This incident, discouraging as it was, only seemed to make him more eager to show her how good he was. Not out of any sense of liking or admiration, (definitely) but just... for the sake of it, really. A goal in itself, showing that he was good at stuff.
Not that he'd been all that successful in that so far... but, hey, he didn't have many options here, did he? And at least he'd tried. And that had to count for something, right? Couldn't you get a slightly better score for trying on a test (even if you failed horribly)? Did trying to impress her count as a test?
Well, hacking was pretty much out at the moment. Maybe he could lull her into a false sense of security? He'd figure something out eventually. And, on the plus side, by the time he did she would probably be overconfident. Multitasking points: +1.
But She knew what he was thinking. She might even control it, partially (otherwise, why did he hate the thought of Chell dying?). She could probably stop him from coming up with anything, if She wanted to. And She knew just how to make him look stupid. And if She was reading his mind then She probably understood it better than he did and he was beginning to panic again.
And since everything he could do was based off of his thoughts, he couldn't surprise her, couldn't access the mainframe because She was watching and would stop him the moment he decided to. And he couldn't look good by thinking, because She was smarter than him anywa- No, he was smart, She wasn't any better than him but if that was really true then why hadn't he escaped ye- He was working on that.
"Hey."
Oh, look at that, you're talking to me again. While I'm being completely incapable of telling you my opinions on the matter. What, did you- click- "-forget that I'm- Oh."
"You know what's odd? Your thoughts route to your Auditory Centre even when you're not talking. Now what does that say about y-"
"Get to the point."
"Remember when you accidentally rammed into the Neurotoxin release button?"
You listened to me? His optic brightened slightly. "Yeah. They- kinda fired me for that. No idea why, but there you go. They did."
"It actually did release the neurotoxin."
"...So?"
"You killed a lot of scientists."
He actually felt a little happier. "Really? Hah, guess I'm more like you then I thought."
"...You're really cold, you know that?"
He laughed. "Hypocrite."
"Are you feeling okay?" He blinked a couple times.
"Oh, I'm, uh- fine! I'm really feeling quite... as well as could be expected. No complaints here." He laughed nervously and launched into a monologue that was probably unintelligible to everyone but himself, ending with "-why?"
"You seem to be reacting... oddly... to my presence."
He glanced suspiciously at Her (and by that he meant a random patch of wall). "Are you implying something...? What are you implying? Huh?"
Something jabbed into one of the seams in his casing. "AH!"
