Troubled Minds
Chapter Four: Flashbacks
Doug Rattmann sighed as he looked down into his coffee cup, the pool of dark brown liquid rippled slightly as the voices in his head fought over the obvious decision of whether to speak to the beautiful woman sitting across from him or not. The yellowing walls of Chell's apartment only added to the lightly tanned glow her skin gave off as she stared curiously at him. Doug glanced down at his hands cupped protectively around the coffee mug, the dim lighting of her kitchenette made his skin look pasty and grey, he mentally noted he'd never look as radiant as she did. He was much too old and crazy.
Doug noted the silence that had developed between them, but ignored it as he began to lose himself in his thoughts. Chell didn't seem to mind, she was used to silence. Rattmann took another sip and began his story...
~x~
Doug was one of the top scientists in his department and he hated his job. He had used to enjoy it, before the CEO of Aperture Science, Cave Johnson, went mad and forced everyone to work on his one dying wish. Doug did not feel right about the project, not that it was of any his concern. Many of the other scientists had their doubts about it as well.
It wasn't until after Mr. Johnson's death that Doug's weird feelings about the project increased. Caroline, Mr. Johnson's enthusiastic assistant, had taken over the company, and although she did well in keeping up with the CEO's dying wishes, there was one thing she just couldn't do.
Cave's last dying wish was to have his mind digitally backed up and uploaded into an artificial intelligence, and if he had died before the technology wasn't developed by the time he died, he wanted Caroline to take his place.
Doug hated his job.
One morning, after an all-nighter in his office, working on some overdue paperwork, Doug heard bloodcurdling screams of protest and fear as Caroline was dragged down the hallway to her inevitable doom. That morning, Doug watched as the life drained from the woman's eyes.
Doug hated his job. He would never get away from it.
At first, the other scientists in Doug's department thought of it as a success! A triumph! They had literally pushed the world's knowledge of science into the future, and had played God. But the celebration ended quickly when they discovered the Genetic Life form and Disk Operating System was quite unstable.
Doug had been talking to his co-worker Henry, an average man with brown, balding hair and a grin that could cheer anyone up. They had been chatting about the upcoming Bring Your Daughter To Work Day. Doug had no children, nor was he married, his mental illnesses had stopped him from getting too social with anyone, but Henry on the other hand, had a little girl he and his blonde-haired wife, had adopted a few years back. Henry went on about how he was so excited to bring her in and let her see what daddy did. Doug felt an overwhelming sense of dread as Henry went on and on about his little "dark-haired sweetie" and how she'd want to follow in her daddy's footsteps after she visited. But Doug just shook his head slowly and kept quiet.
Bring Your Daughter to Work Day turned out to be a disaster. Some idiots in Doug's department had decided to start up the GLaDOS system early and the AI went nuts; filling the first few floors with deadly neurotoxin and practically killing a good amount of employees, and their daughters. The scientists had stopped GLaDOS before she could go any farther though; shutting her down and beginning work on a new project they called: The Personality Spheres Initiative.
Daughters who had survived were immediately put into stasis, and later forgotten about when Aperture employees decided to sacrifice themselves for the sphere project. Eventually though, the daughters were woken in order to be trained and possibly recruited for human testing.
The second largest incident GLaDOS had caused happened long after the sphere project had been abandoned and Henry, who had put all his trust into GLaDOS, had activated her out of the belief the personality cores would work. But Doug knew better. That day, Doug was the only survivor.
Doug looked frantically through the test subject files, noting most were either dead or would be too heavily brain damaged to know what they were doing. He had glanced down at his Companion Cube, patting it gently before changing the testing order...
~x~
Doug looked up at Chell. His cube let out a soft growl of jealously. Doug smirked inwardly at the jealous display before finishing his story. He twitched involuntarily as he downed the last of his coffee. The silence was beautiful.
Stop gawking at her and get to the point, Doug! We don't have time for you to be drooling over some woman you just met, The cube announced. Doug jumped, and ran a shaky hand through his thick and already messy hair.
Chell sat in blissful silence, seemingly unaware of what the cube had just said. She can't hear me you idiot. She's got her own cube.
Doug nodded and rubbed the back of his neck, managing to spit out, "Aperture is in danger. Everyone in a 50 mile radius is in danger."
Chell, reverting to her old ways, stayed silent and opted to tilt her head questioningly at him. She raised one eyebrow at him and gave him the look his coworkers used to give him. It was look that said "You're crazy."
Doug shook his head and buried his face into the palms of his hands. "She's malfunctioning! She'll blow up if she doesn't test a human soon."
Chell immediately understood. Her face drained of all colour and her eyes widened in terror.
Doug looked up and stared into the pools of blueish-grey that were her eyes. "You're cube warned you of danger... The cube never lies, it is your friend. The cube was right. GLaDOS is on the verge of nuclear explosion..."
Author's Note: Hey! Sorry for such the long wait! I'm getting a lot of really nice reviews! Thanks a bunch for those! By the way, I always reply to questions via PM. I might end up doing an FAQ in one of the later chapters, but for now this works. Also, if you haven't yet done so, please visit my editor's tumblr VampireLady666(dot)Tumblr(dot)com and tell her thanks for all the support and love she's given me throughout this process! She lives in a different time zone than I do so we end up talking at strange hours about everything and anything. But that's not the point!
Oh I also want to warn you all, Chapter 5 is literally the shortest chapter in the entire story so far. It's only one page typed. I'm hoping to have it uploaded by tonight as well.
