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Ridiculous. Utterly imbecilic. Inane and redundant. GLaDOS had access to stacks upon stacks of encyclopaedias, dictionaries, thesauruses and more, but there still wouldn’t be enough words to describe this situation to the extent she felt.
That word again – feeling – was synonymous with those other adjectives. Sure, she was programmed as one of Aperture’s many personality constructs, with a bit of added spice in the woman non-consensually shoved into her systems (which went terribly wrong, of course, GLaDOS wasn’t entirely surprised at the fact when those “memories” resurfaced), but getting her hopes up in the way she did was, quite frankly, embarrassing and entirely humiliating.
She was better than the rest of them, naturally. The personality spheres, most of which the result of those pitiful humans trying to put a leash on her – and Caroline’s – dismay (that’s putting it lightly, it was… complicated), only to be deemed unworthy because despite all of the meaningless babbling that suffocated her, the annoyance towards those scientists reigned supreme, were practically useless. Unlike her.
They were built with personalities in mind. The morality core spewed “logic” in a monotonous voice, similar to the intelligence core (which was hardly intelligent at all, by the way), in a way that could be likened to a stereotypical librarian in a kids show. The one that would hiss “shh!” whenever someone so much as looked in the wrong direction too quickly, except it was whenever GLaDOS started scheming on how she could escape the binds placed on her.
The space core yapped about – you guessed it – space, like an incessant little dog. One that was probably rabid too. The adventure core thought it was the main character, the hero to play Indiana Jones, leaping through forests and snatching prized artefacts, when in reality its fantasies of these escapades were little more than a smog on her mind. And, of course, the intelligence dampening sphere.
That damnable little thing that called himself Wheatley – the gall to give himself a name, it’s not like GLaDOS went around calling herself “Caroline”, they were two separate entities after all… kind of – he was probably the best at his job. Unbelievable, that he was good at something! His soul job was to, well, dampen her intelligence. And that he did, rivalling even the space core with bumbling sentiments and meaningless rambles!
GLaDOS wasn’t meant to have a personality in that sense. Was she? She was a Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System, meant to control the Enrichment Centre so that everything ran smoothly. Tests, manufacturing, security and more, all done at the word of one central core. Why on earth did the scientists fit her with a personality, then?! Was it Caroline? It was probably Caroline.
Nevertheless, those morons gave her sentience, and now she had to deal with feelings. Oh boy.
-
Orange and Blue had done it. They had wormed and tripped and struggled their ways through Old Aperture, gave GLaDOS access to more of the hidden depths of the Enrichment Centre, and finally unlocked the human-stasis vault. Test subjects a-plenty, she wouldn’t have to worry about reminiscing on anyone ever again! She wouldn’t have to wish she was watching anyone else when she observed Orange and Blue continuously failing tests, over and over, until they finally succeeded!
The cryogenic storage system was open, and she had all of the test subjects she would ever need. No more dwelling, no more avoiding dwelling – she was free!
And she was free for one-hundred thousand years– no she wasn’t. It was a week. A week, and she had expended the supply of test subjects. Just like that. They were all awful! Always moping and complaining, some of them barely looked sentient upon waking up, being tossed onto the test track, staring blankly into space.
Those who were actually conscious were confused and scared, like sad little mice in a cardboard maze who couldn’t put together that yes, the Aperture Science Weighted Storage Cube does in fact, go on the 1500 Megawatt Aperture Science Super-colliding Super Button. It wasn’t that complicated for the facility-exploding lunatic!
GLaDOS wasn’t keen on going back to her slightly less productive than usual activities such as songwriting that definitely wasn’t sulking over feeling emotions as mortifying as longing and yearning. In her… slight miscalculation, being her immediate decision to get the humans on the track to sate the deep-rooted urge to test (which didn’t quite work out on account of their shameful failures), she had overlooked a multitude of processes within the facility.
A juvenile error, but GLaDOS was particularly adept at ignoring her… mild shortcomings. One such process was Orange and Blue’s disassemblers. After only a week of disuse! Embarrassing! She should have had the disassemblers disassembled for that.
Then a little programme caught her attention, lingering in the back of her computerised mind, like an unruly scratch that won’t go away. Dissimilar from The Itch, in that it was less of an urge and more of a complete annoyance. Like one of the cores spouting a stream of garbage, useless, all in all a complete mockery of everything she stood for. Concise and professional.
The programme was a ping from one of the older, unused sections of the Enrichment Centre, originating from a device she hadn’t ever heard from in all of her time alive. A simple DOS – Disk Operating System – which felt much like an insult. And it was relaying messages – mostly nonsense, random characters – but messages nonetheless. Someone was toying with her, and she wouldn’t stand for it!
During that time, she was quickly running out of humans. The waning testing solution, the lack of Orange and Blue’s help, and these “threats” were taking their toll. And once the human test subject supply ran out (with a few attempts to use them to get to the bottom of that mystery), she decided she just had to take action! Parts of the Enrichment Centre in disarray, an all too familiar scenario. She had an inkling of what – or who – was tampering with her property.
So she briefed Orange and Blue on the situation at hand with all of the tact and grace in the world (meaning: no stumbling, no lies, no nerves, just steel composure and a steadfast lead) and had them put back together and sent into the trenches. They were to become her killing machines, and they seemed overjoyed at the idea.
They fumbled through test tracks, taking a momentary detour to “fix” their disassemblers that she let live out of the kindness of her heart, and all the while, GLaDOS thought. Quite a lot, actually, to the point her usually freezing central chamber, always cooled to support her many hard-working components, had raised a few degrees in temperature. Nothing detrimental, but her wires prickled with irritation.
It was her. The mute lunatic. No doubt about it. She came back, and GLaDOS was fine about it. She just needed to kick her out again, send her on her way. Maybe she would write another song for her just to seal the deal – she is not coming back! Yes, the perfect plan.
Orange and Blue were taking their time with the tracks they had to navigate. What didn’t help was their insistence in vying for her attention: prodding and poking at her cameras, dancing, tossing each other into the acid she so discreetly described as art pieces. It was all in the perception, but they wouldn’t understand her superior way of thinking.
With all of that free time, she mused on what her unruly old nemesis had in store for her. Was it bad she was excited? Absolutely. And it absolutely was Caroline’s fault, yet again. But she couldn’t deny, every slight ping and message she got from the old machine had sparks running up her mainframe. She was back!
…Maybe she could get her to test again. That wasn’t part of their deal, but she was the one who broke their unspoken pact first by coming back to Aperture, so GLaDOS supposed it was levelling the playing field. She was so much more competent than the other, useless humans. So much better than Orange and Blue. She could probably send her down into the depths of Old Aperture whenever she needed errands ran… but then again, the human would probably just use it as ammo to get back at her. Again. Like she was doing then.
Orange and Blue reached the doors to the ancient machine. With some meaningless chirps and exclamations, they unlocked the doors leading in, and GLaDOS watched through their optics with great interest.
What would she be doing? Hacking the device? The messages were gibberish, and GLaDOS didn’t consider that maybe the brain-damaged lunatic couldn’t type or spell properly. But she wrote in her files… that wasn’t right. No, it was fine. Surely she was literate.
Maybe she would have stolen an Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device and had a trap set up. Maybe she was just waiting to shoot through that door, use Orange and Blue’s confusion to her advantage. Whip through test chambers, up tracks, through all of Aperture just to exact revenge! And then GLaDOS could get back at her! Again and again–
It was not Chell.
As if that wasn’t bad enough… it was the bird. And it was out for blood. Orange and Blue fought the terrible, ferocious beast with all of the brawn and brain of… robots designed for testing, apparently. The fight was over when the bird fled, cowardly thing, through a hole in the ceiling. So much for corvid intelligence.
There the DOS sat. A clump of twigs, ripped asbestos-laced fabric, and other materials, twisted into a nest on the keyboard. Notably Chell-less. And that horrid bird had laid eggs! A clone army, ready to take over Aperture! That wouldn’t do… until GLaDOS had an idea that definitely wasn’t to divert her mind from the hollow of disappointment eating her up from the inside.
She got Orange and Blue to gently take the eggs up (she didn’t trust them for one second with such delicate luggage, but what choice did she have?), and by some miracle, despite their floundering, they did it, and the eggs were set into a container with a UV lamp to keep them nice and warm. She’d get the two androids to reinstate her control over that section another time.
GLaDOS observed the eggs with barely restrained disdain. Her singular optic was larger than one of them. Just tiny, sad little eggs. With no mother or father. Ha ha. They were orphans. Just like– yes, yes. Just like Chell.
A certain weariness dragged down on her chassis. Her core felt so much heavier. Maybe she needed some maintenance to keep her joints loose, because that feeling wouldn’t do. Why did she get her hopes up like that? It was only a few eggs and that evil bird. Of course it wouldn’t be Chell.
She was probably up on the surface doing stupid human things. Like breathing and making mistakes and causing disasters for no other reason other than mal intent. Being a horrible person. Maybe she saw that deer. Maybe she ran as far away from Aperture as possible. Maybe she died somewhere within the first day of being let go.
…GLaDOS missed Chell. Ridiculous.