Yo. I'm in a car. Driving across the state. With a laptop balanced on my lap. So, yeah. It's not the worst condition I've had to post in. There was one time, in a tent, with only my phone, but I doubt you want to hear about that. At least I have Coldplay to listen to!
Jimmy jogged through the catwalk system, a sleeping Amy in his arms, Jenny following close behind. "Thanks." He addressed the young girl behind him, "for warning us about that bird."
"…"
"I don't hate you, you know that, right? I really don't."
"The answer is beneath us."
"I'm sorry?"
"That's all I can say."
"Oh. Okay."
They continued in silence from there on. Jenny's not that bad, thought Jimmy, smiling down at Amy.
They walked until they reached a rather dangerous-looking catwalk above the incinerator. "Right." Jimmy started, "I should go first."
Jimmy proceeded with caution, slowly trying his weight on the catwalk. This isn't so bad. Jimmy took a step forwards, and froze in horror at the loud skreeach emitted by the bridge. Jimmy held his breath and inched his way forwards…
Jimmy saw it before he heard it. He heard the screech of the metal, Jenny's scream, but it was the sight of the catwalk slowly collapsing beneath him that caused him to fling Amy across the catwalk, where she woke with a start as she started to roll down the now-slanted half of the catwalk. Jimmy, however held fast to the break in the catwalk, watching in horror as Jenny slid, unable to control her momentum, down the other half of the broken monstrosity. Jimmy clenched his eyes tight and shifted his weight, swinging him and, by extension, his arm our towards Jenny. He clasped her hand in his, watching her dangle below him, above the fires…
"JIMMY!" he heard Amy scream, and looked up. Amy was hanging from the railing of the catwalk, her fingers slipping on the grease. Jimmy looked down, then up again. He couldn't haul Jenny and himself over the railing in time to save Amy, unless… No. He couldn't do that.
But he had to. For Amy. Jimmy closed his eyes, and let go of Jenny's hand, forcing the echoes of her screams out of his mind. He flung his-now free hand up to the catwalk, and hauled himself onto the catwalk, where he grabbed Amy and ran across the catwalk, leaping into a test chamber across from them, one of the co-op. Jimmy shuddered, and held Amy against his chest.
"You-you killed her." Amy sobbed in fear.
"I-I had to. To save you."
GLaDOS and Chell flew through the first thirteen test chambers, Alex following timidly behind him.
"So." Alex tried to clarify once again, "You were a homicidal AI with a hatred of humans."
"You got that right." GLaDOS shrugged as she placed the final portal, completing the test.
"And tried to kill Chell multiple times."
Chell re-did her hair in the elevator, "Oh, you bet she did."
"But Chell killed you, and she ended up in hypersleep, so she survived the entire apocalypse?"
"Yep. If I ever needed somebody dead, I'd hire Chell to murder them. Oh, wait, I'd never have to murder somebody, because I'm not a horrible person."
"Oh, please, what's next, a fat joke?" Chell scoffed, but although she'd never admit it, she was glad to see traces of the psychotic AI in her human friend.
Alex ignored that, "So, when Chell woke up, she met some other robot-"
"Wheatly" the two women corrected.
"-who accidently brought Caroline- sorry, GLaDOS back to life, and later betrayed Chell and turned GLaDOS into a potato?"
GLaDOS shuddered. "A potato. Yes. A potato."
"But you two took him down, and sent him into space."
"Then I was back in my body, I let Chell go, even gave her her weighted companion cube back, and we all lived happily ever after…until I got some email that made me revert to this form. I kept getting emails from whoever telling me to take down Black Mesa from the inside, which I had full intention of doing, until I met you. That complicated things."
"So, who do you think this emailer is?"
GLaDOS shrugged as she entered the next test chamber. "All I know is that I can't survive in this body for roughly three more days, because my computer mind would fry my brain."
Chell flung herself through multiple portals, gracefully landing on a platform, taking a cube. "Any way to avoid that circumstance?"
GLaDOS carefully and precisely calculated the angles in her aim, perfectly firing two portals, carrying her and Alex up to Chell in a funnel. "The only thing I could think to do is erase some of my memory, and frankly-" GLaDOS took the cube from Chell as she passed the platform, the three moving higher towards the ceiling. "I'd rather die than lose my mind."
And with that, GLaDOS re-positioned the blue portal, sending the three falling and flinging onto the final platform, where GLaDOS set the cube down with a sigh.
The three stepped into the large elevator room, but Chell stopped them from getting on the elevator. "I say we sleep here. It's late, no matter what the light and vapors make you think. We've passed the first fourteen, this is where it gets harder. We need rest."
GLaDOS dropped her backpack against a wall, and slowly detached her ASHPD from her hand and wrist. Chell did the same, and the three of them leaned against the wall, GLaDOS in the middle.
About fifteen minutes later, GLaDOS silently pulled her wrist computer up, looking for something to do. Chell and Alex flipped to face her, bored expressions on their faces.
"Can't sleep?
"Me neither."
"I don't think I'll ever be able to sleep again."
GLaDOS remembered the requests of the many test subjects she had watched fall asleep in this very room, "Perhaps a bedtime story."
Alex rolled his eyes. "Well, I don't have a better idea."
Chell smirked. "This'll be good."
"Well," GLaDOS began, "Once upon a time there was a little girl with a rather unfortunate bone structure-"
Chell groaned. GLaDOS continued, "-So, this little girl's father was the king of- uh, Scienceland. Now, he was very very powerful, being a king, and was always ready to contribute to science. Because her father was a womanizing bastard, and her mother was a total slut, the princess grew up in the- err, dungeons of the castle, where the cellmates were forced to complete very hard tests. The princess with the horrid bone structure watched these tests, and always talked to the keeper of the dungeon, an young woman who was friends with the king."
GLaDOS put down her wrist strap, "Anyways, when the king died, the queen ran way abandoning her role as leader of Scienceland, and the princess was to young, so there was nobody to rule over the land. The dungeon keeper, because she knew the king quite well, was the first candidate for the throne. Unfortunately, all the nobleman decided to, because of the king's dying wish, make the dungeon keeper undergo a horrible test, which turned her into a horrible dragon."
GLaDOS cleared her throat, "So the dungeon keeper used her new abilities to take revenge on the people of Scienceland, and killed them all. But, she took pity on few she deemed worthy, including the princess and a man called- umm, the Baron Sir Rattmann, who she locked up to perform more tests. So, the dragon took rule over Scienceland, which she turned into a huge dungeon, where she tested many people. Because she was a selfish, heavy, adopted idiot with a horrible bone structure, the princess decided that she had to play hero, so she slayed the noble dragon and destroyed Scienceland, laying waste to her father's kingdom. The end." GLaDOS looked to both sides, to see her friends were already sound asleep. "Oh, okay, I'll shut up now. Sorry if I bored you, I was just pouring out my soul into a stupid fairy tale. Goodnight, morons."
Yay for Dragon!GLaDOS :D