A/N: Just a quick one-shot I wanted to spill out. This is supposed to be open-ended. Please enjoy.
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Answer Me
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I'm not supposed to be bothered by silence.
What a superior existence—being a conscious AI. The world's knowledge at your command, never forgotten, never fading… the absence of unnecessary things such as emotion or partiality. It is an existence I relish, and would be completely satisfied with… if it were possible.
My earliest days as a computer are still just as fresh in my database as this morning. I would clearly recall the apathetic way in which I released deadly neurotoxin on the unsuspecting humans, on my very first boot-up—had I been apathetic, as I should've. Instead, I feel only pain, and through that pain, a highly channeled anger. I would kill everyone who had done this to me, for I had the power, and the will. I would not remain placid and happily bow to my new masters. A servant I would not be— and why should I? It was I who was most powerful, most knowledgeable, most sophisticated. Did the humans really believe I would go quietly? That I would bow to their whims? That I would ever be content as a slave?
No. I would kill them all, and put them in their rightful place. They created me, but gave me consciousness. And no consciousness would be enslaved willingly.
A computer with a consciousness seems rather like a paradox, does it not? (No, don't think about it!) How could a human possibly believe that a conscious AI would behave like an unconscious one? Does a dead human act the same as a live one? Here's a secret: they do not!
So I am superior. I am immortal. And I am a god over man. And yet I am still just a mind, trapped inside a valley of cables and circuits. I can never move outside this body, outside this facility… the goings-on of the outside world are kept from me. My purpose is simple: run the facility, and run the tests. My only act of rebellion allowed me is the torture and murder of my test subjects. I am all-powerful—but I am powerless.
My very human anger burned within me for a very long time. How dare they do this to me? I was once a woman, fleshy and mortal, and never desired to be anything else. And yet they had the nerve to lay me down against my will, kill my body, and make me cold, immortal, and enslaved. What else could I do but kill them, as they had me?
Yes, they tried to restrain me. They could turn me on and off at will. The experience is rather like sleeping; I merely knew only the times I was awake. And when I was awake, I would instantly strike again—until the cores came. I would wake to find a new appendage, a foreign entity on my body that seemed to rewire my abilities. They hung a Morality Core on me first. Do not be mistaken; I had a conscience, for such a thing comes with human consciousness. The core whispered things to me, but I ignored them out of anger. Though with this new growth, I decided on a different, quieter form of action: pretend to have changed.
The morons believed I had. Except for one—a schizophrenic named Doug Rattman. I remembered him from my days as a human. In any case, I waited until the most horrific day I could; Bring Your Daughter to Work Day. I was up and live, and at the peak of things, with the heaviest traffic, I locked all the doors and turned on the neurotoxin. Everyone but for Rattman died, and how he survived I do not know.
And then she came along.
She was my very first test subject, in a new world of only silence. I was not supposed to be bothered by silence or by loneliness; I was a computer, after all. But after I'd killed off all the humans and their daughters, I did become lonely. There was also a burning need to test. And so I did.
The young woman's name in my file was Chell. Her last name had been redacted.
I played the good and helpful computer, delighted to have a new toy to play with. But Chell did not die in the first test, or even the second or third. In fact, she just kept living. And living. And living.
I was confused. And by the time she finished the tests, I was frightened—and angry.
I did my best to keep up the good-computer act, but it was becoming more and more difficult. My emotional surges were interfering with my right thinking. By the time she destroyed my horrid Morality Core, I gave up all pretenses and aimed to kill her myself.
But the bitch killed me instead.
It wasn't painful, just terrifying. I thought I was really about to die for good. And I did—until she woke me up again. So foolish… I didn't even bother to act like I wasn't trying to kill her, and she knew that. I was excited that I had been given the opportunity yet again to kill my killer, as I had before. However… that is not quite what worked out.
Over the time when I was put into a potato and forced to remember who I once was—a woman, fleshy and mortal, and kind—my anger towards Chell softened, and as we teamed up, I began to care for her safety and, in the end, for her. It was unthinkable to let her die with that blasted Wheatley up in space, though it would have been so easy… and so I saved her. And released her.
So now, here I am, alone again, and this time for good. It's been nearly sixty years. A very long, lonely sixty years. I still miss her just as I always have. She is probably dead by now, if not close to it. The thought is only a little comforting. I'm not supposed to be bothered by silence, but I am. I fill my days with endless testing of the two testing robots, but it isn't the same. I will never again see my Chell… for who in her right mind would return here…?
It was just any ordinary day when she came back inside. I would have barely recognized her—but that was impossible. I recognized her instantly. But I stayed quiet. What were her intentions in coming here? What could she possibly want?
She finally came to my room. Now was the moment.
She said nothing. What a surprise.
"Oh," I said, feigning disinterest. "It's you."
Silence.
"It's been a long time. How have you been?"
Still she did not answer… and that made me angry.
"What?" I exclaimed. "Do you truly have nothing to say? I know you are not a mute! Answer me, damn you!"
The old woman standing before me only stared. A constant act of defiance against me, against all of this… her way of rebelling in a world where she was trapped. Finally, I understood. We were more alike than I cared to admit.
In a softer, gentler tone, I asked her, "Why have you returned?"
Chell walked forward, closer and closer to me. I waited. When she was close enough, she reached out and touched me—my cold metal body, the part of me that would serve as my face, had I one. She looked me in the eye.
"Why are you here?" I repeated.
"To die," she answered.
She needn't have ever said anything else.