HAHAHAHAHA I WENT OVER THIS CHAPTER A FEW DAYS IN ADVANCE SO I COULD POST IT ON TIME HAHAHAHA.
…Um. Yes. So. I hope you guys enjoy this chapter! We're finally getting into the main plot. (Also, as a side note, there's a rather obscure reference in here to something totally unrelated to Portal, because I like doing that in my stories on occasion. I'll be surprised if anyone notices it, though.)
If the memories had gotten to her before, they were getting to her tenfold now. Old Aperture was full to the brim of memories—some she flinched at, some she tried to bury, some that made her smile…
…Why was she bothering anymore. Nothing good was coming from this search—she was finding nothing but shifty robots, broken buildings, and old memories.
It seemed like everywhere she turned, her mind would flash back to some time long past, back when Aperture wasn't at the brink of failure, back when she was still in a human body, back when he was still…
It was distracting. That's all it was—it was distracting her from the task at hand. Focusing on the old times that would never come back would not help her.
But at the same time, she was having trouble finding something else to focus on. Yes, there was the fact that she needed to find something that would help her in stopping GLaDOS, freeing the humans, or both, but that was a vague goal, and vague goals were not something she was used to pursuing. One could argue that the advancement of Science was a vague goal, but there were always a lot of specific goals leading up to that: Try to come up with an invention that can perform this task. Test it. Test it again. Test it under this circumstance. Test it under that circumstance. Test it alongside another product.
She always had something specific in mind. She always had something to test, like—
No, there I go again. This isn't helping.
Caroline heaved a sigh; she wasn't making any progress with anything here.
She'd even tried talking to some of the constructs she'd found wandering about (though how they were doing that, she wasn't sure—there certainly hadn't been management rails in Old Aperture before), but like the bots in the upper facility, these ones frequently tried to avoid her. Why they would constantly brush her off or avert their gaze from her, she had yet to figure out, but it was starting to get on her nerves.
If she couldn't find something to do, she was going to drive herself mad—or, well, more mad than she already was at this point.
Caroline shook her head—face—and glanced off to the side. At this point, she had made her way down to the lowest parts of the mine, where some of the early experiments had been carried out in the 50s. This part of the lab had been nice in its heyday, back when Aperture was more well-funded and they had better-quality test subjects—no, no, stop thinking about that—but now it had fallen into disrepair. Much of it had fallen apart at the bottom of the mine, and she honestly wouldn't be surprised to find one of the testing shafts in shambles.
As her rail passed by one of said testing shafts, she blinked at finding parts of its walls gone, exposing several half-destroyed testing spheres within, looking like shattered Christmas ornaments supported by dead pine branches. She found herself wincing at the sight—even though she had expected it, it still felt like seeing a house she had once lived in being demolished.
…Demolished…
Caroline blinked again and refocused her optic, jerking back in surprise when she finally noticed several constructs at different spots in the wall, all of them working on ripping apart the test shaft. A bolt of anger seized her, and she surged forward on her rail, rushing toward the robots.
As she drew closer, she could hear the voice of one of them: "C'mon, you idiots, get going! Get going! We're behind schedule already!" it—he—growled. He was another personality core, this one with a small claw attached to the connector that kept him on his rail. Her optic narrowed at the robot as she approached him from behind. "You brainless constructs are slower than molasses going uphill in January with crutches! Can't you work any faster? This's gotta be torn down before—"
"What's got to be torn down?"
"The shaft, you dimwit!" the core howled, spinning around to meet Caroline's yellow glare with his own purple one. But he blinked, tilting his face one way, then another, before giving an annoyed growl. "Ooooh—! Don't tell me they sent you here to work on this project! Like I need to supervise some psychopath alongside all the other lamebrains on this stupid—"
Caroline was about to give into her frustration at being insulted yet again by another robot when an idea struck her. She cocked her head, staring him in the optic. "Well, they did. I've been assigned to work here. So can you tell me what's going on?"
"Ugh—those idiots up there sent you down here without even—agh, fine, you numbskull. We're ripping down Old Aperture—starting with these worthless test shafts—so we can make more room for modern test chambers. All right? We've already moved some of the relaxation—wait, wait, where are you going? You dumbtarded—! Get back here!"
But Caroline had already sped away, frantically heading lower in the shaft. She'd heard enough—GLaDOS was building more test chambers to grind the humans through, and she was making room for it by destroying the places that Caroline had thought to search through. Who knew how much time she had left before the testing shafts were completely destroyed?
Speeding down her rail, she dodged the claws of a few constructs that swatted at her as she passed. Soon she was through the gap in the testing shaft's wall, and stopped to look where the rail went.
As large as the testing spheres were, Caroline had never been intimidated by them. They were enormous, full of dangerous test chambers and unethical experiments—and she had been in control of all of it. Or, she had been in control, alongside—stop.
She shut her optic, forcing her mind to refocus to the current situation, and opened it again. No, she hadn't been intimidated by these testing spheres—not until now. Then, they reminded her of how much control she had. Now, they reminded her of how little control she had, and how tiny she was compared to everything in this facility.
It really was a hopeless cause, wasn't it?
"Look out below!"
Immediately jerking backwards on her rail, she looked up to find a few enormous chunks of rusted metal plummeting through the shaft. Her aural sensors were nearly overloaded with the noise, but with a little work, she figured out how to turn the volume down before she was overwhelmed. Once that was solved, her optic followed the debris as it crashed into the depths of the mine. Even in the dim lighting she could see the tremendous splash of acid far below, as well as several smaller pieces of metal following their larger brethren. It even looked like some of the metal had fallen into one of the half-destroyed—
…wait…
Caroline stared into one of the spheres for a moment before her optic contracted in shock. She tried to rub at her eyes, only to wind up flailing her handles uselessly before adjusting her optic.
There was a human in the testing sphere.
Before she knew what she was doing, she was already halfway to the sphere, moving as quickly as her rail would allow. It led her farther and farther downward until it was parallel with the test chamber, where she'd seen the human dart into an elevator for cover. She tried to move forward, only to be met with a loud bang as she hit the end of her rail.
"No, no, no, there has to be something," she muttered, shaking herself and looking all around her for something—anything—to use to get that human out of there. Quickly she saw that connected to the test chamber was a catwalk that extended toward her rail. Looking behind her, she found the other side of the catwalk, which was retracted toward the back of the shaft. There was a lever nearby—that was it.
"Over here!" she shouted as loud as her vocal processor would allow. "Come this way!"
The human poked his head out of the lift, staring in her direction. Good, he'd heard her.
"Get on the catwalk!" she called, wheeling back toward the lever. Frantically working through the unfamiliar commands, she eventually got her connector to telescope downward, lowering her until she was a few inches above the lever. She reached out toward it, stretching her handle until she managed to hook it around the top, and tugged.
With a series of nasty screeches and steady beeping noises, the catwalk extended, shuddering and groaning all the way until it met the other side. The human wasted no time in charging across it, his footfalls a constant bang, bang, bang as he approached her.
In the few seconds it took for him to cross the catwalk, Caroline took note of a few things: this human was not in test subject garb, he was wearing one of the ancient Quantum Tunneling Devices which he had strapped something else to, and he was carrying a prototype turret. But she couldn't get a good look at his face, and brought herself higher on her rail until she would be eye level with him. As he drew closer, she was about to say something when a voice called from above:
"Hey! What's that lunatic doing down there?"
Human and robot looked each other in the eye before racing down the rest of the catwalk, where a heavy door stood at the other side.
"Open it," Caroline panted, "hurry!"
The man threw all of his weight against the crash bar, forcing it open and sending a rush of stale air into the broken test shaft. Or at least, Caroline assumed that was what had happened—she could barely feel it, herself, and for a fleeting moment she wished she could actually, truly feel things, not experience this world through artificial tactile senses. For a moment her optic flicked over to the human, whose hair was ruffled by the gust.
But now wasn't the time for that. They had to get out of here before the other constructs could figure out what was happening—they had to get to someplace safe, at least temporarily.
A concrete goal. Finally.
"Follow me," Caroline said, rushing forward on her rail to wherever it would take her. She had an idea now, at least. Looking behind, she saw the man struggling to follow her and glancing back on occasion. She did the same, and her eye narrowed at the sight:
Several glowing optics stared after them, their lights fading as the two fled farther into the facility.
"Come on… just… just a little bit further…"
Why is she panting?
"It doesn't… it doesn't matter right now."
The core turned to give him a curious look, her handles moving rhythmically as she continued to simulate heavy breathing. "What… did you…?"
Doug waved a dismissive hand, trying to ignore the pain in his back, leg, and arm. If he stopped to think for too long, his adrenaline would give out, and he would be immobile in a vulnerable spot.
The robot seemed to understand, and continued on.
I don't like this.
"I don't either," he muttered, "but… what else can we do right now?"
Not follow a suspicious core we know nothing about?
"And do what instead?! I'm too tired to think—I can—" His foot caught on an uneven surface on the catwalk, and he staggered, nearly collapsing face-first onto the metal. But his free hand caught the railing, and he pulled himself upright. It took a few moments to completely steady himself as the world swam before his eyes, the catwalk twisting into impossible shapes.
The core's voice snapped him out of it.
"There's an… old… control room… up ahead… we're almost there."
Why is she helping us?
"I don't know."
I don't like this.
Doug exhaled sharply through his nose as he followed the unfamiliar core. From what he could see, she was leading him to a semi-large structure that had been built into the wall of the salt mine. Its windows were too fogged up to see out of, but maybe that was a good thing—it would keep them hidden from whatever prying optics might be lurking here… provided this core wasn't one of them.
She urged him toward the door, and he struggled to find the knob to open it. His hand shook so badly it took him three tries to grasp the doorknob, and another two tries to turn it all the way. As soon as he managed to pry the door open, he took several steps into the room before dropping heavily to his knees and falling again to his side.
We survived.
At least up to this point.
A few quiet whirring noises sounded above him, and, after waiting a moment, the core spoke again.
"What are you doing down here, anyway?"
No introduction, no explanation. The core spoke like someone in authority, and it made his stomach twist in anger.
"I could ask you the same thing," he said through gritted teeth. "I'm exhausted."
"There's no time to sleep. We have to act now."
"Easy for you to say. You're attached to a power supply. I'm not."
"No, I'm n…" Her voice faltered.
Slowly Doug turned his head, looking up just in time to see the core's glancing away. He observed her for a moment before releasing the turret he forgot he'd been carrying, and slowly, gratefully pulling his arms out from the straps of the Aperture Science Quantum Tunneling Device. With the literal weight off of his shoulders, he shakily pushed himself to a sitting position, leaning his back against the heavy device.
His eyebrows knit together in confusion as he looked over her. He'd seen most of the cores that had been constructed before the GLaDOS project turned lethal, and he felt he should recognize this one. But it was hard to see in the near-absence of light.
The core looked back at him, and, seeming to understand his predicament, moved back toward the doorway. He watched her lower herself on her connector, flail her handles a few times, and eventually hook her handle around a switch, which she pulled.
Immediately the room was flooded with light, and Doug covered his eyes against the brightness.
My eyes! Oh—she could have warned us!
"That, she could…"
"Could have what?" the core asked, wheeling toward him again. "You wanted the lights on, didn't you? So did I—I never got a good look at you."
"So you didn't—didn't just turn on your flashlight?" he asked, lifting his arms to glare at the core.
She didn't respond, but judging from the contraction of her optic and the slight narrowing of her eyelids, he got the feeling she somehow hadn't known she had a flashlight.
"…Who are you?" he asked.
Immediately the core's optic widened, and she gave a slight bob on her rail, only to pause and look aside, optic narrowing in a thoughtful manner.
Check her ID sticker.
Doug stared up at her, but couldn't get a good enough look at the blue-and-orange sticker on the core's right side. Using the large device behind him for support, he managed to get himself back to his feet, and grabbed at the core's lower handle.
"Ugh!" the core cried, her eyelids narrowing in disgust. She looked from his hand to his face, back and forth a few times, a look of unmistakable confusion briefly crossing her features. "Get your hands off of me!"
Odd. Usually cores were programmed to feel calm when someone grabbed their handles—either this core didn't have that programming, or she was fighting it. "Calm down," he said, trying to keep his voice steady. "I just want to see something." With one hand still gripping the core's handle, he reached out with his other hand, touching the round sticker on the core's faceplate and ignoring her flinch. His thumbnail traced the numbers, and the cube glanced up from its position behind the Quantum Tunneling Device.
I.D. P3010.
"…The Paranoia Core."
The core went still.
Doug glanced at her optic to find it very slowly contracting to its smallest aperture. Her handles went limp.
And so did Doug, as he slumped back into a sitting position, leaning against the bulk of the Quantum Tunneling Device.
There were over a hundred cores roaming about the facility, and he had run into what was quite possibly the least helpful core for his situation.
At least it's not the Intelligence Dampening Core.
"…Look." Her vocal processor simulated the effect of one talking through gritted teeth. "I know what I appear to be right now, and who you think I am. But I am not a personality construct. I—"
"That's enough," Doug said, shooting a glare. "I don't need this right now."
"Well." The core glared right back. "That's certainly a way to talk to someone who saved your life."
He blinked at that, releasing a sigh he hadn't realized he'd been holding. "...I guess you have a point."
No she doesn't. We don't know where her loyalties lie. For all we know, she could have led us into another dangerous position.
Sitting up a bit straighter, Doug looked around the room nervously. "Do you think so?"
"Do I think what?" The core tilted her optic.
"Nevermind." Doug pressed the heels of his hand into his face. "Just—okay, you led me out of the testing shaft. Thank you for that, but I need to figure things out on my own right now."
"We don't have time to sit around and figure things out!" the core cried. "I don't know how much time we have left, but if we don't act soon—!"
Oh, I'm sure.
"Look, I have more paranoia than I'm ever going to need right now without a core like you." He waved a dismissive hand at her, only to wince when he saw her optic contract in anger. "…Okay, so I know you can't help it—it's in your programming. It's—it's in mine too, so to speak, but you're—you're not going to be able to help me right now, all right?"
…Why are you showing sympathy to a core?
"B-because—"
"I'm not trying to help just you," she snapped. "I need you to help me."
That request certainly sounds appealing.
"I'll humor her," Doug whispered—
"What—?!"
—and winced. Oops. "Well… what do you need help with?"
For a moment the core stared at him before drooping in defeat. "Just… listen to me, please. The—the central AI has discovered the human vault, and is sending the humans through overly-dangerous test chambers. We need to stop her."
Doug stared.
…Oh.
"The central AI?" he repeated. "It—no. GLaDOS was destroyed. I—I saw her ruins myself." Unless—unless I was hallucinating—
You weren't.
"She wasn't destroyed. She was reactivated very recently by a personality construct."
This isn't right.
yes it is your plan didn't work
"But she went corrupt, and a rogue test subject initiated a core transfer…"
She's making this up.
no she's telling the truth because you're an idiot and didn't think through anything and this is all your fault
"…and she went with the test subject to Old Aperture, where…"
Don't listen to her.
you should because she's absolutely right and you sent that girl to her death BECAUSE OF YOUR OWN IDIOCY
"…and now she's going to—"
"STOP."
His voice came out louder than he had intended, but he had to speak over the voices before he couldn't hear anything else.
The core, meanwhile, jumped back on her rail, looking down at him in surprise.
"I have had—" he hissed, "—enough of this—" he pointed at his head "—to last me a lifetime. I don't need to hear it from you."
She stared at him for a few seconds before starting to regain her composure. Optic narrowing, she inched closer on her rail. "What I'm telling you is the truth. If you don't help me, you'll have the guilt of refusing to save thousands of—"
He grabbed the nearest object and flung it at her.
The core screeched back on her rail as the turret prototype came inches from striking her. It clattered to the floor, one of its legs bending at an odd angle.
It took Doug a moment to realize he was panting and shaking, drenched in cold sweat. His head was still pounding, but his anger had drained, leaving him with a sickening mixture of guilt, emptiness, and exhaustion. "…I-I…" he stammered, his body slumping down to a sitting position. "I… I'm so tired, I just…"
The core glared down at him before spinning on her rail and leaving the room in a huff.
…So sleep. The cube was suddenly at his side, nudging itself against him. We're out of danger for now. You need to take care of yourself.
"But…" Slowly he let himself slump over onto his side again, wrapping his body around the cube. "What… what if… she's…?"
She's not right. Don't think about anything she said.
"H-how do you know?"
I know. Go to sleep, Doug.
With his bad leg still aching, his back still sore, and his head still pounding, he found it difficult to rest, but eventually the exhaustion overcame him. The cube settled next to him, and Doug fell asleep.
Having no fist to hit something with, Caroline swung her spherical body into a wall.
She bounced back with a loud bang, and cringed as a ringing noise resonated throughout her form. Her head pounded in pain—real or imagined, she didn't care—and she could feel frustrated tears stinging at her eyes.
All of that work—all of those days and days of searching the facility and running around Old Aperture, getting lost over and over again, hearing endless insults from any construct she talked to, and finally risking her life in rescuing a human—for nothing. And why?
Because she had taken over the body of the Paranoia Core.
It was no wonder none of the cores wanted to talk to her. It was no wonder she was constantly brushed aside and insulted. It was no wonder the only human she had managed to rescue didn't trust her. Because of one poor decision had she made in her haste and terror, she had destroyed any chances of stopping GLaDOS.
Caroline pounded her head against the wall again, and cringed back when her system alerted her that she'd acquired a dent in her hull.
She hated her system, she hated her artificial feelings and senses, she hated her reputation, she hated this body—
Once more she nearly hit herself against the wall, but instead just leaned against it, draping her arm over her eyes. No, she didn't have any arms now, and she only had one eye, but she was too exhausted to care. She'd forced herself to go for days without sleep mode—which was fine, physically, as she did not need it. But she was not a robot. Not mentally.
Her vision blurred momentarily as she pushed herself away from the wall and walked around the room, looking at the gigantic consoles that stood against the walls, the faded 50s-styled posters, and the old coffee cups sitting on some ancient desks. Hidden under a thick layer of dust was a dark brown stain from decades-old coffee. She knew it was there only because she'd been the one to spill it—normally she was careful, but one of the new employees had bumped into her.
She'd never actually manned this control room. Overseen it, yes, but she'd never done much with these machines. One of them was a gigantic, primitive computer, and the other controlled the repulsion gel for a small section of the facility. It only took a few people to run this control center, and she would only come in to check on them every once in a while. Otherwise, she usually had more important things to do, like overseeing the tests that the repulsion gel was sent to.
She looked down at one of the machines, remembering the attendants that would diligently watch the consoles to make sure the gel pressure didn't get too high. The displays indicating such things were faded with dust, now, and she reached out a hand to brush it away.
Her handle came over a foot short.
Caroline blinked back to reality, finding herself in the core body once more. So she was hallucinating now. Perfect.
Upper lid drooping in weariness, she trudged forward on her rail, back into the room she'd left the human in. She had to blink in surprise when she found him wrapped around a battered companion cube and sleeping soundly. It was certainly strange to see, but he'd been acting strangely before anyway—and it was then she remembered what he'd said.
So, he was paranoid?
Before she could stop herself, Caroline let out a laugh—an utterly humorless, bitter laugh.
A human with a working body and a broken mind, versus a human with no body and a perfectly functioning mind.
Oh the irony.
With another bitter chuckle, she turned around, rolling back into the other room. She'd gone far too long without sleep mode, and it was time to remedy that.
As she began to initiate the program that would put her into the energy-saving mode, she imagined herself sitting on a creaky chair and leaning against one of the dust-covered desks nearby. It wouldn't be the most comfortable position, but it would be better than sleeping on the floor, wouldn't it?
Imagine if he saw her like that.
Hah, Caroline, did you spend all night here again? You need to take better care of yourself, kid.
"Y-yes… sir… M-mister…"
Whirr…
A human female lay in the midst of a test chamber, her hair disheveled, her face stained with dried tears and mucus, and her jumpsuit stained with sweat and blood. Behind her lay a few deactivated turrets and a couple still-pounding crushers, and before her lay an acid pit with a number of small surfaces scattered throughout. A locked door stood at the far wall.
The woman turned her head toward the door before shakily lifting herself onto her arms.
"Oh, good. I was afraid you had given up. What a shame that would be. After all, you've come so far, and you have so much farther to go."
Her hands curled into fists as she slowly began to crawl.
"Although given your actions, it seems your mentality has been reduced to that of a small child. Your file states that you are, in fact, an adult, so please, act like one."
She gave no sign of having heard the AI, and continued to struggle forward.
"These tests were meant to turn you into a killer, not a toddler. Show some dignity, and g—"
The human plunged herself headfirst into the acid pit.
For several long moments, the chamber went deadly silent, other than the hiss of acid as it devoured both fabric and flesh. Nothing stirred; even the crushers had stopped pounding into the floor. If it weren't for the bubbles rising to the surface of the acid and the deactivated turrets littering the floor, there would have been nothing to prove that a test subject had just been there.
The chamber crumpled in on itself.
Panels smashed against panels until the mechanical arms broke; crushers were rammed into each other; bubbling, thick acid spewed out of the disrupted floor of the chamber; and half a dozen turrets lost any chance of being reactivated again as their bodies shattered beneath the debris. Hideous screeches, groans, and grinding noises echoed throughout the constantly-changing halls of Aperture Science—a tortured protest against the forced implosion. For a few minutes the chamber continued to force itself inward, as though being pressed on either side by two gigantic hands, until finally the mechanics supporting the room cracked and gave way, causing the entire chamber to collapse into the facility's innards.
That had been the last human.