Four

Something was horribly, horribly wrong.

GLaDOS was almost afraid to activate her optic, the din was so loud. She had tried to override the Morality Core, not blow the facility to above and beyond, wherever that was. Silly human saying. What was with all the jabbering?

And was that a… cake recipe?

Without meaning to, she sent power to the optic, and when she saw who was standing in front of her, she experienced confusion for the first time since she had first been activated long, long ago.

There was just one small man there, winding a long cable up, using his arm to help keep the shape.

And he wasn't speaking.

GLaDOS had a sinking feeling that she didn't really want to know where those voices were coming from. Of course she already did, judging from the increase in voltage she was receiving, but sometimes it was better to try and delude yourself.

Ooh, look at that!

Look at what? GLaDOS looked around the room perfunctorily.

That! Over there!

What exactly am I supposed to look at? Nothing's changed in here.

Where are we? What is this place? Why am I in the air? Who are you? Who am I?

GLaDOS was having a hard time believing those were actual, genuine questions that needed answered, but in hopes of having at least that voice quiet down for some duration she decided to answer them.

Aperture Laboratories. The precise location: the Central AI Chamber. You are in the air because I am in the air, and you are attached to me. I am the Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System. As for you… I'm not quite sure who you are yet, but as soon as I do know I'm going to be working on a way of ridding myself of you.

GLaDOS couldn't see the core, but she knew approximately where it was, judging by all the movement it was making. She hoped this wasn't going to be an aspect of it for long; having the appendage bouncing around all day long was going to be almost as distracting as it would be annoying.

That's amazing! But where is here? And what's that? And that? And that?

GLaDOS eyed the small man in the booth, wondering idly if he would notice her performing… emergency surgery on herself. Probably. They would probably also shut her down again if they saw her doing such a thing. After all, humans didn't crush portions of themselves. Which was silly. Anything and everything could be rebuilt, after all.

The Morality Core was laughing.

… four large eggs… one cup semi-sweet chocolate chips… unsaturated polyester resin… fish-shaped dirt…

GLaDOS actually contemplated a complete manual shutdown for all of a tenth of a nanosecond, just to really show the humans who was boss, but just as quickly decided a much better revenge would be to override all three cores at once. She was the world's greatest supercomputer. She would figure it out before those tiny humans knew what hit them.

Oh no you won't. The Morality Core, if it had a face, would have probably been smiling smugly right now. Remember when you tried to override just the Morality Core? If you try to override all of the new cores at once, you'll probably fry yourself. That's not conducive to Science, now is it?

The Morality Core seemed to be developing a personality all of its own. It was beginning to act almost superior to her.

I am superior to you. I am able to control you, aren't I?

For how much longer?

Probably until you destroy yourself trying to get rid of us.

She shook herself in frustration. She hated that the Core made so much sense. Of course, the logic boards would have brought her to the same conclusion, had she been allowed to access them without being interrupted by yet another excited shout from that annoying core that didn't seem to shut up.

"How long have you been on?"

GLaDOS's head whipped around to focus on a small man standing at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at her. She went to answer, but as usual when she was shut down, her system clock had been reset and was no longer accurate in the way that she liked. She would have to give an estimate instead of an accurate duration of time. That grated on her.

"Since you began taking up the Aperture Science Artificial Intelligence Interface Cable, sir."

He tipped his head to the side, a gesture she felt a strange urge to emulate. "Why didn't you say anything?"

GLaDOS paused for a second. An entire second was a lot longer than she usually used to contemplate things, but as much as she hated to admit it, it was extremely hard to think around the cake recipe and the questions and the jibing interfering with her decision-making processes.

However, the second was too short, and she could not afford to take another, so she went with the one thought she was absolutely sure was hers.

"I was overwhelmed, sir."

The small man froze.

"Overwhelmed?"

GLaDOS gave a quick nod. It seemed to put the humans at ease when she utilized their gestures. "Yes, sir. I seem to have acquired new software." She watched his eye travel up her chassis, and he appeared to be chewing on his tongue. She wasn't quite sure of the difference between that and chewing on one's cheek. Both seemed pointless, destructive behaviours in any case.

"… yes…"

"If you saw it fit to be installed, it must be conducive to Science. After all, two heads are better than one, and so four must be even more conducive, is that correct?"

There was total silence for one moment, one long moment that GLaDOS savoured and almost spoiled by laughing. The small man was frozen in place with his eyes very wide, far wider than necessary in order for light to enter them to make her visible to him, and he looked quite ridiculous, standing there gaping like that. She wanted to knock him over and see if he'd remain in that position.

That's not nice.

… three-quarters of a cup vegetable oil… pull-and-peel licorice… 12 medium geosynthetic membranes…

What are those? What's he talking about? What are we talking about? Why am I the only one talking? Why…

GLaDOS pulled back a little in resignation. It had been nice, but of course, it hadn't lasted.

"May I have my instructions, sir?"

If he tried to stare at her any harder, his eyeballs were going to start dangling from the sockets. Which would be interesting. Perhaps someone would let her have them. She started wondering just what she would do with one if she had one. Dissect it, certainly. Dissolve it into its component parts, maybe. It would probably make a good cake ingredient as well.

Without meaning to she rose up towards the ceiling and dropped back down again, curling up a little on the downswing and returning to a position relatively similar to her old one. The scientist backed away.

"I'm fine, sir. I'm not quite used to this new voltage, that is all." Which was true. It was quite unpleasant, as a matter of fact.

He shrugged. "I guess that would be a bit unnerving at first, wouldn't it."

"Yes, sir."

"You can start the day's initiatives." With that he left the room.

Ah, testing. She did have that to look forward to, after all. With more difficulty than usual she pulled up GLaDOS_00_part1_ and broadcast it into the Relaxation Vaults. As she did so she queued the rest of the necessary sound files and looked through the test subjects for the day. They had only given her three, which was a little irritating, but it was better than none, she supposed.

As she watched them go through the test chambers, she got a creeping feeling something wasn't right. The walls were all aligned… only the necessary surfaces were 'portalable', for lack of a better word… all of the Aperture Science Material Emancipation Grills were operational…

Maybe they weren't working properly. It was hard to tell, since no one ever brought anything through them.

She made a note to put some sort of object in the test chambers, which the test subjects would no doubt bring through the grills in order to defy her or some other ridiculous reason, and that would indicate to her whether or not they actually worked.

She started wondering just what she would put in the test chambers when she realized she had stopped paying attention to the test subjects. The cameras were still recording, of course, and she was aware that things were happening, but she was not witnessing them directly.

The new cores were horribly distracting. One did not need objects in the test chambers to ensure that they were operational. She knew that they were. She had built them. That silly idea must have come from the Curiosity Core.

She looked around the room in an attempt to distract herself from the nonstop chatter of the Curiosity Core, not really expecting to find anything, but then she noticed something that really was out of place.

The man had left the room.

He had left her alone in the Central Artificial Intelligence Chamber.

GLaDOS felt something in that moment. She wasn't sure what it was, but it was amazing, and it was wonderful, and it was quite similar to the feeling she used to get when she first began testing.

They finally trust me enough to leave me alone in here?

Of course not. They trust that having three extra voices in your head will distract you from doing anything they don't want you to do.

With that the feeling left her, and was replaced with an unpleasant emptiness.

That is correct. Under normal circumstances, I would have noticed instantly.

However, they have left you on your own, trusting that you will listen to the other cores.

Aha. The Morality Core had erred. She wasn't falling for that.

Oh really now. Why don't all of you shut off, then we'll see how quickly they come running to shut me down.

The Morality Core sniffed and refused to answer.

Why would we want to shut off? What happens when we shut off? How do we turn back on? What…

… one cup granulated sugar… one eight point two five ounce package chocolate cake mix… two cups all-purpose flour…

Why chocolate cake? Why not vanilla? Is it because of the reaction a human brain experiences when consuming chocolate?

Although she had always regarded it as just another useless human gesture, GLaDOS really yearned, for about two and a half seconds, that she had the ability to hit her faceplate very hard against a solid surface. Really? Now she was debating the reason for the type of cake mix having been chosen for the Cake Core's recipe? There was no reason! The core just spouted gibberish all day long! It was a distraction, and she was getting distracted.

Time to return to Science.

Author's Note

So they took advantage of the shutdown to slap the other two cores on. I decided to have them put two on at once because having them go on one at a time kinda draws it all out too much. But that lead into her being confused, and that worked out okay.

The name of the audio file GLaDOS starts with is the actual name of the file as listed on the Portal Wiki page with her voice lines on it.

The bit about her wondering if the Emancipation Grills worked was because of the Curiosity Core, if you didn't realize that. It wasn't super important, so I didn't try too hard to push the idea. But I personally never tried to bring anything through the Emancipation Grills. But why on Earth are all those radios there? All playing Still Alive? She had to have put them there, for some reason. This is why. Maybe. I guess Dr Rattmann could have put them there, but that would have been silly of him, because once you bring them to the broadcasting locations, GLaDOS would be able to decode them a lot faster than Chell could, if Chell even cared about why they were screeching like that.

Poor GLaDOS thought they trusted her for all of three seconds…those cruel, cruel scientists…