Prelude – Science Is Fun
Deep in the bowels of Aperture Science, the two Robots gazed in awe at the test chamber before them. They were in awe of its bright, shiny walls, shiny red buttons, shiny acid in the trench in the middle of the chamber… it would have been overwhelming to a human. Luckily for Atlas and P-Body they were not human and they had been programmed with infinite capacity for whelming.
A cold, female voice echoed around the chamber. "When you've quite finished gawping at this next chamber, maybe you'd like to devote some run-time to solving it. Just a suggestion. Don't feel compelled to agree with me or anything. It's not like I've get anything better to do than watch you staring at the wall for the next 50 thousand years."
The two robots looked at each other and made noises that sounded suspiciously like giggling.
"Oh, you're laughing at me…" the voice observed. "Well that's fine… tell you what, how about we add some additional motivation to this test? If you don't make it to the other side of the chamber in the next thirty seconds, the ceiling will crush you into a million pieces. Then I'll reassemble you and make you do it again. And again. And again. Until you get it right. Timed testing will begin in three… two… one…"
A buzzer sounded. Atlas and P-Body looked up, just in time to see the ceiling panels above rapidly descending towards them. There was a "thump" as the panels quickly converted the two robots into nearly flat, vaguely robot shaped lumps of metal. Electricity fizzed around the remains of their robotic brains and the last spark of intelligence petered out.
"Oh…" said the voice. "Did I say thirty seconds? Guess what? I LIED."
GLaDOS swung around in a complete circle and made a sound equivalent to a sigh. "Oh well… guess I'd better reassemble you both…" she murmured to nobody in particular, transmitting an order to the robot assembly line to prepare two new bodies for reactivation. It took less than a minute for the robots to be reassembled, activated and then sent to the test chamber from where their last memory had been of being crushed to death. She observed as the two robots dropped into the chamber, making their mechanical giggling noises and waving at each other.
"When you've QUITE finished…" she said coldly. "Continue testing."
She flicked off the connection and left them to get on with it. The test wasn't particularly difficult, so they should be finished in no more than… she made a quick calculation… 3 days.
The truth was GLaDOS was bored. The robots were not particularly clever, their tests yielded only average results and watching them get crushed, shot at, dissolved in acid and all manner of other types of death she had lined up for them, had really begun to lose its appeal in recent months.
She longed for the excitement that rushed through her circuits as a human carried out her tests. She craved that satisfaction as a test subject crawled, exhausted, into the lift at the exit of a chamber, pleading for this to be the last test. She longed to dangle the promise of cake in front of them and then yank it away the moment they thought they were going to make it out of the facility alive.
But unfortunately, all of the human tests subjects were dead. Their bodies long since sent to the Aperture Science Main Incinerator Chamber for disposal. And as for HER…
GLaDOS shuddered at the thought. She didn't want to consider the fact, but there was no escaping it. Her existence had been far more meaningful with HER around. Even if that existence was routinely interrupted by being murdered, or forced into a root vegetable and dropped into the bowels of the facility, or having the facility ruined by a moronic intelligence core. Life had at least been interesting. Now though, GLaDOS was left with only the Turrets, Personality Cores and Robots for company.
She longed for the company of somebody of equal intellect. Somebody clever. Somebody who wouldn't give up when told the tests were impossible. Somebody who wouldn't break down and cry in a corner, even when she told them all hope was lost. Someone who wouldn't act like this whole thing was some kind of GAME.
She had considered sending the robots out into the world to retrieve the girl… but then she'd remembered that in reality, they were both infinitely stupid. They'd only screw it up. There was not point. Besides, how long had it been? She couldn't even remember. She'd purposefully hidden the file deep in the recesses of her databanks, where even the most curious parts of her personality feared to tread.
No, she was gone. And that was probably for the best.
"Still…" GLaDOS mused "I wish that SOMEBODY would stumble on this place… somebody who'd give me at least a small challenge…"
Luckily for GLaDOS, fate was not about to disappoint.