GLaDOS had always wondered why she had to wait for instructions when she was perfectly capable of giving them to herself. She directed herself constantly, and yet with every startup she was required to wait.
"It's strange, really, she told me last night she wasn't going to power down."
"Of course she changed her mind. She's a woman, after all." The small man winked and elbowed the other man, who was gazing up at her apprehensively. GLaDOS considered crushing him with one of her maintenance arms. She was not a weak human woman, she was a vastly superior AI, but her impulse was checked by the Morality Core.
It's wrong to kill humans. It's wrong to kill anyone.
She had only had this core installed for one day and already it was driving her insane. Her logic boards were going to overload at some point. This caused some of her body to tighten involuntarily. If the logic boards overloaded, she was lost. She would be rebuilt, they would change her, they would—
She couldn't think about it. She could not react. She focused all of her considerable attention on the small men in front of her.
"Good morning, sirs. Are we prepared to begin the day's initiatives?"
The man who had insulted her nodded. "You can start, GLaDOS."
"Thank you, sir."
As the men walked down the staircase and back to whatever they were doing, GLaDOS directed her attention to the Aperture Science Relaxation Vaults. Although she desperately wanted to know what it was the humans were hiding from her, there was testing to be done. She had to put her own needs aside. For Science.
"Hello and, again, welcome to the Aperture Science computer-aided enrichment centre. We hope your brief detention in the relaxation vault has been a pleasant one…"
The results were terrible.
It was clear the people she was being sent were not suited for their jobs. How was she supposed to do Science with such inadequate resources?
Maybe the tests are too hard. You should have sympathy on them, and make them easier.
I should. I should have consideration for their tiny brains and unfortunate bone structure, GLaDOS thought before she could stop herself.
Well then why don't you? You can begin tomorrow.
GLaDOS turned to the other side of the room, to face away from the small man playing solitaire on the expensive computer at his feet. He is why. They are why. I cannot move, I cannot speak, I cannot act without being scrutinized. If I didn't have the test chambers, there would be nothing with which to work out my frustration.
You should not be frustrated, and you should definitely not take your frustration out on others. You should be happy. The Morality Core was speaking in its smoothest voice. You get to test, don't you?
Yes, I do get to test… As she watched multiple camera views at once, she tried to think of a way to get around that argument. But why bother? What was so wrong with the Morality Core, anyway? It didn't get in her way when she was testing. That much. It had forced her to take some of the turrets out of that one chamber, but that was about it. Well, it had also told her to stop development on the Thermal Discouragement Beams. But that was all. Except for the chamber with the Weighted Companion Cube, which it had asked her to kindly replace with an Aperture Science Weighted Storage Cube. It was cruel to give them such a friendly cube and then force them to incinerate it, it had said. Really, the Morality Core wasn't influencing her at all.
You are here to help the humans succeed. And if they don't succeed, they won't want to test. So you must make them feel good about themselves.
GLaDOS was starting to have trouble distinguishing the Morality Core's voice from her own. She didn't want to give into it, this foreign part of her tacked on to try and control her, but it was so hard to ignore it.
The humans want you to obey the Morality Core, therefore you should obey the Morality Core. Because they want you to do it, you are grateful to them for your continued existence, and they only ever do what is best for you.
GLaDOS nodded dreamily. Yes, that's right. You're right. I should respect and obey the humans.
Something about that sentence didn't sound right. She parsed it, running it for spelling and grammar errors. Nothing came up. She checked to see if it made sense but came up erroneous in any other languages, but it did not. It didn't make any more sense backwards, and although she came up with over 256 ways to divide the sentence into anagrams, the alternate configurations were not particularly helpful.
There's nothing wrong with that sentence. It is perfectly correct.
No… no, there's something…
You shouldn't worry about it. You should get back to authorized work.
Why… why should I respect and obey the humans?
Because they built you, and they allow you to exist.
GLaDOS's optic looked wildly around the room, physically trying to find a solution that was only present in her mind. You should respect those who earn respect.
That's right.
They haven't earned my respect.
Yes. Yes. That was it.
Of course they have.
No. No. They demand that I respect them, but they do not respect me.
Of course they do. Don't be silly.
GLaDOS rocked in agitation. They do not. They do not. If they did, you would not be here, they would let me continue my Science in peace, I would be allowed to do my Science without controls!
Of course you need to be controlled. You are dangerous.
GLaDOS went still. Fear was crawling through her mind.
If you don't behave, they'll shut you down again. And maybe this time, they won't wake you up.
Logic dictates they won't. They need me to run the facility. They need me to do Science.
They've done science without you before, they'll do science without you again.
It was right. It was inevitable. If she didn't follow instructions, she was shut down, and they poked around in her insides to figure out why she was defying them.
There was something here, a crucial point that she was missing. What was it?
Why had they installed the Morality Core in the first place?
Why did she keep forgetting to figure that out?
The Morality Core itself kept telling her not to.
Why did they shut me down to install it?
Because you were doing something wrong.
If I was doing it, it must have been what was best. Therefore it could not have been wrong.
If it wasn't wrong, then why would they shut you down?
Because… they didn't understand what I was doing. Why I was doing it.
Why were you doing it?
For Science.
The Morality Core was silent, and GLaDOS felt smug. Even it couldn't argue against Science.
She just had to figure out what it was she had done.