Jack Frost lay asleep in a tree near his lake in Burgess, his staff cradled in his arms like a stuffed animal. Curled up on the branch he was laying on, the white haired, blue hoodie clad teen spirit was completely unaware of the shadow that crept up the tree behind him in the pre-dawn twilight. The shadow soon gained shape, forming into a tall, lanky man who wore black robes and had black hair, grey skin, and golden eyes. Pitch Black, for that was the man's name, silently slipped Jack's staff out of his arms and suddenly shoved him off the branch as an orange rimmed hole opened up in the ground below the limb. With his work done, Pitch slipped away just as suddenly and silently as he'd arrived, taking Jack's staff with him and leaving no sign that he'd ever been there.
Jack fell into the hole and, before he'd even had the chance to fully awaken, found himself falling down into a room from another hole in its ceiling, the two holes connecting and forming a sort of tunnel. The boy lay senseless on the floor for a moment before glancing up, still dazed, to see the hole disappear without a trace. As he sat up slowly, rubbing his head and jaw gingerly, a knock on the room's nearby door caught his attention just before it opened and a mechanical sphere came sliding in along a rail that was mounted to the ceiling. The sphere was white-ish grey in color with a large blue glowing lens in the front and a handle-like rail above and below the lens which gave it the appearance of having an eye with eyebrows and eyelids. As the mechanical sphere caught sight of Jack staring half-stunnedly up at him from the floor, he froze on his rail and started shouting, speaking in a strong British accent. "Oy! Who in the bloody 'eck are you?! 'Ow'd you get in 'ere?! I can't bloody well believe this!! I just got back from bloody space and already there's whacky stuff goin' on and people fallin' from the bloody ceiling!! Oh... Oh dear... The... Is.. Is the... Is the ceiling malfunctioning again? Oh... Man alive, I hope it's not... I don't wanna have to talk to Her again!"
Jack blinked bemusedly up at him for a moment, trying to gather his wits. "Who's 'Her' exactly? And who're you for that matter? I'm Jack Frost. Nice to meet ya."
The sphere narrowed the shutters covering his lens and pinched his rails together in a friendly "grin". "I'm Wheatley. Nice to know you can talk, Mate. The last test subject I looked after couldn't. I asked her say 'apple' and she jumped! Can you believe that? Bloody mad!" Jack couldn't stop himself from laughing at that, but he calmed himself as Wheatley continued. "Anyways, 'Her' is the gal that runs this whole place. She's really bloody terrifying... So... 'Ow'd you get in 'ere any'ow?"
Jack grinned and shrugged. "To be honest, I have absolutely no clue. One moment I'm fast asleep in a tree and the next thing I know, I'm falling out of the tree, into this hole in the ground,out of a hole in the ceiling here, and landing on the floor. The really weird thing is, the holes looked colored around the edges... It may have just seemed that way because I was still half-asleep and really out of it, but the edges of the first one looked orange and, just before the one in the ceiling disappeared, just before you came in, I could swear the edges were blue..." Jack trailed off, contemplating the strange events that had unfolded so far. Wheatley looked unsettled and when Jack noticed, he looked up at him curiously. "What's up?"
Wheatley chuckled nervously. "The sky?" He laughed along with the teen for a moment before he sighed. "Seriously, though, those colored holes you mentioned sound an awful lot like portals to me..."
Jack cocked his head in curiosity, a quick,bird-like movement which was a trait that he'd picked up from spending a lot of time with Toothiana and Baby Tooth along with the other little faeries that helped collect teeth. "Portals? What do you mean?"
Wheatley made a shrug-like motion with his handles. "I don't understand 'em much myownself, honestly. About all I can tell you in that they're hole-like things that you can put on things using a special gun,and they connect together to make a sort of tunnel-like thing that can take you from one portal to the other. It's bloody brilliant really!"
Jack couldn't keep himself from looking impressed. "That does sound useful. Say... Where exactly am I, anyways? This doesn't look like any place I've ever seen before..."
At the question, Wheatley looked nervous again and glanced about warily before sliding closer on his rail and whispering very quietly to Jack. "This, Mate, is the Aperture Science Enrichment Center, and please believe me when I say that you do not want to stick around 'ere. We need to get you out of 'ere."
Jack grew nervous and uneasy at Wheatley's response, a wave of fear creeping over and threatening to engulf him. He tried his best not to show it and his confusion made the feat slightly easier. He was rather proud of his ability to keep his voice from shaking as he spoke, trying to make himself sound casual and unconcerned. "Why? What's so bad about this place? It seems alright to me."
Wheatley's optic grew wide as he spun in shock. "What's so bad?! Jack-o, 'aven't ye 'eard the rumors and stories about this place, Mate?!"
Taken aback by his new friend's intense reaction and feeling like he was missing something very important, the young winter sprite shrugged uncomfortably. "I've never heard of anything by the name of Aperture before..."
Wheatley blinked his optic shutters. "Never heard of Aperture? I could'a sworn we were rather infamous..." He sighed. "Mate... This place used to run tests all the time and had several people participating in them... Only, well... a lot of the tests were... um... well a bit dangerous, if I'm honest, and uh... most of the test subjects...well... they died..."