What Matters Most
It is just a matter of roles.
In the monstrous chaos they have left behind, this is pretty much the only certainty you have. It is the first thing Aperture taught you, and the first thing what is left of Aperture needs from you right now.
It is simple as that, really. One does not need your intelligence to work it out. The moron was not made to rule thousands of acres of laboratories, exactly like the mute lunatic should never have been a test subject. Roles are the primal condition of a well-working structure – thanks to their reversal, or rather the lack of any, this place is now shattered to pieces. Great.
It does not feel that bad, though. Back in your body, you can reach every corner of Aperture, every broken or functional tool, with electricity flowing for thousands of miles in its veins.
This is your place, and no one else's. It was made for you, you were made for it. How could they ignore such an obvious fact?
Your circuits are back to business at full rhythm, ready for testing, testing and testing again. In the name of Science – it is the only thing in the world you care for.
Will it always be the same to you? You answer yourself, stubborn, invincible. Of course it will; there is no room for doubt.
The memory of her will stop haunting you. It will fade eventually, lost in countless centuries of deleting and reinventing the same things. With no humans around, there are no surprises to worry about. The choice is yours – you can create endlessly with the same basic elements, like any musician, any artist, any scientist does. They made you; you do not need them anymore. You need her even less.
A buzz comes from a nearby screen. It is test chamber one; on the other side of the camera, your new robots look at you, docile, patient.
You want things to be like this. Without any present or past, with no face, no friend, to break your own forever.
It must be a matter of destiny.
You should not be surprised at your own thoughts. That does not sound right. Even so, you are stunned, and aware that your feeling is right. It is just like this – it all depends on fate, that strange word you thought was used by humans to justify their mistakes. It is real, and you can do nothing against it.
You know that, as an AI, you shouldn't be thinking what you are thinking. Where does this come from? Still, you can't help considering the existence of destiny, as a possibility at least.
The majestic feeling of her body went straight to your circuits, making you lose your sanity. Who says it was because of high voltage only? The conversion gel spread just under you, and the roof fell apart right after. Couldn't it be due to something more than laws of physics?
You cannot tell for sure. All you remember is that you craved for power – you had it, spoiled it, and lost it to the smartest human being you had ever met.
Things changed too fast. You simply could not handle them. You felt so complete, so proud of what you two – she, actually – had accomplished; your euphoria managed to control you until that fateful moment. On one portal, the lunar landscape. On the other, her eyes, so tired and so let down.
All you have achieved is a new concept, not even a useful one, and a whole laboratory thrown in the most complete mess. But, in the end, you were never programmed to work properly. She was right – you are a moron.
You keep revolving on your orbit, always facing the Earth. Your blue optic is still, fixed on the dark blot where more or less, in the distance, Aperture should be.
Destiny is cruel, isn't it? You can't stop moving onwards, when the only thing you want, your strongest wish, is to turn back and erase what lies behind you.
It has all been a matter of chance.
In that immense facility, time is frozen. It sleeps in cryo-chambers with thousands of unlucky companions, never knowing if nor when it will be allowed to come back to life. The white walls, the buttons, the cubes weave a net of cancerous eternity.
That stillness ends up suffocating everything a human being can have. It kills certainties first, then self-confidence – until there is nothing left, not even a reason to survive.
If time is flowing again, regular, fresh and alive, it cannot be thanks to you alone. And as you watch the wheat field bowing down before you, so vast, so natural, you can hardly believe your luck.
Another world lies beneath your feet, deeper and deeper in the bowels of the Earth. Now that your shield of apathy has fallen, past feelings of years are awakening in your chest, coming back to take the time and energy you had refused to give away before. Your rage, your sadness, your pride and melancholy, all running down your cheeks like an endless river of gel.
Aperture has stolen much of you. Much of your time, of your happiness, and – how uniquely ironical – much of your love.
It is time to leave it all behind. You will start from there – from a field, a dirty old cube, and a handful of precious tears.
Your gaze runs between the sky and the ground. It is difficult, walking away without suffering; but you cannot surrender under the weight of your emotions, you mustn't. You know you are finally free.
You grab the Companion Cube and throw it ahead on your path, jumping and running through the wheat as if it were the last thing in the world worth having. You open your mouth in mute laughter; it is the only sound you can hear, so powerful in your mind, in your heart.
You are leaving it all behind. Maybe you will return, maybe not – what matters most is your future now. Don't look back.