Portal 2 Chapter 6 Enrichment Sphere 1

This is the thirty-eighth level of the game and takes place within Aperture Science Enrichment Sphere #1. This level introduces Repulsion Gel, and way in which it can be used to the player's advantage when combined with momentum. This level features Goo as its main hazard.

Hazards

 * Goo

Trivia

 * Enrichment Sphere 1 is made out of two enrichment spheres. The first one is dark, most of the props have no textures and puzzles aren't existent, and the second one is the one playable in-game. The player gets teleported from the first one to the second one during the activation of lights. A similar solution is used in Chapter 4, Test Chamber 21.

1953: Enrichment Sphere 01
The elevator leads to a dark Sphere 01. When it stops, the sphere is lit up, revealing a "you are here" sign showing a partial plan of the Enrichment Shaft complex, although it incorrectly shows Test Shaft 09 with 9 spheres instead of 7, possibly unconstructed. Test Subjects were welcomed by that Cave Johnson announcement:

Alright, let's get started. This first test involves something the lab boys call "Repulsion Gel." You're not part of the control group, by the way. You get the gel. Last poor son of a gun got blue paint. Hahaha. All joking aside, that did happen - broke every bone in his legs. Tragic. But informative. Or so I'm told.

Again, Cave is rather reckless and nonchalant about something grave happening, typical of the cynical writing style of the Portal story arc. Furthermore, The "paint" may be a reference to the concept behind the Mobility Gels, i.e. the paint from Tag: The Power of Paint. In Tag, the blue paint allows its user to walk on walls and ceilings covered by it (which originally also was to be featured in Portal 2).

Test Chamber 01


Outside this first Test Chamber can be found a building date, 1953, and a sign stating that "This test is unsolvable without an Aperture Science Portable Quantum Tunneling Device. If you have not received one, please find a test associate before participating in any Shaft 09 Enrichment Activities", with in the center the picture of a Test Subject bearing a huge Handheld Portal Device prototype.

Inside the Test Chamber are introduced early iterations of familiar Aperture technologies, paired with the use of the Repulsion Gel: an early Weighted Storage Cube used with an early 1500 Megawatt Heavy Duty Super-Colliding Super Button and an early Switch, used to release the Cube through an early Vital Apparatus Vent. A short story about the Repulsion Gel is also found on a sign at the entrance of the Test Chamber, near the early iteration of the squared testing element sign, named "Aperture Science Fact Placard 00D45-01R - Repulsion Gel": "Did you know Repulsion Gel was Aperture's first attempt to create a dietetic pudding substitute?", followed by Repulsion Gel in a spoon, then "It's true. The gel is a sweeter, slightly less non-toxic form of fiberglass insulation that causes subsequently-ingested food items to bounce off the lining of a dieter's distended stomach and out his or her mouth! (For various reasons, this product was pulled from shelves.)", the under it, in small letters: "For more information, consult the following Fact Placards: Aperture Science Fact Placard #0012344-22R - 'Repulsion Gel, Lawsuits Concerning' / Aperture Science Fact Placard #0012321-23R - 'Repulsion Gel, Public Outrage Over'" After the test has been performed, the following message is played:

The lab boys just informed me that I should not have mentioned the control group. They're telling me I oughtta stop making these prerecorded messages. That gave me an idea: make more prerecorded messages. I pay the bills here, I can talk about the control group all damn day.

Johnson does not like having people telling him what to do, also referenced for instance in the memos revealed during the Portal ARG, in which Cave complains about the "bean counters".

Test Chamber 02


The next Test Chamber was originally to be reached through several catwalks, but since they have collapsed, Chell must use her Portal Gun instead to reach the other side. Its construction appears to have started in 1953 and ended in 1956. Before entering, the following message is played:

For this next test, we put nanoparticles in the gel. In layman's terms, that's a billion little gizmos that are gonna travel into your bloodstream and pump experimental genes and RNA molecules and so forth into your tumors. Now, maybe you don't have any tumors. Well, don't worry. If you sat on a folding chair in the lobby and weren't wearing lead underpants, we took care of that too.

In this Test Chamber, the Repulsion Gel is said to have been injected with an additive said to cure tumors. It is unknown what "lobby" Cave is referring to, but the Lobby found at the bottom of the Shaft has no folding chairs. The "lead underpants" would also suggest this lobby (or at least its folding chairs) is irradiated.

A more elaborate test is proposed, with an early Unstationary Scaffold used to take hold of a Cube, as well as two walls covered in Repulsion Gel, having Test Subjects to bounce from one to the other to reach another Cube. These two Cubes are to be used on a Super Button, triggering portalable panels, allowing Test Subjects to exit. Outside, the following message is played:

Oh, in case you got covered in that Repulsion Gel, here's some advice the lab boys gave me: DO NOT get covered in the Repulsion Gel. We haven't entirely nailed down what element it is yet, but I'll tell you this: it's a lively one, and it does NOT like the human skeleton.

It is easy to have Chell covered with the Repulsion Gel, although it has no effect on her health an any point of the game; it is possible these effects have waned over the decades. Then an elevator leads to Sphere 02.