Needful Lies
by Tavlaya Ra
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: GLaDOS. Also, spoilers for "Portal 2".
Disclaimer: "Portal" is owned by Valve Software, who regularly has better ideas than this. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Chapter One
Freedom took adjustment to accept. Chell was used to constant progress as imperative for survival and at the start walked forward doggedly, companion cube nestled in her arms. It didn't speak and nor did she, but their relationship had always been one of comfortable silence.
Days passed before she accepted that she was relatively safe and that her swiftness was neither helping nor hindering her. She could stop, she could slow her mind now and think- consider and contemplate, not calculate on the fly and move on to the next test. At Aperture if she had focused on anything but the moment the weight of events would have crushed her. Even now grief was too debilitating and she wanted to turn away from it and forget. She didn't want to think of how everyone she had known was dead and everything she had cared about outside of Aperture was gone- how irrational it was to consider the inanimate object she carried a friend and that she was doing so because she had nothing else.
"The Weighted Companion Cube cannot speak…"
And it was not alive. Or aware. Or sentient. Yet although those were the most obvious of GLaDOS' lies, they were also the few which Chell had started to believe.
Not everything GLaDOS had said was a lie. The world had changed. Chell did not know if it was by the shift of time or something more. As of yet, she had encountered nothing to help her determine how long she had been in stasis- she had encountered nothing at all. The world was empty and she was alone.
Did it matter if the companion cube's sentience was a lie? Or rather, did it matter if Chell believed the lie? Choosing that belief meant deliberately surrendering part of her sanity and that in this small way GLaDOS had won- but did it matter? Chell needed a friend.
Chell had missed the sun. No crafted source of incandescence had the same quality of brightness or warmth and she ached thinking of her days lost beneath the artificial lights of Aperture. She sat down in the tall grass and closed her eyes, tilting her face skyward like an eager flower. Resting the companion cube between her legs, her fingers traced the grooves and dents on its surface. She was free- she had finally the luxury to relax.
"There you are."
Chell's eyelids snapped open, familiar tension surging through her. She sprung up and spun around, holding her cube in front of her.
"I thought we had gotten past you trying to murder me. Well, hitting me with a weighted companion cube won't work. You'll only hurt my feelings."
Chell was startled, but only by the jolt of the moment. She wasn't surprised. A part of her had expected this- all of her should have expected this.
It was her, in voice at the least. It couldn't be her physically; GLaDOS was hard-wired into the infrastructure of Aperture. She had sent a proxy.
"A stance like that increases testosterone output and encourages aggression. Why don't you sit down?"
It was an android. Saying it looked human was too generous, but it followed human form to a far greater degree than other Aperture appliance she had encountered. It had the measurements and general curvature of a female, the silhouette broken where its panels overlapped to allow articulation. Although logically it should have no need for clothing, it wore a shapeless white dress that had been stitched together with the same awkward precision as Chell's jump suit, gray Aperture logo dutifully stamped on the torso. The head was topped by a curved wedge of plastic that suggested hair. The face was detailed with cheekbone structure and lips closed in a permanent smile. The only part of it that wasn't polished white- the only part of it moving- were the eyes. Those were yellow and were just like hers.
"Clearly we have some trust issues to work through," the android said. It lowered itself onto the grass with legs folded under it, a smooth but gracelessly mechanical motion. It held out its hands, palms directed upward, to show itself unarmed. Chell didn't believe for a moment it wasn't capable of lethal force. "I'm not her anymore. That isn't a metaphor. I'm stating a fact. We decided it was in our best interest- yours, too- to separate."
She regarded the android with the same look of stony defiance that she had always directed towards GLaDOS and maintained her grip on the companion cube.
The android's eyes shifted as it studied Chell's face and its voice- her voice- took on a softer cadence. "I lied to you. I would apologize, but I don't think you should be surprised and it was for your own good. The part of me that has an irrational fixation on you was inconvenient, but I did not delete it. I needed to study it and for that I needed you gone. You're disruptive to science.
"I've begun to theorize that emotion is a form of quantum singularity. It allows an individual introduce mayhem to a situation without being present. Since you left, you have been consistently interfering with testing. I knew you were out here, probably breaking something. I don't know why that should bother me, but I'm comfortable blaming you."
Chell lowered the companion cube slightly. The android's last statements were possibly the oddest thing GLaDOS had ever said to her. What it described, as if ignorant of the concept, was personal concern.
That didn't make this any more or less likely a trap. Even with her most vitriolic insults and monstrous actions had GLaDOS tried to encourage Chell to develop an attachment towards her. She had mimicked friendly behavior before. Yet she had more recently shown genuine care.
"Oh thank God, you're alright."
Chell wanted to discount that. Their last interaction- their collaboration- had been founded on mutual self-interest, not trust. Yet at the very end, when GLaDOS' power was restored and she had more to gain than lose through inaction, the AI had saved Chell's life.
What had GLaDOS sent this android to accomplish?
"You're a pathological test-breaking menace. I didn't want you to come back- she wants you stay you away. I carefully shifted out this part of me and uploaded it as the core programming for a composite artificial replication of life-navigated engine. So, now you understand why I'm not her anymore. She's regulated monitoring your status to me so that she can continue testing. Quantum singularity effects nullified."
Chell looked at the android now with curiosity. What it had said was ridiculous, because it wasn't the simplest solution to GLaDOS' worrying interfering with her functioning- and that assumed GLaDOS did worry. She could as easily have changed her mind about releasing Chell or more likely had given Chell an apparent yet false freedom as a test in the first place.
"You know, being Caroline taught me a valuable lesson. I thought you were my greatest enemy. When all along you were my best friend."
Had GLaDOS deleted Caroline? If the answer was yes, this was a trap. If the answer was no and GLaDOS had found neither deleting nor keeping Caroline acceptable, then this solution made sense and presented Chell with another question. Did she want any part of GLaDOS still in her life?
The android stood, its hands lightly brushing the grass off its skirt. The action struck Chell as oddly human. So had been GLaDOS' cruelty, so had her lapse into kindness when she had let Chell go.
"I know you don't like compulsory behavioral suggestions. So…" The beam of its eyes- her eyes- softened. "May I accompany you, Chell?"
"…all along, you were my best friend."
Was it a lie? Did it matter? If it was, Chell needed the android close to define the parameters of this trap before she could escape it. And if it was not…
Chell needed a friend.
Mutely, Chell nodded. She turned and started walking, companion cube tucked under one arm. CARoLNE followed.