Yuuri slowly comes to as he’s reactivated, blinking his eyes slowly, wondering why his vision was so blurry, why his system is slow to start. A notice flashes on the console. ‘Reboot in process’. Yuuri’s systems all come online as he sits up. 

The last time he had been active was when he was plugged into GLaDOS’ systems, used properly as the Insecurity Core to help him relax. While wildly successful, the Morality Core replaced him after time, and once fully brought out of GLaDOS’ systems, he was sealed and locked away.

Yuuri takes his time to look around the empty room, wondering where all of the scientists and techs are. There should be several looking after him. He glances around more, pulling on his glasses, and finally notices the state of the room. It’s abandoned, dust and dirt settled everywhere. 

He looks up as the sound of gears comes into frame. A platform for the rail is coming for him. Quietly, Yuuri stands up in his box, reaching up and taking the wires that drop into his hand, and plugs himself into the railway systems. Effortlessly, he’s lifted up to the platform, and heaved himself onto it. Once secure, he takes one more look around the abandoned room, and takes off on the railing.

Finally he has access to the status of the facility, how much time has passed, how much testing had been done. What he finds absolutely shocks, almost unable to believe what he’s reading.

The data is so out of date, he can’t pinpoint when data collection stopped. All he can tell is that data collection abruptly stopped, left unfinished and inconclusive, and it was never touched again. As if the data collector had dropped off the face of the planet. GLaDOS was offline and wasn’t responding, and hasn’t responded, to any calls to reboot or activate.

All four cores originally plugged into GLaDOS, Morality, Curiosity, Anger, and Intelligence, were destroyed, much like the facility. All remaining cores were scattered, missing, or inactive.

He has the platform stall and pause on the railing, closing the data as he struggled to comprehend what has happened. The facility lay in ruins, abandoned and in pieces. There were no humans awake in the facility. It was left to rot. He looks down beneath him to find the chasm that should be there filled with water, panels and mechanical parts alike scattered across what was once clean uniform backstage area between the tests.

Quietly, he continues along the rail, looking over what remained of the facility, absently trying to fix what he could, though his abilities were mostly lacking. Much of the facility couldn’t be salvaged by one core.

He spends an undetermined amount of time simply moving through the facility, trying to collect data to understand what happened, learning of what remained of GLaDOS, the source of what brought in the outside world into the clean testing labs. He wanders for a long time, just trying to put things together and figure out what he could do.

At one point, as he investigates an odd signal from the Extended Relaxation Center, he stumbles upon two separate cryo-pods, specially mad pods for the scientists to use in case of system failure or the collapse of GLaDOS. They were made to allow for extremely long periods of extended rest, the cream of the crop in terms of cryogenic storage. The pods are wide open, showing lingering signs of use. Yuuri does not investigate it.

Yuuri continues on to the Relaxation Center where he discovers that there is a human still inside it, deep inside one of the pods. He balks in fear when he sees just how long the human has been in the relaxation center without being woken up, but he knows that this is his only chance. Life support is still on, so the human is still alive.

Yuuri rushes off to find the human’s pod, looking through some of the other pods and finding.... undesirable results within a few. He quickly remembers to activate it so the human can be woken up properly, though he’s afraid of what awaits in the chamber.

Victor, for the first time since GLaDOS gassed the enrichment center, steps out from the backgrounds and into GLaDOS’ chamber to see first hand what was left. GLaDOS’ body is mangled and smoking, left in pieces. Knowing who it was just from a look at the body, he can’t help but feel crushed knowing that Yurio had to go through this, even though he knew from the start when Yuuri let him know about Project GLaDOS.

He leads Makkachin and himself away from GLaDOS, and wanders through the offices and backstage areas, blinking away the mirages of the past when it was bustling and busy and bright. His hallucination of Yuuri walks along with him, lamenting that he wished things with GLaDOS could have been done differently to avoid this outcome.

It’s then that Victor realizes, upon breaking out to the surface, that Otabek is being dragged back in. He rushes back inside with Makkachin and his hallucination, chasing after wherever Otabek has been dragged. Yuuri tells him that more then likely, Otabek’s been put in long term relaxation: their specialized animated suspension/cryo chambers.

Yuuri proves correct, and Victor finds Otabek tucked into one of the long term relaxation rooms. However, life support was compromised with the explosion that killed GLaDOS, and the cryo chambers are all offline. If he doesn’t hurry, Otabek will die.

However, Yuuri warns him that the path to the controls for cryo and life support, he has to evade a room of active turrets. Makkachin finds a way around without risking it, but Victor can’t do the same. Victor risks it and runs, ending up being shot in the leg just before getting clear.

He wakes up sometime later to Makkachin curled up alongside him, and his hallucination of Yuuri trying to shake him awake. Yuuri explains that there’s still time to save Otabek, but not free him.

While Victor wishes he could free him, he drags himself to the console, hitting a few things on accident and reconnects cyro to the reserve grid, and reactivates the life support, saving Otabek in the nick of time but leaving him in animated suspension until someone comes to open the room up.

Exhausted, and hurt, Victor asks Yuuri if its his turn now to disappear and sleep. Yuuri points him to two local cryo pods, and apologizes for disappearing on Victor. Victor tells him as he limps to the pods, Makkachin at his side, that he wishes he had the chance to see Yuuri one more time, and tell him something important.

Yuuri tells him that he has something very important to tell Victor as well, but sadly, it this form, he cannot. He tells Victor as he fades away that they won’t be apart for much longer. Victor helps Makkachin into a pod, promising that they wouldn’t be in there long, and seals his precious pet inside.

Before laying inside the pod, Victor laments to himself that he misses Yuuri, he misses the days he had with him, all the happy old days. He promises never to stop loving him, never to stop looking for him, and seals himself inside the pod, into animated suspension, and finally rests...

Many years later, as the facility rots, and begins to fall apart and fill with toxic water, wasting away underground, a light flickers on the console, and gears and parts are moving again. Arms pull out a single box somewhere within the facility, and begin activating it to open.

‘Core 024 extraction and reactivation in progress’ the message on the screen flashes, ‘Insecurity Core released for preservation of testing materials’.

Sometime just before the events of Portal 1, Project GLaDOS is put into effect. Yurio is selected by the CEO to be the only test subject, the one to become GLaDOS. Yurio doesn’t vocally consent, since he’s out cold when the procedure happens. Yuuri oversees the transfer of Yurio’s consciousness and mind into the new AI system.

Shortly after, Yuuri is forcibly and randomly selected to be made into a Personality Core against his will and is dragged out of his office to be tested on. The process is horrendous, painful, and ends up damaging Yuuri in the process, leaving him partially corrupted once it’s been done.