Disclaimer: I do not own any characters written in this story or portal. That is all.

It was the best day of her life. Or so she thought. Gladys' application to work at Aperture was finally accepted, and her first day started in two minutes. Although it was very exciting to her, she still had an awful churning feeling in her stomach, obviously signifying nervousness. Was she going to be accepted? After all Gladys was a woman, and was positive she was going to be shot down as a lower rank, just because of her gender.

Gladys had short white hair. She'd been born with white hair, but no one usually believed her. At first, she kept her hair because she thought it was unique, but now she keeps it as a sense of pride, as if to signify 'I am who I am, and no one is able to change that'.

If there was anything in the world that she cared about, it was science, and that was enough for Gladys to be eager enough to walk right into Aperture with her head held high. After all, she was smart enough to get this job, so the others had to treat her equally, right?

As Gladys walked into the entrance, she received sideways glances and quick, unsure looks from the others. She was quickly losing confidence, and was really worried that she'd done something wrong. A very short, skinny man walked up to her, looking almost amused.

"Miss, do you have the wrong place?" he said, clearly getting a kick out of what he thought was a silly mistaken woman.

"No, this is Aperture, correct?" she replied.

"Yeah, but what are you here for? Are you the new cleaning lady?"

"No, sir, today's my first day of work here. Can you please direct me to.. uh.." She said while digging for the directions to her office. The room filled with barely contained snickers. Why were they so amused by her? "Right here." Gladys said, pointing to the room on her map that she was told was hers.

"I think you have it wrong. You couldn't possibly be working on that project. Here, this is the secretary area."

"No, sir," Gladys said, irritation showing in her voice, "I'm a scientist, not a secretary. Please show me how to get to room 427."

"I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to alert the boss about this. His office is right down the hallway, let me help you there."

"Thank you," Gladys said, her voice dripping with malice, "for helping me find Mr. Johnson's office. Let's go, you and me together, Greg." she said, looking at his name tag. Gladys was generally a very sweet person, but when she wanted to, she could sound terrifying, which was clearly working on him. Her golden brown eyes bored into his, until she swiftly turned on her heel, and walked to Mr. Johnson's office.

She opened the door, and found Mr. Johnson and a woman having some sort of strange conversation, if you could even call it that. It was mostly just the woman listening to him ranting, and nodding thoughtfully. They both immediately looked up at her, as Greg quickly stumbled inside after her.

"I'm so sorry to interrupt you. This woman claimed that she was a scientist." he said, clearly stressed by Gladys walking into here, claiming things his poor brain couldn't grasp "I tried to tell here that there was a mistake and that she couldn't possibly be working on the project that she pointed out to me, and so I figured she was confused. So I escorted her here to make sure she knew her place." Greg finished, making sure the last sentence sounded threatening.

"Well Greg, first of all, it looks likes she escorted you," Cave said, clearly embarrassing Greg. "and second of all, she is not a secretary. In fact, she's probably got twice as many IQ as you've gotten brain cells, then times 8." he continued, but Gladys had blocked him out. She was looking at the woman, who was looking back at her sweetly. Come to think of it, she was probably the only female she'd seen so far. The woman waved at her, which Gladys returned shyly.

"So get your lazy butt out there, and do some science!" Cave finished, looking proud of himself. He was naturally a man who anyone would listen to. He could even convince somebody to their death, and make them think they were a hero for doing so. This obviously worked on Greg, who quickly scrambled out of the office. He then continued his conversation/rant to the woman.

"Uh, sir, the girl?" The woman said, gesturing towards Gladys.

"Oh! Right! So little lady, you want to be leading woman, you want to make a change, is that right? Well you've come to the right place! You get to make a real contribution to science, and you can finally lead all the other women to come running to all these great jobs! I can't wait to see the rest of humanity get off of their lazy, bedridden-"

"Mr. Johnson."

"Ah, yes, this is Caroline, and she's gonna help you find your place in here, help you be comfortable. Alright Caroline, help away!" He finished, then returning to what Gladys assumed was his work.

"Alright, let's get going!" Caroline said, with an attitude that seemed to have been put on to make Gladys feel as if the next few days were going to be great, but she had a feeling that, after the event when she first walked in, that she wasn't going to be easily accepted.

"Are we.. are we really the only women here?" Gladys said, with uncertainty in her voice.

"No, some are secretaries, such as myself, but you could say I'm a higher rank." Caroline replied in that same cheerful tone. She then switched to a more relaxed tone. "To be honest, I got the job because I thought that maybe I could work on a few projects, be a true scientist, but that didn't work out so well, so I became Cave's secretary." Gladys was taken aback by how much Caroline was telling her, but decided not to interrupt. "But now you're here, and I believe you're going to be the first female scientist! How exciting!" She finished with fake enthusiasm.

"OK, that sounds great, but why did everyone treat me like I was nothing, back when I first walked in? Was it because I'm not a man?" Gladys said quietly. Why would they do that to her?

Caroline instantly looked extremely sad. "Yes, that seems to be the case, but don't worry, they treat me like that too." She said, her enthusiasm completely missing from her voice.

"Thanks, I feel a lot better." She replied sarcastically. Why did she instantly feel so comfortable around her? At this Caroline only laughed.

"What's your name?" She asked, "I think we could become friends."

To Gladys, that sounded great. She needed at least one person here who would help her, as she could tell this was going to be difficult. "Yeah okay, Gladys. Gladys is my name."

"So Gladys," Caroline started, clearly trying to make conversation, "Why did you want to work here?"

"I am here to do science." Gladys said dreamily. "I love science. It just seems so intriguing. It's so fun see the different outcomes of things when you only change some small aspect, or find some way to change the world with simple elements mixed together. You can create a devastating, destructive bomb, or you can prevent a deadly sickness. Science is everything. Why not study everything around you?" she finished. Caroline just smiled and nodded.

"Yeah, I love science, too. In my first high school year, I joined a chemistry class. I was the only girl in the entire school who didn't want to do anything like home ec or baking. At first, all of the guys made fun of me or treated me like I was nothing. That changed when most of them only had a C+at best, while I was passing with 100%." At this, Gladys laughed. She couldn't believe that people could be so incompetent as to think girls were good for nothing. What do they do when they get home? Kick back, watch TV, and wait for the women to make their food. Sure they made the money, but did they really expect women to just stand there being useless?

"Well, here it is." Caroline announced as they approached office 427. "Your very own office. Sure it's a little small, but it's yours, right? I know it's probably a little weird, but you're actually the first new employee we've had in a while. So, that said, I'll be checking in on you every now and then. I hope it's not a problem!"

"Here," Caroline continued, "I'll take you to the meeting room, there just so happens to be a meeting on the portal gun, the project that you're on. Sounds exciting, right?" She said, with a hint of sarcasm in her voice. She seemed like a nice enough person to get along with, right? A friend wouldn't hurt. She hadn't ever really had a friend before.

As they walked in, Gladys could hear a collective sigh. Seriously now, did they just hate women? "Hey Caroline, what's she doing here?" One man said.

"Well, this is the newest employee, and she'll be working on the portal project with all of you!" Caroline said, with that fake enthusiasm plastered in her voice yet again. There was an obvious noise of disgust throughout the room, but no one protested. Did Caroline have some authority over everyone? Or did they just listen to her because she was Cave's secretary? "Here, introduce yourself to everyone!"

"Um... Hi. My name is Gladys." She said, obviously not wanting to talk anymore than she had to.

"Alright, miss. Sit down, look pretty, and don't say anything stupid." The man standing up by the whiteboard said. Everyone laughed. Caroline smiled sadly at Gladys and left. Gladys, clearly flustered, decided it was best not to say anything, and just sat down at the only empty seat in the room. As she looked up at the screen, she audibly laughed, but caught herself and covered her mouth.

"What do you find so funny, Gladys?" The man said. Everyone turned to stare at her. Instead of turning red and saying something like 'nothing sir' as she usually would, she decided it was time she proved herself.

"Well, sir," she started, sounding very intimidating, "You've obviously messed up. I'm surprised you didn't see your problem before. To be honest, it appeared quite humorous to me. You just have to move the X over to…" she said, walking over to the string of complicated codes and letters and fixing their mistakes as she talked. The whole room was in shocked silence.

"I… I… That wasn't…" The man said, astonished.

"That was bloody brilliant!" One man exclaimed, who was in the corner. "I haven't ever seen someone work that fast! That… That was just amazing!" Everyone in the room collectively sighed and rolled their eyes.

"Shut it, moron." The man next to him said. Why were they knocking him down for praising me? She thought

Once the meeting was over, Gladys made her way to her office, and rested her head on the desk. This job was going to be difficult. But at least they had to respect her at some point. Right?

AUTHORS NOTE:

First things first, Gladys is GLaDOS, if you didn't catch that yet. And, yes, the man who praised Gladys was Wheatley. He wasn't really introduced in this chapter, but he'll be involved the next chapter, and definitely almost all of them. This story takes place in the old Aperture era, which is why Cave Johnson isn't dead, and why women aren't really all that respected. I think that Gladys is mostly sweet because when she was first powered up in the actual Portal world, she probably wasn't rude. She was young and innocent. So i'm deciding to go with that version of Gladys for the start of her job. But no worries, you'll get to see the sarcastic Gladys we all know and love! And, this is my first fic that isn't a oneshot! Horray! I'll probably have this updated at least once a week, with oneshots on the side every now and then. A review would be much appreciated, and hope you enjoyed!