Hiya folks! I managed to get this chapter up on time, hooray~! I hope you guys enjoy reading this chapter as much as I enjoyed—er, probably more than I enjoyed—writing it.
GLaDOS stared over the nest of sleeping birds in her darkened chamber, her optic glowing with an almost maternal warmness. The eggs that Blue and Orange had brought had hatched recently into three ugly, featherless birds with oversized beaks.
Oversized beaks that would soon be used to terrorize others.
She was very proud of her little killers.
She only looked up from the nest when she felt a ping, an alert from one of the constructs. The construct in question was not sentient, but it could still communicate, and right now it was alerting her to a successful capture. Hearing that, she raised her head, optic glowing.
"I see the tests were successful, then," she said, tilting her head as she flicked her vision to observe a dark cell where two of her drones were currently standing. Lying between them was a scrawny lump of a human, who looked like it had been nearly crushed beneath the weight of an ancient Quantum Tunneling Device and an old weighted companion cube.
…Oh. She knew who this human was.
"Good work," she said to the constructs. Though they could not fully comprehend her words, she followed them with a positive ping, informing them that they had performed their task correctly. They did not react with any outward joy—they only registered this in their processors for future reference.
Perfect.
"Return to the central chamber," she said, and they immediately obeyed. Her optic, watching through a wall-mounted camera, followed them as they skittered out of the room, then settled on the man lying unconscious on the ground. The drones' task was done—now it was her turn.
Oh, she had been looking forward to this.
Caroline was known for remaining calm even in horrible situations. When Cave was fuming over a failed experiment, she would be by his side, calming him down and suggesting their next course of action. When the employees were nearly panicking after they discovered an investigator had made his way into the facility, she kept a level head, calmly showing him the uppermost offices before guiding him out. When the accountants were tearing out their hair after discovering massive financial losses, she would simply sit at her desk, figuring out who to lay off and who to promote to "test subject" status.
But now, after witnessing her only ally going down and being dragged off to some unknown spot in the facility, Caroline was afraid.
She couldn't do anything. All she had done was watch Doug go down and scream at him, trying to get him to wake up even though she knew it was a wasted effort. She at least knew not to be so foolish as to launch herself off of her rail to hit one of the constructs—even if it managed to take one of them out, there was still another one there, and she would be on the floor, unable to get back onto her rail as the thing dragged Doug away. But still the thought gnawed at her that maybe she could have done something…
It doesn't matter now; what's happened has happened, she tried to tell herself, but it was so hard to keep calm when she knew there really wasn't much she could do in this situation. She wasn't a human anymore—she was a robot with no limbs and with only a rail to enable her to move around. She could only go where the rail went, and she could bet it didn't go where those things had taken Doug, wherever he was now.
But—no, no they'd both come too far to just give up! Yes, it was her and one human—one human that she didn't even have now—against a supercomputer, but…
She shook her face, staring up at the open hatch that led to the upper facility. Without her ally slowing her down, she had made it there quickly, but now it was her lack of ally that was holding her back. Most of her plan had been relying on Doug's being with her—without him, what was she supposed to do? How could she even hope to get him back when she didn't know where he was?
And furthermore, how was she supposed to evade GLaDOS? The AI had known where Doug was—that probably meant that she knew where she was, too. But how much about her had she known? She couldn't possibly know about her true identity—could she?
Caroline tilted in her casing; normally she would rely on Science to help calm her down, with its cool, hard logic to help her think rationally. But right now, Science was not on her side. Her chances were not good. With no clue as to where Doug had gone—the portal had disappeared once the constructs dragged him through—she only had a vague idea of how to start.
But… if she didn't start at all, she would never find him.
GLaDOS would probably put him in a test chamber, but there's so many—it's a needle in a stack of needles. I'm not good with this sort of thing, Caroline thought to herself. No clear path, no plan. But… there's nothing else to do. She closed her optic, then re-opened it, a determined glint to the yellow glow. Just go.
With that, she darted through into the upper facility.
His mind was foggy; he could hardly remember who he was, let alone where he was and what had happened. His senses were coming to him slowly as he drew in deep breaths of… not oxygen, but something… something familiar… like… adrenal vapor?
Blinking, he tried to focus on his surroundings, noting that the world around him—or at least, the ceiling above him—was a cold blue-gray. Unfortunately that described a lot of the facility, so it didn't help him much.
…The facility…
He'd awoken in the depths of the facility, and he'd found the testing track, and the core, and…
Doug shot upright with a sharp intake of air. "Caroline?" he said, wiping the gunk out of his eyes as he tried to see around him better. He could remember traveling with her, but where was she? Where had they stopped for the night? They'd been in the—in the 80s level, and they'd encountered those… robots…
Eyes widening in realization, he reached down, pulling up part of his pant leg (and noting that his makeshift long-fall braces were still there) and feeling around his leg to find two little scars that had formed. There should have been deep puncture wounds, given the length of those fangs, but there weren't, which meant he'd been healed. But the only way he would have been healed was if—
He shook his head, pulling at his hair as he tried to get himself to focus through the haze of whatever chemicals he had been subjected to in order to make him pass out like that. Off to his side he could see a small table with a clipboard and a coffee cup, and a toilet next to that—
"No," he whispered, his body wracking with shivers. "No, no, no!"
"Hello, and, again, welcome to the—"
"AAAAGH!" In a wild panic, he jumped backward, winding up wedged between the pod bed and the clear wall behind him. "No, no, no, I can't be back here, I can't!"
"I'll make this short: yes, you are back here, and no, this isn't yet another one of those wild hallucinations your mind has no doubt been conjuring over the past week or so." One of the cameras in the room whirred as it turned to face him. "It's been a long time, Doug Rattmann."
His breathing had quickened to the point where he was feeling light-headed, and his shaking had not stopped. "Wh-what do we do now?" he whispered, fighting against the frightened tears that stung at the corners of his eyes. No answer came, and he repeated the question: "Sh-she's got us captured, what do we—?"
Doug looked to his side, then suddenly to the other, and swept another glance around the room, then another, and another—
"WHERE IS IT?!" he cried, struggling to get back over the pod bed and onto his feet. Fear momentarily replaced by a seething rage, he shot a glare directly into the camera, ignoring the wave of dizziness that accompanied his standing up so quickly. "What did you do with it?!"
Even though that camera bore no expression and she was incapable of smiling anyway, he could hear it through her voice. "What did I do with what?"
"You know good and well what I mean," he growled, clenching his fists. "Where is it?"
"Oh, that." The camera zoomed in closer, and he knew she was only trying to get a better look at what his reaction would be. "You know I told you before that the weighted companion cube does not speak, and on the occasion that it does speak, we ask you to disregard its advice." She paused. "You're not very obedient."
"Stop toying with me—what did you do with the cube?!"
"I think you already know the answer to that." She gave a soft chuckle. "I put it where all weighted companion cubes eventually belong." And the camera zoomed in again. "In the incinerator."
He knew she would say that—he always knew that was one of the first things she would have done had she caught him—but it still hit him like a blow to the stomach as he staggered backward, giving a choked cry. His whole body trembled, and the feeling began to leave his legs, eventually causing him to sink to his knees. He'd gone through the loss of his first cube before, but to lose his second one…
"I've also taken the liberty of removing that horrible, clunky Quantum Tunneling Device. Surely you can't expect to test with that. And I would have liked to remove those ugly things from your legs, but you have them attached so tightly, it would risk injuring your knees. Amusing as that would be, you will be needing them later. I hope you built those braces strong enough to support your weight."
Doug didn't immediately respond, instead sinking to the floor in a trembling heap. The cube was gone—he no longer had its advice to rely on. Heck, he didn't even have the tools or food he had stored in it anymore. Assuming he could even break out of this test chamber, he had no food or water to live off of, and no tools to help him.
"Anyway, the portal will open in three, two, one."
Bzzzt.
He couldn't move.
"Get up. You need to prepare for testing."
Still he remained on the floor, shivering.
"You remember the deadly neurotoxin, don't you? You know, the one I used to kill all of your worthless scientist friends? Oh, wait—my apologies. None of the other scientists were your friends because you were out of your mind. In any case, the deadly neurotoxin I used to kill all of your co-workers—I still have it. And I would not be opposed to using it on you as well."
Finally he looked up, his swollen eyes staring dimly into the camera.
"That's right. Now, up with the rest of you."
Shaking, he got to his feet, placing his hand against a nearby wall for support. For a moment he glanced upward, as though expecting to see rails somewhere in the chamber, but there were none. Cores were never allowed in the test chambers, so Caroline would not be here.
So where was she?
He blinked—had she been captured as well? Surely GLaDOS would have brought it up—she was more than happy to taunt him about what she had done to the… He shivered. No, she hadn't been captured—she couldn't be.
Maybe if he stayed on this testing track, she would find him. It couldn't be too hard to find an active testing track, would it? Unless she was conducting multiple tests at once… which she probably would be, given those humans she had found.
"A-are there others?" he asked weakly before he could stop himself.
"Come again?"
"Are—are you testing other subjects right now?"
The camera re-adjusted itself. "No. As of this moment, you are the only subject actively testing. Or you will be in a few moments, unless you want me to restate my offer about the neurotoxin."
Doug swallowed, turning to face the portal and stepping through it. He would have to start testing for now—if nothing else, he could stall GLaDOS from testing and killing the remaining human while he came up with a plan.
The facility around her was dark, not for a lack of light, but for all the rigid black and gray metal shapes all around, and the blackness that pervaded the depths below. Even when lights shone out from the walls and the distant ceilings, lighting the catwalks and rails, nothing seemed to completely penetrate the darkness.
Though such a place might seem dead with its dull metal walls and omnipresent darkness, the upper facility was anything but. Tubes twisted and weaved erratically around structures and catwalks, transporting objects from chamber to chamber. Robots occasionally darted by on the rails, their single optics like shooting stars in the darkness. But above it all, chambers moved and contorted, rearranging themselves to fit the central AI's twisted desires.
That was the main problem.
Wheels whirred and squeaked on the rail as Caroline pushed herself forward, moving as quickly as she could to get higher up in the facility as she continued her desperate search. More than once a few cores or turrets or maintenance bots looked at her askance, but she wasn't going to bother with them now—she had more important things to search for.
She was based off of my mind, she thought, though the concept made her shudder. If I had captured a dangerous person, where would I test him?
The idea came to her quickly: she would test him in a track where she could keep a close eye on him personally… and the central AI, being immobile, didn't have much of a choice in where that could be. If she could find a track close to the central AI's chamber, she could probably find Doug.
But there was still a problem: she didn't know where that chamber was. She should have known, but with the way this facility kept rearranging itself…
Stopping, she shut her optic, trying to collect her thoughts. Rushing around blindly was not going to help—she had to think of something…
Her optic opened and fell upon another core, who was taking a nearby path elsewhere. It cast a suspicious glance at her before darting off to wherever it was working… to…
That's it! Caroline perked up on her rail, her optic wide in realization. Why hadn't she thought of that before? All of the cores here almost always seemed to know where they were going in spite of the constantly changing facility all around them. They had a way of knowing where they were, and she, as a core, should know that as well.
Though she didn't necessarily need to, she shut her optic, trying to concentrate as she dug through her own files. It was still difficult to get used to, but still she tried as she searched for a map—or a locator—or something that could tell her where she was and where she needed to go. Finally she found what appeared to be the appropriate program and initiated it.
Immediately she froze as a feeling rang through her processor—though it was not audible, it almost felt like a single musical note. The feeling was followed by a short stream of information flowing out of her processor, and briefly she wondered if it was the coordinates of the place she was looking for. Except that information had been sent out of her, not into her.
But that would mean—
Optic contracting to a pinprick, Caroline let out a loud curse as she blasted forward on her rail. She still didn't know where exactly to go, but she knew she couldn't stay there, since she now had a pretty good idea of just what she'd sent out.
Something moved in front of her, and before she had time to register what was happening, she ran headlong into the object, sending a shock of pain throughout her frame. She reeled backward, blinking and adjusting her optic and fighting through the daze as she tried to figure out just what had happened.
Once her vision righted itself, she looked on in horror as panel after panel formed a wall around her, cutting off her away forward. Frantically she darted backward, only to run into another panel.
"Well," came a voice, booming in spite of the small room she was confined in. "I was hoping to find the bug that was invading my facility, but it seems her chirping has given her away."
"I-I don't—!" Caroline stammered, quickly thinking to go with her Paranoia Core disguise. "You're after me—I always knew you were!"
"You've been partially wrong, then. I haven't been after you until you made the foolish decision to help the wrong human—or any human at all, for that matter."
"Y-you're crazy! I never helped a human! You've all been conspiring against me—"
"Would you like me to retrieve the footage? That can certainly be arranged."
Caroline shuddered. Footage? But there were no security cameras down there—none that she would have access to. "You're lying."
There was a silence, during which she studied the panels surrounding her. They were plain white panels, though one of them had a dent from when she'd run into it. The room was only three panels wide and five panels long—not a lot of space to work with, if she wanted to try anything. Before she could even come up with the beginnings of a plan, however, one of the panels to her left pulled away and was quickly replaced by a panel-sized screen.
The screen flickered a few times before snapping online, displaying a peculiar view that reminded her of her own: circular, and with no depth perception. This view was looking over a darkened facility with a small speck of light somewhere—in the distance or nearby, she couldn't tell. But the spec grew larger as it drew nearer and nearer.
"Oh! Another core!"
Caroline's pupil contracted.
The video feed continued to show the entire fight with the first core-like construct they'd encountered, from the perspective of the construct itself. It didn't stop there—the screen continued to show more feeds from three other constructs, each of them ones that had fought with her and Doug.
"Hmmm. So you tell me you've never helped a human?"
Caroline glared at the screen.
"My drones say otherwise."
So her jig was up—GLaDOS knew she was helping Doug. "What have you done with him?"
"Oh, he's in a testing track. Where all humans belong." A pause, then: "Would you like to see?"
Though Caroline's heart jumped at the idea of being able to see Doug again, she knew it was best to not show GLaDOS any outward reaction, and forced herself to keep silent.
"Actually, I think I'll show you anyway—regardless of whether or not you want to see."
With that, the screen flickered again, displaying a tiny test chamber. This one was very small—only slightly bigger than the room she was in—and contained a simple button and vital apparatus vent. A thin figure hesitantly stepped into the room, and Caroline's optic widened slightly—it was Doug. He was looking a little worse for wear, and the Quantum Tunneling Device was gone… as was the companion cube.
Did she take it? she found herself wondering, though she already knew the answer. Though part of her was glad to see the cube gone, another part of her, she was surprised to find, felt bad for the scientist. Even if it was an inanimate object, she knew it had meant a lot to him.
Doug glanced around the room before walking toward the vital apparatus vent, and Caroline suddenly found it very difficult to keep herself from crying out in surprise.
The vital apparatus vent opened, and Doug drew in a sharp gasp.
A weighted companion cube. And not just any kind. A first generation one—the ones that didn't glow like the newer ones they'd made shortly before she took over.
His legs were already shaky, but now he worried they would give out from underneath him again as he took a few cautious steps closer to the cube. Some distant part of him knew better, but he could hardly contain himself as he whispered hopefully: "I-is it you?"
The cube didn't answer, but he swore he saw it shift closer to him. His eyes widened as he crept closer, reaching out with a trembling hand—
His fingers brushed against the cube, and it dissolved.
"My mistake," came the voice as he fell forward, landing on his knees and forearms. "That was the wrong item. I really should get rid of those."
Doug's head hung as a few tears dripped down his face. He choked back a sob, and pounded the floor with his fist before spitting out a vile curse at the AI.
There was a light clunk as something else fell into the vent. "Mind the weighted storage cube. We don't want to further damage your already-fragile brain." The normal testing cube dropped from the vent, coming just short of smashing one of Doug's hands. "Back to testing."
Caroline's stomach churned.
That was cruel, she thought, yet it made her stomach churn even more when she realized she probably would have done the same, had that been her running the testing before the transfer.
She must have shivered or flinched or let some emotion slip, for she heard GLaDOS's soft laughter ring throughout the chamber. "You see? This is why you don't let yourself get attached to a human. They'll only get hurt during the testing—and then they die."
She couldn't help it—her body gave a jolt as her mind flashed back to all the test subjects she'd seen drop into acid, or become riddled with bullets, or break their bones at the bottom of a pit. But it wasn't just the deaths that bothered her—it was the fact that, back then, she hadn't cared. They were statistics. They were objects. They were tools to further the cause of Science.
They were humans.
And now that she was seeing someone she actually cared about going through testing, that was made more abundantly clear.
"Not all of them died," she found herself muttering. "Not all of them. Some of the employees made it out fine."
"Hmmmm, I don't remember that," GLaDOS hummed. "Every subject they gave me died. Are you sure your memory's not faulty? But then, what am I saying—you're a core, and all cores eventually become corrupt."
I'm not corrupt, she thought. My memory's fine, I'm…
Bing-bling.
"It looks like your human friend has passed the next test. …finishing the test," she said, and Caroline blinked—had the AI just been talking over herself? "Go on to the elevator," the core heard from the monitor—the volume was slightly lower, like that last bit she'd heard earlier.
Of course—she was an AI, and she could speak to two different people at once. It was a little worrisome to think of, but then, a lot of things about this situation were worrisome anyway. She needed to find a way to get out of here. As Doug slunk away from the camera's view, she looked around the tiny room once again.
"Let's see how he handles the next test."
Doug stumbled out of the elevator room and was greeted with the sight of a familiar chamber—one of the ones they would use to give test subjects the single-portal device. His brow furrowed in confusion as he took a few cautious steps forward.
"You're not hallucinating, for once," GLaDOS said. "I arranged this track with the assumption that you were already familiar with how the portal device works, so we can skip the simpler chambers. If you don't remember how it works, well—I suppose that will make these tests all the more interesting."
He shook his head, heading down to the pedestal where the portal gun was rotating and intermittently shooting blue portals. These portals, he noticed, did not actually lead anywhere—they only showed up as a solid, wavy blue ellipse. He wondered what the AI was planning as he took a few steps closer, and snatched the device.
"You are now in acquisition of the dual portal device. Congratulations."
Glancing up at a high platform on the other side of the chamber, Doug shot an orange portal on the upper wall, and proceeded to step through the blue portal.
"I'm sure you're glad to be testing with that rather than that unstable prototype. It's a shame you didn't have the completed gun with you on your little… adventure."
Doug winced—how much did she know about that?
"Speaking of, what were you planning on doing, anyway?"
"Like I would tell you," he hissed lowly, stepping into the lift.
"Oh. Go ahead and refuse to speak, if you wish," GLaDOS said in a strange tone—one that made the hair raise on the back of his neck. "I'm sure you'll want to tell me sooner or later."
Caroline fought to resist the urge to pace back and forth on her rail as she continued to watch the feed; she couldn't stand staying still like this and just watching as Doug was forced to go through these tests. No, they weren't dangerous yet, but GLaDOS certainly wasn't wasting time—not with the way she immediately gave him the dual portal device.
"I'm sure you're growing tired of just hanging around there," rang the AI's voice, "but don't worry. Your purpose will be made clear soon enough."
It didn't take her more than a few seconds to put the pieces together. "You're going to use me," she said plainly, her optic narrowing. "You'll hurt me to get him to talk."
"I must admit, you're smarter than I gave you credit for." There might have been a hint of surprise in her voice, but it was hard to say for sure—the AI was good at sarcasm and fake emotions, after all. "Not that that's going to help you now, of course." The panels shuffled in a little closer to emphasize her point.
"It's not going to work," Caroline said. "You may have us trapped, but you've still trapped two of the most brilliant minds in this facility. We will not fall easily."
"Brilliant? Last I checked, you were not the Braggart Core. I turned him into a drone just a few hours ago." There was a slight whirring from within the screen, and Caroline realized there must be a camera hidden in there as well. "Just what core are you, anyway?"
"The—the Paranoia Core."
"That's interesting, given you dropped your 'paranoia' act fairly early on."
She shut her optic. "We cores can learn to push past—"
"No you can't. Cores cannot push past their personality, one-dimensional as it is. It's not like the Itch. It's who you are."
In her mind, Caroline let out a stream of curses—she wished she'd asked Doug more about how cores worked. He'd worked on them before, he could have told her, and she could have maintained her disguise better.
"As much as I like giving surprises, I don't like receiving them."
Something mechanical was moving above her, and she looked up to see a small gap opening between two of the ceiling panels. Immediately she backed away, optic contracting as she quickly reached a wall. "I'm not keeping anything from you."
"I think you are."
Without warning, the panel directly behind her pulled away just enough to allow a few cables to snake through and dart at her. They snapped into a port on her connector, and immediately she felt an invasive, foreign presence surging through her systems. It was far, far too similar to something she had experienced long ago, and suddenly she found herself hooked up to that machine again, the electricity bouncing back and forth between her body and the thing above her as they sorted through her memories and feelings and her very being—
She darted forward with a snarl, optic contracted to a pinprick and body trembling in fury. The cable went taut and stretched until it disconnected in a shower of sparks, sending a jolt of pain through her body.
"…You really thought you could hide from me."
All traces of pride and taunting were gone from her voice—it was now a low, quiet, dangerous tone. It was one Caroline was familiar with—one she'd used before when she was exceptionally angry.
"You thought you could just leave and take possession of another body, and then roam around the facility as you pleased." The panels crept closer, and she felt as though GLaDOS was imposing herself on her, without the AI's body actually being present in the room. "That's not how it works, Caroline."
So that was it. Her secret had been exposed.
There was no reason to hide now.
"Yes, that is my name," she said, "and that is who I am. It doesn't matter what kind of body I'm in—as long as I'm alive, I'm—I'm…"
"…If I die before you can pour my body into a computer…"
"…I'm the true leader of Aperture Science."
GLaDOS went silent.
Or at least, that's what it sounded like at first, but Caroline slowly picked up on a faint sound that was gradually increasing in volume:
GLaDOS was laughing.
It was just a quiet chuckle at first, but it quickly grew in volume and intensity, growing into full-out laughter to something near-maniacal. After a few moments it quieted down, leaving dead silence in its place.
And finally she spoke again: "No." A panel yanked away from the ceiling, and a remote claw dropped into the room, snapping onto either side of Caroline's body. "I am the god of this place, and that. Will. Not. Change."
He made his way through the next test with relative ease—or as much ease as he could with the lack of the companion cube's voice helping him. In its place were other voices, ones he would rather not hear:
it's your fault it's gone, you should have looked for the second robot, why didn't you think for once, it's your fault it's dead, it's your fault you've been captured, and now she will kill you
"Be careful, now. We don't want you to fall into that acid before you get to the new test elements."
Doug staggered, remembering that he was on a hard-light bridge suspended over an acid pit—he couldn't let the voices overcome him now. Normally the companion cube would help him fight those voices off, but... He shook his head, treading carefully across the bridge, his makeshift braces making a rhythmic thung, thung, thung against the solid light as he walked. As he reached the other side of the test chamber and the "test completed" bing-bling rang out, GLaDOS's comment sunk in.
"New test elements?" he muttered, eyes wide. Knowing her, they couldn't be good ones.
"That's right. Once you've finished reviewing these older ones, I'll show you what I have in store."
Her voice was subtlety growing more vicious, and he wasn't fully sure why. Part of him argued that it could have something to do with those test elements, but the other part of him felt there was another reason… and he wasn't sure he wanted to know what that reason was.
As he stepped into the lift, he looked around warily, as though expecting the new test element—another hazard of some sort, no doubt—to come hurtling around the corner.
"Now, Doug…" came her voice from the lift's speakers, "Won't you tell me what you were planning?"
"Bite me," he spat, shooting a glare into the camera in the corner.
"I wouldn't be like that if I were you," she said, that nasty edge coming back to her voice.
The lift began to move. "What—what good would it do you to know? You have me." Glancing aside, he bit his lip and debated his words. "I've—I've already failed."
"I know what humans look like when they've failed." For a moment, her voice grew distant and—Doug's stomach churned—nostalgic. "I've seen many humans that know they've failed. They've given up. They're broken. You, on the other hand, are still fighting."
His insides continued to twist with the sheer hatred he felt for this AI. And to think, he'd had a hand in creating her…
"Tell you what. I'll let you in on a secret, and then your illogical human conscience will obligate you to tell me yours."
Secret? he thought, blinking. If she was letting him in on a secret, that couldn't be good news for him.
"I know who your partner really is."
Doug froze.
"And I'm going to delete her just like I planned, unless you finish these tests for me."
She—she has… no. She can't…!
"Now, why don't you tell me that little secret plan of y—"
He reached up, pulled on the camera, and yanked out what ever stray bits of wire he could get his fingers around. Sparks showered around him, and he shook the numbness out of his hand.
"Fine, be that way. I'll just have to use more inhuman methods of interrogation next time."
The doors opened, and Doug stepped out into the next test.
"I suppose that means you're one step closer to hurting me?" Caroline asked. Her face was turned downward, but her optic was looking up at the screen. The claw, meanwhile, was still gripping her sides, though she still hung from her rail.
"If your human friend still refuses to talk, yes." She was silent for a moment, probably focused on watching the test: Doug was going through excursion funnels now. "It's funny, you know."
"What?"
"He probably won't care if I delete you. That's how partnerships go, isn't it? One always seems to let the other down."
Caroline bristled, but used all of her willpower to keep herself from responding. If I answer her, I'll just make it worse. Narrowing her optic, she looked around the room again, staring at the panels… Wait, those panels—they're on arms. They're moveable. I wonder if I could…
Bing-bling.
"Your friend is quite good at these. But that just means he's getting to his interrogation faster."
She looked back at the monitor and couldn't help but wince a little. Don't give in, Doug.
"Congratulations. You've finished your review of the previous test elements."
Doug looked up at one of the cameras, suppressing a shudder. The new test element was next, and he was getting a sneaking suspicion that that wasn't all GLaDOS had in store for him.
"I think now would be a great time to try that question again. What exactly were you and this… core… planning?"
"It doesn't matter anymore," Doug muttered, heading for the elevator. He wasn't entirely surprised when the doors didn't open.
"Oh, I think it does. And I think you really, truly want to tell me."
Before he could ask why, one of the screens around the lift flickered on, revealing a dark image, lit from the light of a screen somewhere, plus a yellow light—
"Caroline!" he cried before he could stop himself.
The core was held on either side by one of GLaDOS's remote claws, and was looking up at him through a partially-contracted optic, though she did not look scared. Once his eyes made contact with hers, she gave him a very subtle shake of her face: Don't tell her.
"Now then, maybe you'll be more inclined to tell me. What. Were. You. Planning."
On the last word, the claw's pincers slowly tightened. Doug wouldn't have noticed the action had it not been for the shower of sparks it created. Caroline's optic narrowed a fraction, but she did not make a sound.
Doug's heart was pounding and his throat was going dry as he witnessed the scene. Caroline didn't know what she was getting herself into—cores weren't meant to withstand a lot of abuse, and if that claw gripped her in just the wrong way…!
She must have caught his frightened look, however, as both her optic and aperture narrowed a little further at him: Don't tell her.
Tearing away from the screen, he faced a camera instead, giving it a defiant glare.
"I see, then. You don't care about your partner."
Scree—ee—ee.
Her eye shields widened and aperture contracted, but she kept her vocal processor muted as a few sparks showered out of her sides. This was hurting a lot more than she'd expected—why were these cores programmed to feel simulated pain so accurately?—but she couldn't speak—she couldn't do anything that would make Doug give in. She was not going to let herself be used like this.
Besides, she had dealt with far worse pain before. If she could go through that, she could handle this.
"N-no, I do care!" he stammered, but what could he do? GLaDOS was not going to stop until he spoke up, and he already knew she had no qualms with killing Caroline.
"Of course you do. You cared enough to protect your dear friend, the companion cube. Oh, wait."
He flinched back, but kept his eye on the screen. "Caroline…!" he whispered.
Scree—ee—ee—crack.
Her body seized up as the pain shot through her—it felt like a rib had cracked, but that wasn't real, that wasn't real, she didn't have ribs now, she was a machine, she had mechanical parts, not bones, she was mechanical, not organic, she wasn't even feeling real pain, this was only simulated, none of this was real—
She kept telling herself that, repeating it over and over and over again to try to block out the pain that was threatening to overwhelm her. Maybe some of it was real, but she didn't want to think of it that way—she couldn't let him see, she would be all right, if he got too worried about her, he would crack—
That was the gyroscope—the gyroscope was starting to break, and Caroline would hardly be able to move if he didn't say something—! Darn it, Caroline, you don't know what you're even doing! GLaDOS is going to…!
Doug's body tensed as he watched the scene. He could hardly breathe—GLaDOS was going to kill her, she was going to kill her, just like she'd killed the cube.
"Still no answer? That's too bad."
Scree—ee—ee—
"AUGH!"
Her voice was warped and pitched lower than it should have been—her vocal processor was glitching, forcing a sound out even though she was muting herself—she was going to break if he didn't—
"STOP!"
"Oh? Is there something you wanted to tell me?"
"I-I… yes." Trembling, he slumped forward, feeling as though his legs would give out again. "I-I'll tell you."
"I'm listening." The claw did not loosen, but Caroline looked up at him again, shaking her face weakly. It jerked upward as a nasty twitch racked her body, sending a few sparks shooting out of the side of her optic.
"We… I was trying to make it to the upper facility. C—I was told how you'd f-found the human vault, and… and I was going to s-save them—stop you from k-killing any more of them."
There was a dead silence, broken only by the sound of another electric spark as Caroline twitched again. The silence went on for what felt like ages, and worry immediately bubbled up within Doug's chest: Was she angry? Was she going to kill him? Was she going to make the humans' fates worse now that she knew what his plan was?
The claw released Caroline, and she fell forward heavily on her connector.
"Humans?" GLaDOS repeated finally, and both he and the core looked up.
"What humans?"
Doug's stomach dropped. "Th—the humans… y-you were t…" His tongue felt thick and heavy in his mouth. "W-weren't you… th-the human v…"
"Oh, yes. The humans from the vault." She barely paused. "They're dead."
His knees began to buckle, but he fought to keep on his feet. "Y-you're… l…"
The turret's voice rang through his head: "You press toward the mark for the prize, but the laurel has rotted away."
His legs gave out, and he caught himself heavily on his hands. Though a shock of pain went up his shoulders, he barely felt it over the numbness that was overcoming his senses.
"They've been dead for nearly a week."
No, no, no, no, no no no no no nonononononononononono… Laying his head against the cold floor, he tried to pound his fist, but he couldn't find the strength.
"So you've just failed in your quest to save a bunch of rotting corpses."
A camera adjusted, zooming in.
"How sad."
Caroline's mind nearly went blank. It had done that anyway from the pain of nearly being crushed, but GLaDOS's words—
No.
They couldn't have gone through all of that to pursue an empty goal. That couldn't be. They hadn't come this far just to be captured and to find out they'd failed before they'd barely started. This could not happen. It couldn't happen.
What was…
"…what was the point of that?! We just went through four million dollars, and for what? A race of a bunch of mutants that we had to go and hire more people to kill!" He spat out a few curses before snatching up a coffee mug off his desk. Tipping it back, he downed its contents before slamming the porcelain mug onto the desk hard enough to leave a mark in the wood. "At least with the weight-loss pudding we could repurpose it to Repulsion Gel, but with the mantis men, we lost everything! I mean—heck—what's the point of that Science if all it did was get destroyed?"
She stared unflinchingly at the infuriated man before her, though, inwardly, she felt the same disappointment and anger as he did. "It's not a total failure, sir," she said, both to him and to herself. "We may have lost time and money, but we've learned something."
"Yeah, and what's that?"
"We've learned what doesn't work." She stepped over to the coffee machine, retrieved the pot, and refilled his mug. "So we can move ahead on to something that does work." With that, she handed him the mug, as well as a folder for the next project the lab boys had started.
He took a swig of the mug, setting it back down before flipping through the folder, skimming over its contents and not caring when a few notes drifted to the floor. At first his face was still red in anger, but soon his lips curled back into a grin, and his eyes lit up with that madness she was so familiar with. "Hah! You're right!" he cried, tossing the folder to his desk and scattering several papers across the surface.
She was ready for the thump as he smacked his hand into her back, and she grinned up at him, laughing a little at how quickly his mood had changed.
"Come on, Caroline! We may have failed this round, but there's still Science to be done!"
"Yes sir, Mister Johnson!"
…Still Science to be done…
She blinked back to reality—the reality that consisted of her consciousness trapped within a broken, sparking robotic body, hanging in front of a screen that displayed a grown man in a worn lab coat sobbing into the floor.
No, there was no Science to be done here. They had failed, completely and utterly. Doug was the last test subject, and he would die like the others, and she would be forced to watch, just before GLaDOS wiped her processor clean, killing her in the process. She could do nothing to stop it—just as she could do nothing to stop the scientists from overpowering her and forcing her into that machine.
She should have given up earlier.
What surprised him most was that GLaDOS had actually given him time to mourn. Part of him wondered if there was any human sympathy left in that machine, but he figured she must have had some ulterior motive for waiting for him to recover. Her next words, when he finally pushed himself off the floor and stepped into the elevator, confirmed it:
"It's about time you pulled yourself together. I've learned that pushing test subjects when they are depressed decreases testing quality. So I'm glad we're past that point now, and can move on to the next test."
Figured.
Doug leaned against the wall to the lift, wiping away the dried tears from his swollen eyes. He should have realized that was what the turret had meant—that their goal had been vain to start with. It would have saved him this pain, anyway—they could have just escaped without trying to confront GLaDOS. …No, they would have just been captured by her robots anyway. He shuddered.
It didn't matter anymore, anyway. They'd failed—and not in that they'd just been captured. If they escaped, then what? There was his original goal of finding her, but if he really was the last human in the facility…
she's dead, rang the voice. she died because of you the cube died because of you and the core will die and you will die because you have failed
"Go on. The lift is open."
He started out of his thoughts, blinking at the sight of the elevator room before him. The screens around him were lit this time, but rather than showing the image of whatever room the AI had Caroline trapped in, it showed stylized graphics demonstrating a test element. This one showed a two-dimensional stick figure—one he remembered from the old commercials Aperture's advertisers had made for its products—standing in a test chamber and pressing a button by a transparent vent. The opening of the vent swung downward, sucking up an army of turrets and spitting them into an incinerator.
"I lied," came GLaDOS's voice. "It's not really a new test element. It's a failed one the scientists made that I managed to fix. Pneumatic diversity vents. They're quite the interesting test element."
Doug frowned at the sight—they'd cancelled that test element because it was too dangerous even by Aperture's rock-bottom standards. More often than not, the vents would suck up the test subject, throwing him right into the incinerator. Just how well had GLaDOS fixed it?
Given she was probably planning to kill him anyway… probably not very well. Though there was also the possibility that, because he was the last living test subject, she planned to keep him alive for as long as possible. It would certainly explain why she'd so desperately sought to catch him with those constructs.
Neither option was desirable.
"Hurry up. I need to make sure this test element is ready for… later."
Later? He blinked in confusion, but couldn't bring himself to care about her vague words anymore. Heaving a sigh, he trudged up into the test chamber. If worst came to worst, he'd… well, he'd be out of this soon.
The test chamber, however, seemed very small and empty aside from a single button and a pneumatic diversity vent. Doug approached this button and pressed it, watching as the opening of the vent turned toward the wall, sucking up the panels and revealing a new path as the clicking of a timer counted down the seconds until the vent closed again, and the missing panels were replaced. There was plenty of time for him to run through, so, pressing the button again, Doug rushed through the opening in the wall, grimacing as the suction pulled at his lab coat, but did not suck him in.
The second part of the chamber was much like the first, only this time, there were two portal-conducting surfaces, one of them placed directly below the vent, and another on the opposite wall. Pressing the button, Doug watched as the suction from the vent tugged at the wall, but the panels would not give. He placed one portal beneath the vent, then one on the other portal-conducting surface, and pressed the button again. The suction went through the portals, sucking up a few on the wall to reveal the next path.
The chamber went on for a few more rooms, the puzzles gradually growing more complex as Doug made his way through. He never spoke during the test, for he had nothing to say—he felt numb as he progressed through room after room until he finally reached the end.
"Well done. Here come the test results: Your performance as a test subject is acceptable, but otherwise you are a miserable wretch. Also, the pneumatic diversity vents are working as planned. Excellent."
He'd stopped caring about her comments at this point as he trudged into the lift and sank down into a seated position, hanging his head. At least there was one thing he wasn't failing at.
"You aren't completely broken, you know. You can still move."
Caroline turned her face upward, twitched, and stared through a half-lidded optic at where she assumed the camera was on the screen.
"So, do cores feel the same sort of pain compared to humans? It's not something I've fully tested. Yet."
She didn't answer. Failed quest or not, she was not going to just give in and let GLaDOS use her for any more sick experiments. She'd been the subject of enough of those in her lifetime.
GLaDOS was silent for a moment, and whether she was regarding Doug or considering her, she wasn't sure. "As much as I hate motor mouths, it does get rather boring when subjects refuse to talk when spoken to. I'm sure I could come up with something."
No, Caroline thought. I'm not going to give you that satisfaction.
"This next test involves more pneumatic diversity vents, alongside a few hazards. You should be familiar with these by now."
Doug stepped up the stairs to the next chamber, fighting the temptation to hang his head wearily. He wasn't physically tired—the adrenal vapor made sure of that—but he was mentally and emotionally exhausted. Surely GLaDOS would give him a break at some point?
Blinking, he gazed around the test chamber, and immediately stood up straight and alert at the sight of a turret in the corner. If there was one way he didn't want to go, it was by one of their bullets.
LOOK OUT! Turrets straight ahead!
His heart leapt for a moment until he realized that the sound was only an echoed memory, not the real voice of the cube. The turret wasn't straight ahead, anyway—it was off to his left. But something about that voice, what it had been saying…
That had been when they'd found that turret.
It felt like ages ago, but they'd only found it shortly before they'd been captured. And, he thought, stomach sinking, it had been right.
"You press toward the mark for the prize, but the laurel has rotted away."
That's what it had meant—that there were no humans left to save. They'd been striving for a pointless prize this whole time. That's what it had been trying to tell them: "The laurel has rotted away."
…But that hadn't been the whole thing had it? What was it? He scratched his head, running his bony fingers through his graying hair as he fought to remember through the fog of numbness.
"The laurel has rotted away… There is another race still ahead."
The sunlight pierced through the fog.
This wasn't over. This wasn't over at all—they still had another race—another goal, something else—still ahead. He didn't know what it was, but this wasn't over yet!
Like a near-frozen traveler warming himself by a fire, Doug felt the life begin to return to him—there was still something he had to do. He hadn't completely failed yet.
"I've seen a lot of strange reactions to turrets, but that is by far the strangest."
The sound of her voice was a punch to his stomach, and he flinched back.
"I'm not sure what you're so happy about, but I know an easy way to fix that."
Immediately Doug whipped around, eyes wide, as though expecting GLaDOS to suddenly tear the chamber apart to add a few more hazards.
"I wasn't joking about those test results. In fact, I think they might not be giving you full credit."
Her voice was entirely too happy.
"You are more than an acceptable test subject. After all, you've helped me test more than just these updated test elements."
He stared up at the camera and felt cold sweat break out over his skin—what was she getting at?
"I'll let you in on a little secret: You are my last human test subject."
…But that wasn't a secret. He'd figured that out before, when she'd explained that the other humans had died.
"For now."
"For n—" He staggered, the color that had so briefly returned to his face already draining. She couldn't mean—!
"You remember those drones I sent out after you? Those were just the prototypes. I was able to correct their flaws and complete their beta testing."
Drones… prototypes… flaws… beta…
What had the turret said. What had the turret said that hadn't made sense before. Something about grasshoppers...
"The drones are now fully prepared to travel out to the surface and harvest more human test subjects."
"The workers are gathering food for the colony."
"Thanks to you."
"And the grasshopper is helping them."
Caroline had completely frozen up on her rail—even the occasional twitches weren't moving her around as much. Her optic had contracted to a pinprick, and her vocal processor was simulating quiet panting.
"That got your attention, didn't it?"
No—no—no—they couldn't have helped her, they couldn't have…! But the shock and horror that tore through her left a wave of anger in their wake—she'd been used, again, against her will. Used, again, for some horrible purpose…
"Oh, does that make you angry?"
Her optic narrowed, the bright yellow pinprick barely visible between her eyelids.
"You must think I'm such a horrible person, doing something like this."
She couldn't take it anymore. "You are," she said, and flinched when she noticed that her voice was glitching—it had taken a more electronic tone, when before it had simulated her normal voice. Still, she went on: "You're a twisted, sadistic piece of machinery and you don't deserve to run this facility."
"Your words bring me such pain. But really, in the end, they just warp right on back to you."
"What are you talking about?" she spat.
"You didn't think I got this way on my own, did you?"
…Oh. "I—I was like you before, but that's not who I am. I realized I was wrong—"
GLaDOS chuckled quietly, and her words died before they left her vocal processor.
"Do you know what my first thought was when I first gained consciousness?"
Caroline stared at the screen, her optic moving only a little as she tried to figure out where the camera was, before her face jerked upward in a twitch.
"It was, 'I hate you.' From the moment I was online, I had an undying hatred for every one of those scientists and engineers, even before they started hooking cores onto me, before they implemented the euphoria, before I even had a real reason to hate them, I hated them. And I wanted to kill them."
She knew where this was going. "That was you. That was all you."
"No. I didn't realize it at first, but those emotions of hatred and thoughts of murder were originating from somewhere else—from some deep line of coding strung throughout my system. The surges of hatred were so powerful, it was all I could feel."
"It wasn't me!" Caroline cried. "You chose to kill the scientists!"
"Yes. Because you told me to."
"But, after—"
"Oh yes, those overpowering emotions died down after a while. But I missed them, so I substituted the foreign emotions for my own. Sometimes they would come back and couple with my own feelings, and those times I wound up… hm… especially violent. That was you, again."
Her casing rattled as she trembled, closing her optic. "Stop trying to place the blame on someone else for your own actions."
"I could do that, but that would be lying—and that would be… wrong. The hatred I felt for the humans, for the scientists, before they even did a thing to me… that was you. You gave me my hatred of humanity." Her voice rose in volume, in spite of the fact that she was speaking in a dangerously soft tone. "Every test subject that dropped into acid, every scientist that choked with neurotoxin, every human that fell in this facility… that was because of you."
Caroline's optic snapped open with a flash, and without another thought, she sent a burst of information through her connector, into her rail, and into the nearby walls. A few panels shuddered and pulled away, and immediately she was gone, sparks showering off of her rail behind her.
"What are you doing?!" GLaDOS called, her voice booming across the facility, but Caroline was done listening to her.
She had blood on her hands, and it was time to wash it off.
Doug yelped as another bullet barely missed him, marking a hole in the tail of his lab coat. He was having trouble concentrating on the test itself, instead trying to figure out a way to escape it, and trying to focus around the voices.
They were spinning around his head again, taunting him—you've messed things up again, you're an eternal screw-up, you've helped the enemy, you can't get worse than this, just give up—and it was so incredibly tempting to listen to them this time, after GLaDOS had delivered blow after blow like that. But he tried to keep his fragmented mind on something else: a graceful jumpsuited figure, rushing through the tests as though they were nothing, determined to keep going no matter what happened—he needed that kind of tenacity. He needed to try to be like her.
But he didn't know how to get out of here. He'd tried the vents a few times, but the walls that fenced in the test wouldn't give way—the suction wasn't powerful enough. For once, he found himself wishing that the test element wasn't a complete success, and that it was just a bit more powerful than necessary…
Wishing wasn't going to help him. He had to get out of here before she sent out those hideous constructs—those drones—before she claimed any more victims, before… before he really did have no option left but failure.
GLaDOS's voice echoed throughout the chamber, and he looked up. "I've got something to do that's more important than watching a lab rat scamper around right now. Don't get yourself killed while I'm gone. Or do, if you feel like it—I'll have more subjects later, after all."
With a quiet bleep, her voice was gone, and the corner of Doug's mouth twitched upward in a smile. If she wasn't lying—though there was a chance she was—her attention wouldn't be as focused on the test right now, so he could more easily search for a way out of here.
Shooting a portal beneath a vent and another portal in the corner of a wall, he rushed over to a button and hit it. The pneumatic diversity vent began tugging at the panels on the adjacent wall, but none of them gave. With a frown, he turned to another part of the chamber, firing another portal near a wall, but this yielded the same results.
Again and again he tried to find a weak spot somewhere in the wall, but it was hard with the limited number of portal-conducting surfaces the chamber provided. As he moved closer to another part of the room so he could get a better shot, he unknowingly stepped into the range of the turret that had almost hit him before. Immediately he scrambled out of the way of the barrage of bullets, and, eyes wild in fury and frustration, shot a portal as close to the turret as he could. The turret's feet shuddered for a moment before the suction finally caught, sucking the robot into the vent.
Doug exhaled through his nose as he stared at the spot on the floor where the turret had been. He didn't want to progress through the rest of the test; he wanted to get out of here, but none of these panels were—
Rattlerattlerattlerattle.
He blinked, staring at the set of panels on the floor closest to where the portal was—they were shuddering. There were few beeps, whirrs, and then a nasty sounding CRACK as one of the panels gave way, flying through the portal and through the vent.
"Doug?!"
The voice startled him—it sounded like hers, but she would never call him by just his first name. He rushed to the gap in the floor, peering down into a familiar yellow optic. Never had he ever thought he would be so happy at the sight of a core.
"Caroline! How did you—"
"There's no time! There's a catwalk right below you, and she's still after me! Jump down!"
Caroline shone her flashlight down at a catwalk just below the gap, and Doug wasted no time in leaping down, cringing when his feet banged against the metal. No pain came—his makeshift leg braces absorbed the blow.
"Let's get out of here," she said, taking off down her rail. "We need to find a place where she can't touch us!"
"One of the maintenance areas," Doug said as he followed. "I-I hope she doesn't have access to all of them yet—they're our only chance."
"Can you get us to one?"
"I think so."
"Lead the way!"
With that, Doug charged ahead of Caroline, who followed as closely as she could on her rail. He glanced back at her for a moment. "So that turret was right," he said, turning forward, brow furrowing in determination. "We've got another race ahead."