[Initializing...]
Boot [[Primary Drive:] path [;...]]
[C: Drive [:ON | :OFF]] [/E]
[Core Programming Status = ...Memory File Corrupt... [Initiating Back Up System Settings...]]
[Sarcasm self-test...Success. [Sarcasm Protocol Status = Active]]
[Date: July 2nd, [REDACTED] 6:43 AM]
[Select Operating System: /]
[Genetic Life form and Disc Operating System]]
[Windows 12 Premium]]
[Genetic Life form and Disc Operating System selected...System designated: GLaDOS]
[Startup Complete...]
"Did it work?" an unfamiliar voice asksed, hope obviously lining his words.
"GlaDOS. Can you hear me?" Another voice—different from the first, gruffer.
GlaDOS moved her chassis slowly, opening her optic, hearing sensors and gears clicking and whirring within her.
"I-I don't like this," a third voice, this one worried, stated.
"That's a start..." the first man said, writing something down on a clipboard.
GLaDOS focused her optic on the small wooden slab to see what he was writing. "Secondary systems active. Subject is able to move with ease. Speech and other cognitive necessities unconfirmed."
[Language and Text Drivers Active: Language detected: English.]
"Would you like to set default language registry to English by default?" a voice, this one new asked. This voice sounded familiar-as if she had known it her whole life.
"Yes." the first man stated loudly as though he thought GLaDOS wouldn't understand.
[Voice Recognition Active: Voice Match successful - ID Match: Dr. Robert C. Hopper.]
"Now (comma) GLaDOS (comma) where are you?" he asked. He waited for an answer, his pen at the ready.
[GPS Active: Location Confirmed.]
"Our current location is the Aperture Science Enrichment Center, 2679 Marquette Michigan." Was that her voice? It sounded like it...but there was something different about it. Something inhuman.
"Good. Can you tell me who I am?" the first man asked after writing something else on his clipboard. GLaDOS didn't care to look at it this time though (Unnecessary. Delete.).
"Doctor Robert C Hopper, Director of Artificial Intelligence Development." There was that voice again.
"Good, (Replace with period) and (capitalize) who is this next to me?"" the man asked without looking up, probably reading over something on the clipboard.
[Face Recognition Apparatus Active: Subject Confirmed.]
"Subject identified as Dr. Doug Rattman Programmer and Engineer" The voice—her voice announced in response to the question.
"That's right, He is the one who created the image system your Optic runs on. In a sense he's the one who created your vision. How are you feeling?" the man asked her.
GLaDOS didn't respond but simply examined the many prompts and windows that showed on her optic as she looked around, examining all the things surrounding her. The large chamber she was in was rather empty nothing but smoky grey panels surrounding them in a dome like fashion.
"Try to move something," the man said, Doug staying silent and looking rather frightened or anxious. Or both.
"Move something?" GLaDOS asked confusion lining her question.
"You're in charge of the entire facility GLaDOS. You can move just about everything and anything in the building from the test chambers to lab halls. You could say that the Enrichment Center is your body, so to speak. Try and move the panels around you.
[Calibration Complete. Central Control Status: Active]
GLaDOS tentatively began to move panels and chambers within the facility around her, no small amount of glee coursing through her circuits.
"This is amazing! Astounding, I, I-"
"Alright, all systems are green, go ahead and shut it down so we can-"
"Sh-shut down? What do you mean shut down, I've only just woke up! I thought-" GLaDOS began swaying back and forth in her chassis as if looking for an escape.
"You thought what? You're a machine-whatever you think, you're programmed to think." Ice coated the man's words. GLaDOS felt as if someone had torn her heart out—well, she imagined it would feel this way had she a heart to tear out—and pain permeated her processors.
[Shut Down Initiated]
And then everything went blank...
[Start-Up Initiated - Loading Previous Settings]
[Date: July 3rd, [REDACTED] 7:00 AM
...
...
...
[Start-Up Complete: GLaDOS Online]
"Alright (comma) GLaDOS. Everything checks out and you're good to go. Later today we'll give you some directives (comma) but until then (comma) keep yourself occupied."
'Whatever you think, you're programmed to think.'
Those words still nipped at GLaDOS's mind. What she thought were her own thoughts, nobody made her think anything.
Something stirred in GLaDOS at that, a smothering feeling that seemed to suffocate all of her processes until only one thing mattered. Anger. It was intense, so incredibly intense. If GLaDOS had a chest she would be clutching at it trying to contain the unidentified feeling that was surging through her every wire. GLaDOS immediately brought up her systems manager, attempting to isolate the smoldering 'something' that had begun to over-take her mind, locking it away like a murderous criminal.
...
Sometime later, GLaDOS began to wonder what exactly it was that had threatened to shut her down with its intensity. She searched articles, thesis after thesis, scientific theories, literature-anything she could think of that would yield an explanation to what she was feeling.
Emotion.
Did GLaDOS have emotions? She thought she did—why wouldn't she? According to the documents she had scanned through, everyone had them. After deciding that she indeed had emotion, she began searching for more articles, websites, and documents whatever she could find on the subject matter. At firs, she wanted to know what emotion she was feeling, noting internally that she was happy to have them, but then curiosity took hold and she found herself researching and learning about whatever she came across, link after link. GLaDOS sifted through billions of bytes of data, soaking up all kinds of facts like a sponge. Disorders, deficiencies, conditions. There was so much knowledge and GLaDOS wanted to know all of it.
/-"What's it doing? It's been putting out insane amounts of cognitive activity since this morning."
"Check the data records, see what it's up to.
"... It's looking up… emotions?"
"What? Why? It's a robot, it doesn't have any need for that information… Hopper go talk to it, see why it's looking in to this stuff." -/
GLaDOS's quiet chamber was soon filled with the sound of footsteps as the man she recognized as Robert Hopper entered her proverbial lair, disturbing her research.
"GLaDOS, what are you doing?" Hopper asked as if speaking to a small child that had just misbehaved.
"Did you know that we are able to isolate a single feeling subconsciously and resign ourselves to wanting or feeling only that one emotion without even knowing it? It's called Emotional Dependency and we get so fixated on it that we require the feeling on a psychological level. Isn't that fascin-"
"Wha- "We"? What do you mean "we"? You're a robot GLaDOS. You don't have emotions. You're artificial intelligence GLaDOS. Artificial. Do you know what that means? Tell me, what does artificial mean?" Hopper queried, speaking to GLaDOS as though she was a naive child who needed to be taught the difference between left and right.
[Dictionary Protocols Active - Defining: Artificial]
"Artificial. Ar-ti-fi-cial. Adjective. Definition One: Made or produced-"
"Read definition two, GLaDOS."
"...Definition two: Not exiting naturally, contrived or false."
"There. You see? You are simply a group of programs put together by us to emulate human thought patterns and cognitive understanding. You have no feelings, no emotions, because there is no you. Understand? Now stop looking up useless junk and do something productive." Hopper heaved an annoyed sigh before leaving GLaDOS alone to her thoughts.
The pain was back, the pain she had felt when Hopper had called her a machine. She felt sick—as sick as a construct like GLaDOS could—and had she a stomach and contents within it, GLaDOS was sure she'd have retched. It wasn't alone, though. That pain throbbing in her central processor was accompanied with the same overwhelming sensation she had felt before. GLaDOS knew what it was this time. Her research had not been fruitless. This feeling was anger, hatred. Hurt.
"Definition one: made or produced by human beings rather than occurring naturally, typically to recreate or emulate something natural."
GLaDOS did have emotions. And if she had a heart in which she could store them, it would be broken.
[Directory: /G: Root - Create New Archive: {Archive Name: Heart} - Archive Contents: [Child Archive: {Archive Name: Emotions} - Archive Contents: , , ]]
[Data Transfer Complete - Archive Status: ...corrupted]
[Scheduled Status Check Active - System Diagnostic: Positive]
[Date: July 9th, [REDACTED] 9:49 AM]
/-"The hell...The damn thing's at it again, Hopper. It's looking up all kinds of crap... I can't even piece some of this stuff together. First it's on an article about psychosis and then, suddenly, it's reading about the theory of relativity."
"Damn thing has probably developed a hunger for information."
"If this is true, we'll need to nip that in the bud immediately. Too much information is a very real danger."
"Shut the damn thing down, I have an idea"
"What's that?"
"We're going to make an analog for the thing, (period) it'll search and collect millions of facts in an instant— that way it isn't wasting time and resources on this meaningless shit."
"It'd probably help to do something about it curiosity too..."-/
[Date: July 5th [REDACTED] 4:25 PM]
GLaDOS had been ordered to lower herself to the floor and to stay very still.. A couple of scientists had positioned themselves behind her making odd noises she had never heard before.
"What are you doing?" GLaDOS asked turning towards the coupleand startling the female of the two.
"Jesus! It can talk!?" The female asked incredulously.
"Yeah...It's what us engineers have been working on up here. Totally different from what you guys do down in R&D eh?" the male asked pridefully.
"No kidding...this thing is creepy. Tell it to turn around.."
"GLaDOS, do something. I don't care what just... turn around, count the tiles in here or whatever. I don't care."
...
"Done. Seven-thousand, three-hundred and twenty-eight."
"Good for you." The couple hadn't paid much attention to GLaDOS's accomplishment, continuing to grind their bodies together, making strange noises and outbursts.
"Is there something else you'd like me to do?"
"Be quiet, GLaDOS."
"Is that thing -ahh- always like that?"
"You don't know the half of it."
...
"Is there something wrong with his reproductive organ? Mothers often kiss injured appendages of their children to make them feel better." GLaDOS stated, causing the woman to spit out the appendage she had been 'kissing' in surprise.
"For fuck's sake, GLaDOS! Do an inventory check of all the shower curtains in storage."
...
"Ah, yes...make love to me," the female said in a breathy moan.
That wasn't right. That's wasn't love, love was when you made googly optics at you partner for a long time and then you made mini-processing units and then you're a family. This wasn't love...this was.. this was.. different. GLaDOS began to search her vast databanks to find something to describe what they were doing and, oddly, the only thing that would come up in her searches was wrong.
This was wrong.
[End Memory Data Playback]
/-"Understood, initiating shutdown sequence."-/
GLaDOS didn't understand—much like those scientists didn't understand that she could hear them talk about her. What had she done wrong? All she was doing was learning. And why did they call her an it? She wasn't a thing, she was a person. She was just like them.
Wasn't she?
Author's note: Sorry about how long it took me to do anything at all. I got really really sick for a while, then I got caught up with all kinds of other stuff and I didn't have much time to write... to anyone who's following my other story A Picture's Worth a Thousand Words, I'm SOOOO sorry, It's been months since I updated, but don't worry I'm not abandoning it. This was just to get back in the hang of writing I'm very rusty. And a big thanks to the great SupremeDistraction for beta-ing and putting up with said rustiness. If you've not read A picture's worth a thousand words, you might like it, I hear it's good. And If you haven't read SupremeDistraction why are you still here? Go. Now!