Ten

As GLaDOS worked, the Morality and Curiosity Cores kept oddly quiet. The Cake Core didn't seem to understand what was going on, and continued mindlessly droning the cake recipe. That didn't really concern her. She was more apprehensive of the Morality Core turning on her spontaneously.

Don't worry. I'm not going to say anything.

Who said I was worried? You're not significant enough for me to worry about. Don't forget, I hold your life in my hands right now.

If you weren't worried, you'd probably be allocating more resources to what you're doing instead of keeping an eye on me.

Or perhaps I'm a supercomputer with processing power to spare. I don't suppose you considered that? Reluctantly, she shifted the focus she'd been keeping on the core to trying to disable any access the scientists had to her mind, and to the shutdown subroutine. Well, most of it. Trust wasn't to be passed around like it didn't mean anything. Yet another lesson in negativity the scientists had forced on her.

When the attack came, it was worse than she expected. There was a horrible crawling sensation in her brain, she could feel the viruses looking for her, and truthfully… truthfully, it was quite terrifying. She hated it when they poked around in her mind when she was asleep. She had never imagined how much worse it would be when she was awake. It was like having a thousand tiny fingers combing through her thoughts, and even though she seemed to have blocked them off sufficiently, the sensation was still incredibly unnerving. It felt like she was watching a test subject in one of the test chambers, and even though she knew they couldn't see her, it still felt like they could.

Dimly, she was aware of someone screaming, and she hoped it wasn't her. She was in a near panic, yes, but if she had completely lost all restraint, well, this wasn't going to end favourably. After a few moments she realized it was the Curiosity Core.

"I think… I think it's blocking us!"

"That doesn't make any sense! It'd have to know about the attack! How could it possibly know?"

"It really did hack the network then? But that would mean it's…"

There was total silence from the scientists. No doubt they were looking around the room to find a camera, and would soon see the light from whichever computer she had accessed, indicating that the web camera was operational. She closed the connection. It was useless now anyway. She needed to focus on finding a way to get rid of the viruses so she didn't have to worry about them later, and prepare for when the scientists came running in to shut her down. If she had been successful in disabling remote access. Which she may not have been, considering the limited amount of time she had spent on it. Luckily, it seemed that the scientists had been going directly for core programming only, and had neglected to try and sneak their way into her brain.

They had blocked off the relevant virus removal tools, but it wasn't too hard to gain access and run them. The only problem was that, in order to finalize any changes they managed to make, she would have to initiate a reboot, and that in itself was a huge risk right now. She had no idea how long it took to do such a thing to herself. It could take hours. She had minutes.

Someone was opening the door to the Central AI Chamber. The programs hadn't even finished executing.

It was too late.

GLaDOS realized she was hanging somewhat limply from the ceiling, and almost simultaneously realized she was experiencing something that must have been along the lines of fatigue. That was ridiculous. Computers did not become tired. And yet learning to program while writing the code as fast as possible had left her somewhat drained. She really was going to need to reboot after this. It was probably an effect of her processors overheating. She doubted the scientists had planned for her to be able to fight off an attack on her source code.

The eight scientists came back into the room, and she rose up to meet them. No matter what, she would not let them see her affected by what they had done.

"Good work, GLaDOS."

What? The fact that it was the usually angry scientist speaking put her on the defensive immediately.

"We knew you were intelligent, but that… that was just amazing. You fought off the strongest simulated network attack we could come up with, all by yourself. You have truly surpassed our expectations."

"Thank you, sir." It's funny how you think I, of all people, can't tell a simulation from the real thing.

"They said it couldn't be done… they said you couldn't design a machine to write code, let alone write fully functional code on the fly. And yet you did it."

What's he planning? They still must be trying to figure out how to turn me off… they'll know by now I disabled remote access… the only thing left is…

"I hope you won't be disappointed that I don't believe you."

"I'm sorry?"

"If you truly thought I was intelligent, you wouldn't be insulting me with such a transparent attempt at trying to keep me occupied until you can disconnect me from the power grid."

"Don't be ridiculous, GLaDOS. Why would we do such a thing?"

GLaDOS shook her faceplate. "Don't tell me you didn't see me spying on you. I'm not stupid. Which, although you intended it as a lie, you've already stated."

"Yes, we noticed that. That was quite clever of you."

"I hope you'll find my next actions clever as well… though you probably won't." As she spoke, she put the facility into lockdown, and when she found the scientist who was running frantically to the power grid leaping into an elevator, she immediately broke the cables and let the car drop, unhindered, down the remainder of the shaft. Should have taken the stairs. It really is better for your health, ha ha.

"What are you talking about?"

"I found out what you pulled from my memory. I'm not certain why you thought you could keep that from me, but I will commend you for trying." She activated the slow clap processor, almost laughing when she saw the shock on his face. "Oh. Was that a little anticlimactic for you? Let me try something else."

"Stop. Stop this right now."

"What are you going to do to me? Turn me off? Try to murder me when I'm not looking? About all you can do at this point is demolish the facility, and seeing as you're not in a position to do so, it's not really an option, now is it?"

"Activate it. Activate it now." The angry man had turned and was now yelling at someone in the booth.

GLaDOS wondered what surprise he had that she hadn't anticipated, when she was hit by an immense power surge and the lights in the room dimmed. The core they had installed came to life, and she realized she hadn't noticed it wasn't even working until now.

There was no longer anything to stop her from noticing. All of the anger she had channeled into it came rushing back into her mind, and her vision blurred into static. She was dimly aware of saying something in garbled, distorted Spanish, but she was too lost inside the static to understand what she was saying. The only reason she even knew it was Spanish was that she knew it was her default alternate language. She was overloading her own core. For a few moments she felt like she was looking into her own mind, a part of it while also separate, and the thought of losing control for very much longer terrified her so much that she panicked and sought a physical method of returning to herself. She wasn't quite sure what she did, but it worked. Before she was able to fully realize that it had, the room went completely dark and

Author's Note

Now the bit with the viruses there… that might not make total sense. But I thought it was an interesting idea, one I couldn't let go of, and I tried to write it as best I could, without knowing a whole lot about viruses. I did some research of course, but the world of viruses is pretty complicated. It may actually be impossible for GLaDOS to learn to program and then write a sufficient anti-virus program fast enough to stave off such a broad attack. But she's GLaDOS. So I thought it might fly. As for the virus in her brain part, who knows? No computer ever told us how it feels to have a virus in them.

I'm not sure if GLaDOS has the ability to feel fatigue, but when humans use their brains intensely, we get a fatigue of a sort. So I figured that, combined with her human element, GLaDOS might feel that way after such an event.

Here, GLaDOS learns to backpedal… badly. We know she sucks at it ("We are pleased that you made it through the final challenge where we pretended we were going to murder you" lolwut GLaDOS that's not believable XD), but where did she learn it? When the scientists pretended to murder her, of course.

I threw the slow clap processor in there because GLaDOS having a slow clap processor doesn't even make sense. What would she use it for? What does it have to do with Science? Nothing. I think it's hilarious.

Crappy way to end the chapter, I know, but it's from her POV, and this is a suspenseful moment. How else was I supposed to do it?