Portal 2 Chapter 6 Beyond the Seal

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.

Hazards

 * Goo

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.

Testing Lounge
The Testing Lounge is accessed through a folded red curtain. Its floor is fully covered with maroon carpet, and it is filled with large conformable beige armchairs, as well as several ashtrays. It also has six spherical lamps on the ceiling. Of note is the large portrait of a young and brisk Cave Johnson placed between two cases. One of the cases has been broken and emptied; the other is filled with many items giving information about Aperture's background and evolution: four trophies, including the Spirit of Idaho 1955 award for the promotion of Potato Science, by the National Potato Board; the Shower Curtain Salesman of 1943 award for Aperture Fixtures; and two "Contractor of the Year - Runner Up" awards from the US Department of Defense, dated 1952 and 1954 (an unseen 1953 award can also be found in the game files). The case also includes the main page of the newspaper The Up Pioneer Press, dated from a Thursday of January 1944, showing that Johnson purchased salt mines in Upper Michigan, where and above which the Aperture Science Enrichment Center will eventually be built, retconning the facility's location from Cleveland to Michigan.[4] Under a picture of the mine, Johnson is quoted "The Future is Here, and it's Under the Earth's Crust". Finally, four framed awards can be seen: the Best New Science Company award 1947 given to Aperture Science by the Science and Business Institute of America; another Spirit of Idaho award by the National Potato Board Award for the promotion of Potato Science, undated; the Shower Curtain Salesman of 1943 award given to Cave Johnson for Aperture Fixtures; and finally an award for rank #2 for Aperture Science in the Top 100 Applied Science Companies 1949.

After leaving the Testing Lounge to the shaft proper, Test Subjects would go to an elevator operated by an attendant. Upstairs, a catwalk, now collapsed, would lead either to the small elevator going inside Enrichment Sphere 01, Pump Station Alpha, or three condemned Test Chambers, two vitrified (one of which filled with cement), the other apparently not condemned, but inaccessible regardless. Near each door leading to these chambers is an interphone, which when powered will give the following prerecorded messages by Johnson about what tests they involve:

- If you've cut yourself at all in the course of these tests, you might have noticed that your blood is pure gasoline. That's normal. We've been shooting you with an invisible laser that's supposed to turn blood into gasoline, so all that means is, it's working. - If you need to go to the bathroom after this next series of tests, please let a test associate know, because in all likelihood, whatever comes out of you is going to be coal. Only temporary, so do not worry. If it persists for a week, though, start worrying and come see us, because that's not supposed to happen. - Just a heads up: We're gonna have a superconductor turned up full blast and pointed at you for the duration of this next test. I'll be honest, we're throwing science at the wall here to see what sticks. No idea what it'll do. Probably nothing. Best-case scenario, you might get some superpowers. Worst case, some tumors, which we'll cut out.

These tests suggest strong recklessness from Aperture, suggesting the team doesn't really know what they are doing and instead is randomly testing.

Pump Station Alpha
The first of the three Mobility Gel Pump Stations found in Test Shaft 09, probably also built in 1952, is used to pump Repulsion Gel. It is activated from a switch on a console in a booth located at the lowest level, with a screen showing the six spheres used in Test Shaft 09. The booth contains three motivational posters: "Know your... Allergens" ("pollen", "animal dander", "plastics", "anti-matter"), "Know your... Hazardous Materials" ("Don't touch anything unfamiliar"), and "Know your... Chemical Hazards" ("Do not inhale fumes - no matter how good they smell"). Above on a catwalk leading back to the shaft can be found a safety poster saying "Together we can make 1956 the lowest unexpected casualty annum ever!".

After powering back Pump Station Alpha, Chell portals herself near the small elevator leading to Enrichment Sphere 01 to begin her introduction to Aperture's Mobility Gels. At the entrance of the elevator is introduced an early iteration of the Material Emancipation Grill, the first of several early iterations of familiar Aperture technology that can be found in the shaft.

Before entering the elevator, Test Subjects would hear the following overenthusiastic message:

They say great science is built on the shoulders of giants. Not here. At Aperture, we do all our science from scratch. No hand holding.

This references the metaphor "Standing on the shoulders of giants", meaning "One who develops future intellectual pursuits by understanding the research and works created by notable thinkers of the past".