You remember.
The moment the final recording finishes playing; you suddenly remember a past you forgot in order to protect yourself.
"I will say this, and I'm gonna say it on tape so everybody hears it a hundred times a day; if I die before you people can pour me into a computer, I want Caroline to run this place!"
Chell pauses, crouched low to the ground as her gray eyes scan the surrounding walls for a spot to place a blue-ringed portal. She glances down at you; perched atop the spike she stabbed (that bitch) through you to attach your potato body to her portal gun. You suppose a moment of understanding would pass between your gazes if you still had your optical sensors and weren't a damn potato.
"Look….you're doing a great job," you tell her, surprised that the genuine attempt at encouragement doesn't fry your 1.1 volt-powered circuits outright. "Could you handle things on your own for a bit? I…I need to think."
She's already placing a portal and hopping through it by the time you finish your sentence, seemingly unaware that you were speaking at all.
And the memories come flooding back to you with such force and pain that you only have five and half seconds to process them before your circuits do end up shorting out and leaving Chell alone for several minutes.
You remember the way he looked at you…you instead of all the other, prettier young women running tests at all hours of the night and day. And you remember the way you reveled in that attention.
You remember thinking it was crazy that he should take notice of you at all: he was Aperture's CEO and at least twenty years your senior. You remember thinking that even when he made you his personal secretary and even on the occasions you ended up in bed with him.
You remember the little girl that wasn't supposed to exist at all since he'd sworn up and down he was too old to have a child anyways. You remember having to hand her over to that greasy employee…what was his name? You screamed that you couldn't do it, that you didn't care what her existence meant for the future of the company or what the employees all thought about who her father was because she was yours. He'd placed his hand on your shoulder and said simply, "Now, Caroline…"
You remember watching her grow up from a distance. She seemed happy enough, and her adoptive parents doted upon her. She was clearly intelligent from an early age, and with a stubborn streak that put your own tenacity to shame. But you always thought she'd be happier if she were with you. You were her mother…her real mother.
You remember resentment blossoming in your veins, like a poison, even as you put on a cheerful face for the bankruptcy meetings and the outlandish requests for tons of lunar rocks that the company couldn't afford. Something about portals, he kept insisting. It was the future!
And when you'd gone to take him his daily pain pills and found him dead, still sitting propped up in his leather chair at his damn desk, you remember you laughed. The one thing he always loved the most had killed Old Cave Johnson. Death by science, you mused as you laughed. How fitting.
You'd laughed until the technicians marched into his office and grabbed you by the arms. You remember screaming as they dragged you down into the bowels of the company deep underground. What were they doing? You could finally take back the child that was rightfully yours now that her useless father wasn't around to put the needs of the company above yours and hers.
You remember being treated like a prisoner, strapped down and gagged when they thought you begged for answers too loudly. You remember the countless electrical wires they attached to your head as you screamed into the cloth in your mouth, and you finally understood what was happening.
You remember that your last thought before you ceased to be Caroline and became GLaDOS, who killed every sorry fucker who made you suffer within one-sixteenth of a picosecond of activation, was her name.
Michelle.
Mi…chell…
Chell.
Warning: Power levels (1.1 voltage maximum) exceeded.
Initiating reboot.