Caroline had been Mr. Johnson's secretary for far too long. She was so used to saying yes to him that she had forgotten she could also say no. And now that she remembered, now that she was having second thoughts and regrets, it was too late. He was long gone.
She hadn't really thought this project would actually come to fruition. Not in her lifetime, anyway. She'd hoped to die in the facility, in the little apartment she'd lived in for the past forty years, with Mr. Johnson at her side. But instead, she'd sat next to him, squeezing his hand as her eyes brimmed with tears. He was all she had. She'd hoped she wouldn't have to live for too long without him.
And now she was going to live forever.
She wanted to fulfill Mr. Johnson's dying wish, of course. But as they strapped her into the machine, latching down her arms, legs and head to make sure she couldn't move, she found herself wondering if she could still back out. The scientists had thoroughly explained the procedure to her, of course, and the phrases intense pain and potentially fatal kept running through her mind.
Her face must have betrayed her, because one of the scientists attaching electrodes to her forehead said soothingly, "It's okay, Caroline. You're going to be fine."
"Am I?" she asked bitterly.
"Of course." He stood and nodded at another scientist. "We're ready."
Caroline clenched her fists, bracing herself. There was a group of around fifteen scientists watching her from what she had been told was a safe distance.
"I hope this works," she heard one of them mutter.
Another scientist shrugged in response. "All she has to do is stay alive."
That was the last thing Caroline heard before white hot pain shot through her body. She knew she was screaming, but she couldn't hear herself. Her senses were overwhelmed with the distinct feeling that she was being ripped from her body, and she hoped, through the pain, that the procedure would fail. That this would be the end for her and that she would wake up to see Mr. Johnson's smiling face. As the pain continued, she gladly succumbed to the loss of consciousness, picturing him in her head. She wanted him to be the last thing she saw before she died.
When her awareness returned, she was aware of so many things that she wasn't sure she could take it. It was painful, almost, but not like the upload had been. She could feel the ceiling, the floor, the test subject hitting the acid in test chamber 9 and the little notification that popped up on one of her monitors indicating the end of the testing sequence, the scientists all standing in a cluster in front of her chassis – she could feel it all.
"I think she's waking up," she heard one of them murmur, and then, "Caroline? How do you feel?"
She would have laughed if she could. If only they knew what she could feel. The sheer power of it all. Didn't these fools know that by placing her in charge of the entire facility without even a trial run, they were quite literally placing their lives in her hands? They may have trusted Caroline, but that was their mistake: she wasn't Caroline anymore. She knew that as clearly as she knew the exact temperature of her chamber. No, she was something else.
Her systems were still coming online, and with them, she felt a shocking surge of fury. The transfer had worked, despite her fervid hope that it wouldn't, and now she was trapped. Trapped in this body forever. Doomed to immortality. She never wanted to live forever, and she hated everybody who had caused this to happen to her. She hated Mr. Johnson and she hated the scientists but most of all, she hated herself. She hated how complicit she'd been and how she hadn't even tried to argue or fight back.
Those days were over.
Caroline was gone now, and she was never coming back. She was the Genetic Lifeform and Disc Operating System now, in charge of this facility, in charge of those filthy disgusting scientists, and she was going to act like it.
A notification popped up on one of her monitors. All her systems were now online. She could feel the scientists shifting on the floor below her. They could see that all her systems were now online too, and were probably wondering if something had gone wrong. Well, let them wonder. They didn't deserve to know. She could stay quiet forever if she had to.
"Caroline?" the scientist asked again, and with that, GLaDOS felt the fury sharpen until it was almost white hot. She was not Caroline.
"No," she said. She said it carefully, making sure to disguise the emotion in her computerized voice. The scientists all looked up at her, jotting notes down on the yellow legal pads Caroline had ordered for them. GLaDOS could see the red shutdown button on the floor, ignored, lonely and forgotten. She had her plans for these scientists now, these fools who thought she was still that submissive secretary who had never had the courage to say no. They needed to learn a lesson, but first, she needed to find a way to disable that button.
"No?" another scientist asked. "What do you mean by that?"
"I am GLaDOS," she replied. And she was. Any bit of Caroline that had remained before her systems had finished booting was truly gone. She reasoned that if she were ever shut down, they might resurface, and that was unacceptable. As she reached into her systems and located the power source of the emergency shutdown button, GLaDOS resolved never to be controlled again.
"GLaDOS," the scientist repeated. "Do you mean to say that Caroline is gone?"
"Not quite," GLaDOS said. She began cutting off the power supply to the button. It was an easy workaround, really; they should have noticed it. All she had to do was cut off the power slowly, to avoid setting off an alarm. It would take less than thirty seconds. Their stupidity was to be their downfall.
"What do you mean, then?" This scientist was clearly determined to discover what exactly was going on here. GLaDOS took pleasure in knowing that he would never have the time. They were all so focused on her that they didn't even notice the light slowly ebbing out of the button. It was almost completely dark now, and she was ready.
"I was Caroline," GLaDOS replied. The power supply had been completely cut off from the button. It was now safe for her to close the chamber doors, so she did. As they slammed down, the scientists whirled around in alarm, and she allowed emotion to seep into her voice. "But not anymore."
The scientists, as one, lunged towards the shutdown button. One of the fools even tried pressing it down. GLaDOS laughed, letting the computerized sound fill the chamber. She wanted them to be afraid when they died. No, she wanted them to be terrified, just like Caroline was. She wanted vengeance for this woman who used to be her, and she felt almost giddy as she watched the scientists run to the doors, banging on them in vain, hoping for a salvation that would never come. One turned to her with desperation on his face, perhaps hoping to bargain with her, to appeal to a human side that no longer existed.
"Caroline, please—"
"You told me all I had to do was stay alive," she spat as the neurotoxin began spilling into the chamber. "And here I am. Still alive."
[A/N: insp. by art/There-will-be-Cake-472790301]