Portal 2 Chapter 6 Beyond the Seal
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Title: Cave Johnson
This is the thirty-seventh level of the game, and takes place within the dilapidated Aperture Science Enrichment Center, as well as Pump Station Alpha. This level features Goo as its main hazard, and also reveals some of the history behind Aperture Science. This level also introduces two new characters through the use of pre-recorded voice messages; Cave Johnson and Caroline.
Hazards
Walkthrough
- Go through the door and turn left. Go to the end of the catwalk and go left again.
- Shoot a portal through the opening of the door and the other one to the wall before you and go through it.
- Turn left and pull the Circuit Breaker on the wall. Enter through the door.
- Go to the area with lights ahead.
- Fire a portal on the wall before you and the other to the top-right corner. Go through the portal.
- Walk a bit forward on the left. Put a portal on the angled wall below and the other one on the floor. Jump through the portal on the floor.
- Go through the elevator doors on the left and go through the lobby.
- Jump from the broken catwalk to the other other side.
- Enter the elevator and push the button.
- Wait for the elevator to stop. Then go to the left, fire a portal to the angled wall on the left-corner with three doors.
- Go down the stairs to a lower floor. Shoot a portal down to the bottom and jump.
- Go through the door and turn left.
- Pull the lever to open the door on the right. Proceed to the catwalk and fire a portal to the left, above the catwalk higher up.
- Put the other portal at the end of the catwalk and go through it. Then turn left and go through the door.
- Turn right and go carefully along the pipe. Go into the elevator on the left.
Video walkthrough
Gallery
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Related achievements
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Door Prize Examine all the vitrified test chamber doors |
Music
Music of the Spheres by Aperture Science Psychoacoustics Laboratory [3:38] | 
Download | 
Play
1950: Repulsion Gel
The Mobility Gel tested in this level era is the Repulsion Gel.
1952: Entrance Way, Lobby and Testing Lounge
The proper way to reach that part (i.e. the Test Subject way) is by arriving from the Main Lift from the surface. It will lead to the reception area (Sublevel 193), which is made of the Entrance Way, the Lobby and the Testing Lounge.
Chell however arrives directly into the shaft itself from the Abandonment Hatch (which is restricted to employees), where she can see the first two Enrichment Spheres, a sign warning not to fall into a lake of toxic waste filled with six small spheres and a destroyed "Aperture Science Innovators" metal logo that fell from above, and the building date, 1952, on a wall. While Chell proceeds, cables and debris detach from Sphere 01 amid a shower of sparks and accompanied by shaking. A catwalk then leads to another level, where three doors leading to contaminated and vitrified areas are found. The first one, breached by the collapsed ceiling, is an employee door leading to the Test Subject reception area, with breaker 135B that provides power to the latter (it bears the alphanumeric "B-09/S", used many times in the level). The second door leads to Test Chambers 1 to 200. It has a notice stating the experiment was discontinued, with the image of an Enrichment Sphere filled with cement, suggesting other spheres (maybe smaller like the ones in the water) could be located there, and that Aperture must have been running an incredible amount of other unknown experiments. The third door shows the existence of 8 other Test Shafts, as it leads to an underground train network linking them together. Near the door is also a notice with an Enrichment Sphere filled with cement, placed there for unknown reasons.
Entrance Way
Back to the reception area, the Main Lift shaft is empty and condemned, and the elevator, located several hundreds of meters above, is out of order until a undetermined date. Back then in the 1950s, Test Subjects leaving the Main Lift would reach the Entrance Way and meet a sign with on it "Aperture Science Innovators" and "Welcome to the future of tomorrow!" above, with a mountain skyline as a background, as well as a faded blue metal Aperture Science Innovators logo, the same as the one that fell into the shaft's bottom. A catwalk through the Entrance Way, carved into the rock, would lead to the Lobby and Testing Lounge. Aperture CEO Cave Johnson would greet Test Subjects with great enthusiasm, joined with his assistant Caroline, in the following prerecorded announcement, accompanied with an early rendition of the music heard in the Aperture Investment Opportunity videos and the television in Chell's chamber in the Extended Relaxation Center:
- Cave: Welcome, gentlemen, to Aperture Science. Astronauts, war heroes, Olympians - you're here because we want the best, and you are it. So: Who is ready to make some science? - Caroline: I am! - Cave: Ha ha! Now, you already met one another on the limo ride over, so let me introduce myself: I'm Cave Johnson. I own the place. That eager voice you heard is the lovely Caroline, my assistant. Rest assured, she has transferred your honorarium to the charitable organization of your choice. Isn't that right, Caroline? - Caroline: Yes sir, Mr. Johnson! - Cave: She's the backbone of this facility. Pretty as a postcard, too. Sorry, fellas. She's married. To science.
Cave sounds very enthusiastic and eager, and has Caroline at his side. Back then, Aperture was using high profile and trained Test Subjects such as astronauts, war heroes, and Olympians, driven to the facility in a limousine, and whose honorariums was transferred to the charitable organization of their choice.
When Chell visits the place, the catwalk leading to the Lobby has been destroyed, and she must portal herself through the gap by using momentum and going through the Aperture Science Innovators sign, after the nuclear logo in its center detaches itself and falls to the ground.
Lobby
Upon reaching the lobby, Test Subjects would be greeted by this message:
There's a thousand tests performed every day here in our Enrichment Spheres. I can't personally oversee every one of them, so these prerecorded messages'll cover any questions you might have, and respond to any incidents that may occur in the course of your science adventure. Your test assignment will vary, depending on the manner in which you have bent the world to your will. Those of you helping us test the Repulsion Gel today, just follow the blue line on the floor. Those of you who volunteered to be injected with praying mantis DNA, I've got some good news and some bad news. Bad news is we're postponing those tests indefinitely. Good news is we've got a much better test for you: fighting an army of Mantis Men. Pick up a rifle and follow the yellow line. You'll know when the test starts.
The message suggests a very brisk and busy era for Aperture, with a thousand tests performed every day in the Enrichment Spheres. Test Subjects would test the newly created Repulsion Gel, but also be injected mantis DNA, turning them into Mantis Men (postponed for some reason), which would also be fought by other Test Subjects as part of another test. The message asks Test Subjects sent to fighting Mantis Men to pick up a rifle and follow a yellow line, but it cannot be found anywhere, the only path being to Enrichment Sphere 01 or three unrelated Test Chambers.
The Lobby is a room with black marble and a maroon carpet on the floor, and wooden panes on the walls. Four lamps with spherical lampshades hang from the ceiling. A sign asks Test Subjects to go to the small desk nearby and sign in with the receptionist before proceeding to the Lounge. Next to the Lobby is an elongated operator room filled with several desks equipped with typewriters and phones, probably used for registering candidates.