gone to school in London and had gotten a job in London and worked in London until transferring to teach at an American university (which somehow led to him getting involved with this goddamned facility) and, yes, he had a distinct British accent. He didn’t see why she seemed so amused by these simple facts, or why she was so intent on constantly throwing his ethnicity into his face for her own entertainment, but it had been part of the reason he’d become more or less selectively mute during his time in the Enrichment Center. Nonetheless, he now turned and stared somewhat attentively at the camera to signify to his overseer that he was ready for her to further explain this new “surprise” of hers.

“WOULD IT KILL YOU TO LOOK EVEN THE SLIGHTEST BIT EXCITED?” She sighed, seeming mildly irritated by the fact that her subject had more or less grown adjusted to such matters in their time together. “WAIT… YOU KNOW, THAT’S ACTUALLY A VERY INTERESTING CONSIDERATION. PERHAPS WE CAN RUN A FEW TESTS AND FIND OUT AT SOME POINT. BUT, GETTING BACK TO THE SURPRISE… YOU KNOW HOW YOU’RE CONSTANTLY IN A CRYOGENIC SLUMBER DURING THE TIME I’M NOT RUNNING YOU THROUGH MY LOVELY LITTLE TEST CHAMBERS AND IT’S IMPOSSIBLE FOR YOU TO TELL HOW MUCH TIME PASSES WHILE YOU’RE IN HERE DUE TO THE SIMULATED DAYLIGHT I USE TO MAINTAIN A CONSTANT TESTING ENVIRONMENT? WELL, TO MAKE A LONG STORY SHORT…” There was a long pause, seemingly for effect. “…YESTERDAY WAS YOUR BIRTHDAY!” A panel in the ceiling subsequently opened, releasing a small shower of multicolored confetti over him, and a birthday-horn sound effect that seemed like it’d been embedded in her system quite a long time ago sounded over the intercom.

Layton had little reaction aside from throwing the confetti a mildly puzzled glance. This was but another thing he’d grown used to in his time in the Enrichment Center; every year, his overseer delighted in informing him that his birthday had occurred a day or so after the fact, then proceeded to point out that he was one year closer to death and award him with an underwhelming belated birthday gift (usually something along the lines of her not dropping any turrets on his head or the like). Usually she didn’t bother with confetti, though.

“DON’T BE TOO IMPRESSED,” his supervisor noted dismissively, as if reading his thoughts. “THIS ISN’T REAL CONFETTI. I DIDN’T FEEL IT WAS PERTINENT TO USE THE GOOD STUFF ON YOU.”

His only reply was another silent sigh. Good to see she was warm as ever, he thought.

“ANYWAYS, I’LL BET YOU’RE BEGINNING TO WONDER ABOUT YOUR BELATED PRESENT FOR THIS YEAR,” she continued, a quiet excitement in her electronic voice. “AFTER ALL, WE BOTH KNOW I’M ALWAYS THOUGHTFUL ENOUGH TO GRACE YOU WITH A GIFT AFTER FORGETTING TO REMIND YOU ABOUT THE DAY OF YOUR BIRTH, AN EVENT I NEVER QUITE COMPREHEND WHY YOU HUMANS CELEBRATE, ESPECIALLY CONSIDERING THAT IN YOUR CASE IT SIGNIFIES THE DAY YOUR BIRTH PARENTS FIRST LAID EYES ON YOU AND SUBSEQUENTLY DECIDED TO LEAVE YOU ON A DOORSTEP.”

Another sigh. For whatever reason, his robotic overseer seemed convinced that he was an adopted child and subsequently rubbed the fact that his birth parents had abandoned him into his face at every opportunity. She was partially correct, he would admit – he knew full and well the family he was raised with was his by blood, considering his appearance was a rather obvious combination of both his parents’, but he was also quite aware that these birth parents hadn’t been particularly fond of him and probably considered leaving him on a doorstep at one point or another. A somewhat jaded part of him couldn’t help but note he’d probably have preferred it if they had.

“BUT YOUR UNFORTUNATE FAMILIAL SITUATION ISN’T THE POINT HERE,” she admitted, that inexplicable undertone of eagerness still evident in her voice. “THE POINT IS, THIS YEAR I THOUGHT LONG AND HARD ABOUT WHAT TO DO ABOUT YOUR GIFT, AND DECIDED TO DO SOMETHING EXTRA SPECIAL ON THIS PARTICULAR OCCASION.”

Layton threw the camera look of casual interest in response. “…OH, COME ON. THAT’S ALL I GET? AND AFTER ALL THE WORK I PUT INTO THIS GIFT, TOO. WHAT DOES AN AI HAVE TO DO TO GET YOU TO SHOW SOME ACTUAL EMOTION FOR A CHANGE?” She chastised, giving a quiet electronic sigh of mild irritation. “WELL, NO MATTER. I’M IN A REMARKABLY GOOD MOOD TODAY, SO I SUPPOSE I’LL CONTINUE IN SPITE OF YOUR EVIDENT LACK OF APPRECIATION. BASICALLY, THOUGH I’M FAIRLY CERTAIN YOU’VE BEEN HOPING I HAVEN’T NOTICED, IT HAS BECOME RATHER APPARENT TO ME THAT MY CURRENT METHODS OF TESTING HAVE BECOME LESS… INTELLECTUALLY STIMULATING FOR YOU AS OF LATE.”

He raised an eyebrow in response, fairly surprised that she had so much as bothered to take his rather evident boredom into account. It was true, the tests his supervisor initiated had become rather monotonous after all these years; at the end of the day, it was just a few more puzzles to solve before he got put back into cryogenic slumber. Not exactly enough to get all that excited about.

“NOW, AT FIRST,” his overseer continued, “I THOUGHT I’D JUST TOSS YOU IN A ROOM WITH A FEW TURRETS AND THAT WOULD KEEP YOU FROM THINKING ABOUT BEING BORED. BUT THEN I REMEMBERED THAT YOUR BIRTHDAY WAS COMING UP, AND I FIGURED, WHY NOT MAKE THIS YEAR’S BELATED BIRTHDAY GIFT A WAY TO MENTALLY REINVIGORATE YOU AS WELL? IN FACT, AFTER A BIT OF THINKING, I CAME UP WITH THE PERFECT PRESENT – ONE THAT I’LL ENJOY AS MUCH AS YOU.”

This worried Layton to no end. Usually, when his mechanical supervisor noted that she was going to enjoy something, it ended up being little short of a living hell for him. Still, he listened quietly and attentively, waiting patiently for her to finally iterate what it was she had plotted this time.

She let the silence linger for a moment, only interrupting it once very briefly with a little prideful chuckle. “I HOPE YOU’VE GOTTEN PLENTY OF REST BETWEEN OUR LAST ROUND OF TESTING AND NOW,” she noted, that quiet excitement building in her electronic voice. “BECAUSE TODAY WE’RE GOING TO BE STARTING A NEW TESTING INITIATIVE.”

His eyes widened just a fraction in surprise, the words foreign to him. New initiative? What was that supposed to mean? He had to admit, it sounded rather intriguing, if immensely suspicious and quite possibly deadly. At the very least, she had succeeded in getting his attention.

“I’LL JUST LET YOU HAVE A MOMENT TO TAKE THIS ALL IN,” his overseer crooned, interrupting his thoughts, “WHILE I GO AND FINISH SETTING THINGS UP. WE’RE GOING TO HAVE A LOT OF WORK TO DO TODAY – THE BOTH OF US.” There was a brief pause before she added, “BUT MOSTLY YOU,” followed by a swift series of electronic noises that Layton had gathered over the years signified his supervisor ending her communication with him for the moment.

New testing initiative, he repeated, trying to consider the words through the awful sound of that eternally unfitting cheerful music the radio never ceased to play. It sounded like nothing she’d said to him before, like no modification to the testing she’d made in the past. The closest thing he could recall to such a phrase were occasions where she’d delightedly informed him that she’d put some newer, better, deadlier testing object in the chambers – things along the lines of lasers that could cut clear through nearly anything, an unusual paint that made him bounce straight up to the ceiling, and (his personal favorite) a special storage cube that smiled up at him with little pink hearts on each face as his ever-malicious overseer forced him to toss it into an incinerator. That incident in particular had resulted in Layton continuing to nurse a vendetta against his supervisor; after all, the unconditionally, silently affectionate “companion cube”, as she’d named it, was the closest thing he’d had to a friend in God knows how many years. Nevertheless, the concept of a “new initiative” continued to sound utterly foreign, and like something of far greater scale than a mere few additions to the testing courses. He had to concede that he was thoroughly puzzled.

He leaned back against one of the glass walls of his cell, continuing to mull over what this “new initiative” might mean, along with offhandedly debating whether or not he should just give up on that goddamned radio and step on it already. Before he could reach a definitive decision on either matter, he was interrupted with his overseer’s voice reentering the room.

“WELL, I’M BACK,” she announced rather proudly, “AND LET ME TELL YOU, THIS NEW INITIATIVE IS LOOKING PRETTY GOOD. IF ALL TURNS OUT THE WAY I PLANNED IT, I HAVE TO SAY, IT COULD REVOLUTIONIZE THE WAY WE DO TESTING AROUND HERE… BUT I SUPPOSE WE’LL NEVER KNOW UNTIL WE START. LET’S GO; I ASSUME YOU KNOW THE DRILL BY NOW.”

Layton sighed under his breath and nodded, standing to his full height and striding over to what looked like it should have been a doorway, but just so happened to be missing any handles or hinges or ways to open it up and get out of the cell. No, the only way out of his cell was to wait for his supervisor to place a little something that had become a staple of the Enrichment Center and the testing alike – a scientific phenomenon known as a portal. Per its name, a portal opened up at two disconnected points and provided a way to move between them, entering through one portal and exiting out the other, maintaining the user’s momentum as they moved and readjusting their position to the new direction of gravity as they exited. It was a fascinating thing and it had been proven to have many uses, which were subsequently the main focus of most test chambers – finding new and innovative ways to use these portals to overcome obstacles, solve puzzles, and avoid danger. At this particular moment, however, their main purpose was to open up Layton’s cell via a portal placed on that thing that should have been a doorway, allowing him to exit through the endpoint that he suspected would be placed on the path just outside leading to the testing chambers. It always happened that way when a new round of testing began, and was yet another thing he’d simply grown used to in his time in the Enrichment Center.

“STAND BACK,” his supervisor announced, as she always did, “THE PORTAL WILL OPEN IN: THREE…”

Layton stopped in front of the should-be-doorway and waited.

“…TWO…”

An eerie orange glow, the signifier of a portal about to appear, began to form in the shape of a human-sized oval on the metallic surface. Strangely, though, Layton couldn’t appear to detect a similar one colored blue – the opposite endpoint – forming on any of the walls outside his cell as they usually did. Quite puzzling.

“…ONE.”

A bright light briefly obstructed his vision as the portal activated, glowing as it prepared to display the view from its endpoint.

His vision and the glow alike cleared, and from the other end of the portal, Layton’s eyes caught those of a human woman.

Chapter 1 Trivia

 * The New Initiative chapters were not originally titled, but were given titles when the story was chosen to be posted alongside The Process of Shattering, which already had titled chapters. New Initiative's chapters were titled to give them the appearance of being files titled by and recovered from a computer, or perhaps GLaDOS herself.
 * Like The Process of Shattering, the file for New Initiative was lost during the Great Flash Drive Crash of 2011. Unlike The Process of Shattering, however, all of the New Initiative chapters were able to be recovered.
 * The "unusually and maddeningly upbeat tune" playing on the radio in Layton's cell is an instrumental, up-tempo version of "Still Alive". The radio found in the player's cell in the original Portal does the same, and like Layton's, plays on an infinite loop, unable to be stopped.
 * Layton does not know GLaDOS' name, just as, in Portal, the player does not learn of her title until they see it written on her hardware at the end of the game. Layton has never left the testing tracks or seen GLaDOS in person, and she never refers to her title when speaking, so he would have no way of knowing her name. Instead, he refers to her as "the voice", "the overseer", "the supervisor", and simply "her".
 * Layton's note that GLaDOS apparently runs "the occasional robot" through testing is a reference to the co-op mode of Portal 2, where the playable characters are a pair of robots that GLaDOS sends through testing.
 * GLaDOS is undeniably the hardest character in the story to write for, due to the high standards set for her character in the source material. A careful balance has to be struck with her dialogue, making her a no-nonsense type while also sarcastic and passive-agressive, without making her seem too unlikeable or abrasive. She also has to remain darkly funny, and a complex, sympathetic character.
 * While Layton is capable of speech, he is selectively mute through much of the story (especially the first few chapters) in order to place him into the role of Chell from the original Portal and Portal 2. Chell is taciturn in order to keep her the "straight man" in a world of chaos and insanity, so Layton, embodying a similar role, does the same. Furthermore, he initially has no reason to speak, as he has no human contact and speaking with GLaDOS only earns him further mockery.
 * According to Portal 2, Aperture Science is based in Michigan, while the Professor Layton series takes place in London, England. The concept of Layton being transferred to teach at an American university came about to resolve this. Layton suffers memory loss concerning the specifics of how he became involved with Aperture and subsequently became a test subject; thus, the topic is never covered in-story.
 * GLaDOS' "yesterday was your birthday" reveal and the subsequent "fake" confetti were both taken directly from events in Portal 2 - the first from a similar speech where she tells Chell that her birthday was the previous day, the second from a discussion where, after presenting the player with an anticlimatic and tragic "surprise", she tells them of a forthcoming "real surprise, with tragic concequences. And real confetti this time! The good stuff."
 * GLaDOS belief that Layton is an orphan stems from a running gag in Portal and Portal 2, where GLaDOS consistantly needles Chell for apparently being abandoned at birth, though the credibility of GLaDOS' claims are questionable at best.
 * Layton's family backstory is non-canon. His canon familial life is covered in the fifth Professor Layton game (as of now, only released in Japan) and is apparently quite different. Stubbornly believing that her "head-canon" is better, the authoress continues to refuse to accept this as real.
 * The items Layton mentions during his consideration of what the "new testing initiative" might be are all actual mechanics in the Portal series. The "lasers" he mentions are the Discouragement Redirection Beams introduced early in Portal 2, the "unusual paint" is the Repulsion Gel introduced midway through the same game, and the "special storage cube" is, as stated, Portal's infamous Weighted Companion Cube.
 * Layton's grudge against GLaDOS over the Companion Cube stems from when the authoress was first becoming interested in Portal, at which time she was also still playing through the Professor Layton series. Considering Layton is a large fan of puzzles, she wondered how he would react to being introduced to Portal (a puzzle game), and thought it would be amusing if he became particularly attached to the Companion Cube and subsequently reacted poorly to its "death", becoming severely distraught and vowing revenge against GLaDOS.
 * The opening of the portal in the cell, and GLaDOS' dialog as it occurs, are both taken directly from the same event in both Portal games, where the exact same dialog occurs as the portal opens to release the player from the cell.