A/N: My third oneshot in three days. Ffft. Why are you all so awesome.
This is technically a sequel to "Because We Can" but it can also be read as a stand-alone. Still, I suggest you go read that first.
"Five science collaboration points to Blue. Orange, why can't you be more like Blue?"
The orange robot slumped a little bit, but other than that there was little change in the two robots' behavior as they moved on to the next chamber, chirping excitedly. GLaDOS disconnected from watching the two co-operative bots test, letting out a little sigh. The excitement she had gotten when she had first started testing again was already beginning to die, and there was no other explanation for the emptiness that had begun to fill her. She was bored.
To combat the boredom that had quickly arrived upon the mute test subject's departure, GLaDOS had devised a variety of projects to keep her occupied. These projects had included the cooperative testing initiative, rebuilding and cleaning up the enrichment center, and sifting through her memories and programs and trying to delete anything and everything to do with Caroline.
Figures that Caroline's memories would all be rooted to her core personality. Deleting Caroline would cause total corruption for sure.
Still, GLaDOS enjoyed looking through her system. She discovered things she didn't even know she could do, relived triumphant memories (such as killing the scientists with neurotoxin, her personal favorite, second only to sending the moron into space) and even looked through her earliest memories, memories she hadn't known existed.
Today, she had discovered a little gem of a file. Apparently, for a certain period of time after she had been created, she can been conscious. Not functioning properly, no, but conscious enough to register what was going around in the world around her. She opened the file cautiously, but curiously, and poked around a bit. Not much inside, nothing that her developing system had deemed as useful, only a few pieces of data about various cores they had installed on her (data the scientists had read to see how well they worked with her system) two photos, and about ten video files.
She chose to open up the photos first. The first was a shot, slightly blurry, of some scientists milling around, most likely the first things she had seen upon becoming concious for the first time. The second one was of the little girls from Bring Your Daughter to work day, of the girls she had watched grow up in their statis beds and die, one by one, in various tests. They stood in a row, some bored, some scared, some talking, and one girl, the girl at the very end of the line, looking directly into her optic with a curious look on her young face.
Yes, of course. It just had to be Chell.
GLaDOS let out a chuckle, and after a small debate with herself, let the picture files be. She then turned her attention to the video file, opening the video file with a quick command to her system. The video quality was so clear that it seemed like she was actually there, back before the days of tests and neurotoxin and dangerous, brilliant, fantastic mute lunatics and-
She forced herself not to think about that and focused on the video that was playing in her mind.
She went through the first three rather quickly, finding them to be nothing more than footage of various tests they had performed on her whilst she was semi-concious. It wasn't until the fourth video that she stumbled upon something interesting.
A young scientist, one that she didn't recognize as one of those she had killed with neurotoxin so long ago, hesitated for a moment before walking up to her, staring at her directly in her optic. This didn't unnerve her. Scientists did that all the time. What unnerved her was the look of sadness and then sudden anger that appeared on his face as he walked backwards, presumably to get a better look at her.
"Whose sick idea for a joke was this...?" he muttered, and she froze.
She knew that voice.
Anger immediately replaced shock. Was he calling her a joke?
He walked forwards, facing her directly in the optic again. She watched with cold anger as his eyes flicked away, then flicked nervously back to her optic, as though he was reminding himself that she was offline and therefore couldn't hurt him. She remembered him flying into space and felt a rush of satisfaction.
"I um..." he paused as he self-consciously checked around for other people. "I want to, um...apologize. For everything."
Her satisfaction was squashed without a warning, squashed and then crumpled up and thrown off a cliff.
What?
"I...I'm not the brightest bloke, am I?" he gave a derisive chuckle. "I dunno how they managed to get you in there. I dunno if there's any way to get you out. But-" he looked up, and she was startled by the ferocity in his eyes. "If there's anything I can do to help you, I swear I'll do it. If those bloody scientists want to...to...p-put your brain in a can, or something...I don't know why they'd want to do that, you're already in this huge body and-"
Yes, that was definitely more of the Wheatley she was used to.
"That's not the point here! The point is..." he paused and walked closer, stopping a foot away from her optic. He studied it-studied her- for a moment.
"...I don't want you to be hurt more than you already have been," he told her sincerely, and she didn't know what to think anymore.
She watched the rest of the video numbly, watching him stutter and fumble with words as he made her promises he couldn't keep, compliment her, and officially become the only one to ever speak to her as a human.
Not as a small child, like the scientists did at first. Not a monster, like they did later. Not with boredom, like the early test subjects had regarded her with. But as a human. A person. As Caroline.
And it all made her feel very...odd.
It didn't matter that his memories had been wiped, that he had no memory of the incident (or that he had ever been human in the first place) or that he had put her in a potato and nearly destroyed her facility.
...well, no, on second thought, the potato incident still mattered. It mattered a lot.
But somehow, something in the video made her access the tracking device for the Intelligence Dampening Sphere, and after a long pause, enable the Aperture Science Equipment Recall device. After that was done, she sent Blue and Orange to check that all the maintenance rails running around the facility were in proper working order. As they did that, she pulled up his file, just to be sure.
Matthew Wheatley.
He was a lab boy, mostly signing paperwork, forging signatures, and that sort of thing, but he was also on the GLaDOS project. She doubted that he did much beyond printing and fetching things, but he spent his days in her chamber.
And he had wound up as the experiment for his own team's research.
He had moved from Britain at a young age. He was estranged from his parents and siblings- had no real friends and- she didn't miss the little note at the bottom- showed a strong resistance towards the GLaDOS project and it's supporters.
"The Intelligence Dampening Sphere has been recalled. The equipment will be dispensed into the main AI chamber in 3...2...1."
GLaDOS turned her attention to the little sphere babbling on about nothing and briefly wondered what was wrong with her. As soon as Wheatley spotted her, however, and began thanking her profusely, she managed to put the protesting voice out of her mind as she allowed herself another rush of satisfaction.
They had a lot of work to do, after all, and they had the rest of eternity to get it done.