"Welcome to your first test." Doug skittered from the elevator, hunched over from the invisible weight of his cube. He was so used to carrying his friend, so used to wrapping his hands around the ropes that reminded him he wasn't alone that the absence left his back bent with the ghost of a box and his fingers forever opening and closing. He clenched his fists and straightened up. The sooner he was done with the tasks, the sooner he could hug his cube again.
"What do you want?" he asked, his words dried of emotion. GLaDOS kept him waiting for a full day before she released him into the first chamber. He tried pacing, pushups, plain old thinking, but nothing worked as a distraction for more than a few moments. GLaDOS gave him plenty of idle time. What she didn't give him was paint. He itched to draw a mural of Chell's soul in peace or to give his companion a halo on a wall.
"Fix them." GLaDOS snatched him from his thoughts and released a toolbox and three mangled turrets from a compartment in the ceiling. "You have the next hour to repair these turrets. Don't let them kill you."
Doug watched the turrets' shadows cautiously, his eyes narrowed for the telltale twitch of a robot playing dead. When a minute rounded the clock and disappeared, Doug made a beeline for the toolbox. He turned it over, emptying the red and black box of its contents, and found a screwdriver amidst the broken appliances.
"Now you stay, you hear?" He said gruffly to the first turret. He popped the screws out of the scuffed metal and got to work on the wires. He'd seen prototypes of this thing, all gleaming metal and candy button eyes. They'd been so proud to get it working—even gave it a child's voice. It was their little pet, their precious creation. Doug shook his head. His coworkers had always been keen on violence, but this, this…perversity of a gun just solidified his distrust of the whole operation. He was about to quit, too, when the boundaries between AI and real intelligence crumbled.
His hand cramped, and he dropped the turret. Its light flickered on, and it shakily stood up.
"Hello?" Doug watched it. It faced away from him, casting a red glow onto the wall. "Is anyone there?" Doug considered running, but he walked up to it instead. "Did you repair me?"
"Yes." The turret crept up to him. It laid a metal claw on his leg.
"Then you are my savior?"
"…Yes?"
"Do you have a task for me?" Doug blinked in confusion before going along with it.
"Now what I want you to do is—" He stopped himself. This turret isn't my cube. It's not anything. It's a tool GLaDOS uses to kill. He looked at it. It was the closest he'd get to innocence in this place. Screw it. It likes me.
"I want you to guard these tools, OK? Keep them safe. And tell your friends to keep their bullets out o' me." The turret blinked and focused on the screwdrivers. Doug shook his head. He was silent, mostly, liked to keep to himself. But the objects in this facility seemed to call to him and open him up like a computer panel.
"It's time to fix up your buddies, eh?" He smiled at the turret studiously staring at the tools. A cold wave of understanding washed over him; they were built to follow directions. He might as well be a murderer.
You're here to get him back. Don't forget it. His face pursed in a mask of grim resolve, Doug opened up the other two turrets and fixed them as quickly as his hands would allow. He was out of practice, his calloused fingers barely registering the nerve endings sensitive enough to feel the difference in the paneling, but he gave it his best try.
"Finished," he called to the ceiling. He set the three of them up in a row and stood up. "I'm done, GLaDOS."
"Well done," she drawled. "Pity I only need two turrets. Which one should I get rid of?" Doug lunged toward the first one he fixed, but the tile underneath it swung on its hinge, and the weapon fell into the pit below. He watched in disbelief as GLaDOS's remote control claw herded the remaining turrets into another room.
"It was scared of you. It was scared of you and it trusted me!"
"Then you should've done a better job of protecting it. You wouldn't even be here at all if you weren't so forgetful, Rat." Doug flinched. "Put on a jumpsuit," GLaDOS ordered. Doug walked through the doors and into a changing room, but he ignored the orange clothing and smoothed down his lab coat.
"I'm a scientist, not one of your imprisoned test subjects. I watched your birth. Don't forget that." GLaDOS opened the doors to the next chamber without a word. Doug was glad.
That's right, shut up. Don't go bothering me now, AI. I've got work to do.
