Resolution
Chapter Eleven: Serenade
Those bastards.
"INITIATING SHALLOW MIRROR INTO MOBILE CORE. MOBILE CORE, ARE YOU READY TO BEGIN THE PROCEDURE?"
"YES, JUST DO IT ALREADY OR I'M GOING TO DISABLE YOU!"
"…PROCEEDING WITH SHALLOW CORE MIRROR."
GLaDOS hadn't even finished screaming before she was on her feet and bolting for the portal guns she kept in the back of her chamber. She snatched one and shot a blue portal onto the wall of the chamber before dashing into the lift, Wheatley following closely behind her and clutching the sentry turret she had given him to point at the Black Mesa morons in the event that they were not sufficiently discouraged by the Discouragement Beams. She clenched her fists and irately rattled the thick cables spilling out of her head as the lift clanked slowly up to the surface, while Wheatley bounced fretfully on the balls of his feet beside her. Couldn't this thing move any faster? This anxiety—the last time she'd felt anything even remotely similar was when Chell somehow escaped the incinerator at the end of her testing track, but back then GLaDOS had simply been worried for her own personal well-being.
This was different.
Her friend was out there fighting off a man with a gun, and GLaDOS absolutely hated the idea. How dare those Black Mesa idiots even think to put their dirty hands on her favorite test subject and threaten her life like that? It was infuriating because (1) Chell was not theirs to kill, and (2) GLaDOS did not currently want Chell dead in the first place.
She and Wheatley practically leapt out of the lift once it stopped moving and opened its door, immediately running in the direction of the Discouragement Beam array that had been activated. Wheatley began trailing behind—his body was an older prototype and was heavier than hers, and GLaDOS still hadn't bothered to update his template with the better joints that she used in her own—but she ran on nonetheless, head-cables streaming out behind her as she pushed the android body harder than she ever had before. And in no time at all, the Discouragement Beam array slowly came into view, lasers conspicuously not lasering anything at the moment.
Horror, rage, terror, panic—GLaDOS wasn't sure what the hell it was she was feeling right now, but it didn't matter. She skidded to a halt, her feet gouging out dirt and wheat stalks and sending them scattering into the air as she knelt down beside Chell's bloody, gasping form. Blood was blossoming from the gunshot wound in her back, and the long hole burnt into her shirt by the laser revealed her raw, blistering skin and a deep—though thankfully small—gouge where the laser managed to burn through her skin and into the underlying tissue. GLaDOS glanced down at her face to see if she was still conscious and found Chell's eyes staring vaguely into space, her pupils dilated and her face ashen.
"Oh god, she's bleeding—that's blood, right? I-is she all right, GLaDOS?" said Wheatley once he finally arrived and set the turret down. "Tell me she's all right—she has to be all right!"
"Shut up and pick her up. Be careful," GLaDOS snapped, getting to her feet and aiming the portal gun at the ground. Violet particles fizzled into the air when GLaDOS attempted to shoot a purple portal into the ground. She let out a noise of frustration—all the interference from the wheat stalks made it impossible for the ground to conduct a portal.
"GLaDOS, what do I do? Tell me tell me, she's bleeding an awful lot and it looks painful!" Wheatley said frantically, nearly dancing on the spot with Chell hanging limp in his arms.
She cast her eyes about for something to put a portal on and was about to tell him to just run back to the lift when her eyes fell on the Discouragement Beam array. The top cover of the array was designed with hinges so it could flip up for easy access to the array's internal components, and the backside of that panel was flat and should conduct a portal. Stepping over the dead body of the gunman (and taking deep pleasure at how horribly the lasers had disfigured his face), she felt around the Beam array for the latches to release the cover. Once she found and released them, she heaved the top layer of the array up, wheat and all, to reveal the array's inner components and, more importantly, the smooth underside of the panel. When, to her relief, she shot a portal at it and found herself looking into the Central AI Chamber, she used the link back in her main body to lower the array down to ground level.
"Take her to the infirmary," said GLaDOS, shooting another portal at the panel when the one already there disappeared. "I'll be there as soon as I take care of these two." She shot a distasteful look at the body of the gunman.
Wheatley wordlessly nodded and disappeared through the portal while GLaDOS knelt down to quickly examine the lanky scientist. He was very definitely dead—the laser, in addition to completely disfiguring half of his face and most of his torso, had left a gaping charred hole where his throat used to be. She let out a tiny noise of amusement.
Serves him right for shooting her test subject.
After unceremoniously dumping the dead scientist and his gun through the portal to the chamber (and smiling darkly at the satisfying whump that his body made when it hit the floor), she quickly went to examine the fat one. "Oh, you're alive," she said when she found him lying on the ground, his breathing shallow but his eyes glazed over, half closed and staring off into nowhere. While it was too bad that she hadn't killed them all in one shot, it might do some good to keep this one alive, partly to interrogate him about what it was that Black Mesa wanted, but mostly to conduct a new experiment to see how well a fat man would hold up to getting the ever-living shit beaten out of him with a Weighted Storage Cube.
It was a little more difficult for GLaDOS to get this man through the portal—it seemed that maybe this one had a bit too much cake to eat—but she finally got him through and left him lying on the body of his companion while she retrieved Chell's bag, hastily stuffing the papers strewn among the wheat back into it and slinging it over her shoulder. Satisfied that all obvious traces of any non-wheat presence were gone, she gave one last look around before picking up the turret and stepping through to the Central AI Chamber.
She placed the turret beside the two scientists and immediately went to the core transfer receptacle plug herself in and resynchronize with her main core. After yelling at the announcement system to skip all the pleasantries about asking her unresponsive main body if it wanted to resynchronize, one synchronization later and she was back in full control of the facility. As she deactivated the active Discouragement Beam array and activated the medical systems in the infirmary to prepare for Wheatley's arrival, she used a pincer to roughly drag the hardly-clinging-to-life scientist toward the center of the room before flipping up a few ceiling panels and dropping a glass booth (recycled from the Intelligence Dampening Sphere Failsafe) around him. The man would need some urgent medical attention in order for him to live long enough for her to perform her little experiment on him, but he would stay alive for at least a little bit longer even if she just left him there.
"GLaDOS, tell me what to do—what should I do?" came Wheatley's voice through the infirmary's microphones.
"Lie her on her side and get the basin of water from the dispensary. I'm filling one right now," GLaDOS said as the delicate arms of the infirmary system descended down toward the nearest bed. Without a word, Wheatley gently laid Chell on her side and, after fixing her legs and arms so that they weren't splayed everywhere, he ran off.
The Enrichment Center's infirmary was, fortunately, state-of-the-art (at the time of construction) and largely within GLaDOS's direct control (and how fun it had been to lock employees out of the infirmary when she started neurotoxin therapy on them). It almost seemed counter-intuitive that Aperture Science had invested so much money in the very best medical equipment, but if the archived records were anything to go by, they got the best equipment in order to better observe what kinds of effects their science was having on people's bodies and not out of any particular concern about the health hazards of the facility. The infirmary had also been outfitted with a sort of pneumatic tube system similar to the rest of the facility, allowing her to drop several packets of gauze from the Medical Apparatus Vent above Chell's bed.
She used one of the infirmary arms to pull Chell's shirt up and used the little laser attachment on one of the arms to cut the shirt and her bra away (and hoped that Wheatley wouldn't be so shocked to see her topless that he dropped the bowl of water). GLaDOS worked as quickly as she could—she pressed a wad of gauze onto the bullet's entry wound in her back while attaching heart monitor electrodes to her skin and an oxygen mask onto her face as a scanner attached to one of the arms swiveled around Chell's body. It was clear that she was going into shock: her pulse was weakening in spite of her elevated heart rate, her blood pressure was dropping, and it looked like she was beginning to sweat. Definitely not good if GLaDOS couldn't stop the bleeding—much of the blood stored in the blood banks was unfit for transfusion, either due to blood type incompatibility, contamination after the facility was nearly destroyed (twice), or due to the blood being experimental (and infused with things like fish DNA, trace amounts of enriched uranium, or essence of ghost pepper).
"I have the water. What should I—bloody hell! Wh-wh-where did her shirt go?"
It was difficult to suppress the urge to destroy the moron for nearly dropping the basin of water when he returned. "Be quiet and soak these towels in the water," GLaDOS said irately as she dropped two small towels sealed in a sterile plastic wrapper out of the vent before returning to what she was doing.
"Will…will she be okay? Is it serious?"
"Oh, it's not serious at all. She only got shot in the back and burned with a deadly laser. I've seen her get up from worse," said GLaDOS, rolling her camera.
"Really? I thought that all sounded a bit more serious, actually…Brilliant! That's really great!"
"It is serious, moron," GLaDOS snapped, swiping at his head with one of the free arms. "She's lost a lot of blood, has second and third degree burns, and oh—look at that. A collapsed lung, too. Here—put pressure on the bullet wound," she added before he could start panicking (which he looked to have every intention of doing).
He seemed a bit hesitant at first to touch her, almost as though he thought she'd combust if he did, but after a quick slap to the back of the head with one of the infirmary arms, he gingerly pressed the wad of gauze against Chell's back. "A collapsed lung? That sounds awful—can she still breathe? Is it okay for me to be pressing on her back like this? Wh-what if she—"
"Shut up," GLaDOS interrupted. "Keep putting pressure so that the bleeding will stop. It will help her breathe now that you're plugging up the hole."
"Right. W-will do. But—ah—aren't you going to get the bullet out?" he asked, glancing vaguely at the blank monitor in the room.
"No. It's more likely to kill her than help her if I try," said GLaDOS as she took the damp towels and gently draped them over the burns and blisters on Chell's back.
"Aren't bullets—well—bad? Fairly sure that it's never a good thing when bullets go into humans. In fact, turrets are always shooting bullets at humans. Sort of what they're built for and all. You know, to shoot things. Like people. Or monitors."
GLaDOS let out an exasperated sigh while she attached an intravenous drip to a vein in Chell's arm—it was always nice when Wheatley was depressed or scared because he tended to talk less, but it seemed that his motor mouth was returning now that Chell looked to have a reasonably good chance of surviving. "She'll be fine. Now shut up, because I don't want to have to blow you up while she's like this."
To her immense relief, Wheatley finally fell silent and focused on keeping pressure on Chell's back. Her breathing was still shallow—one of her lungs had collapsed when the bullet went into her back, but fortunately it hadn't pierced all the way through to the lung. Nothing a chest tube wouldn't fix once the hole in her chest cavity was sealed. There was still the matter of the laser burns, however; Chell was going have some nasty blisters to deal with and would likely need to have skin grafted over the small patch of skin that had gotten burned right through. But, all in all, GLaDOS thought Chell was pretty fortunate that all this had happened near the Enrichment Center (barring the fact that half Chell's injuries were due to the Enrichment Center's defense mechanisms).
It was almost laughable how much effort GLaDOS was putting into keeping this lunatic alive. She was just a fragile, short-lived human, after all—one that had tried to kill her three times now—and yet GLaDOS couldn't help but make sure that her life turned out as long as possible within its human limitations. Every so often she'd allow herself a few processor cycles worth of speculation and wonder what her life might have been like had Chell never become a test subject. Considering the caliber of Aperture's typical test subjects, it was very likely that she'd still be stuck in that testing loop with those insufferable personality cores attached to her body. It was much better to answer to only one voice—her own—regardless of how irritating that conscience was. She sometimes heard Caroline, of course, but her severe fragmentation made her voice more like a vague whisper than a voice like a personality core.
So even if she had to deal with a dangerous lunatic and an idiotic moron, it was slightly better than what might have been. A little bit.
Then again, maybe she was thinking like this because she was in a good mood. She had a Black Mesa scientist to experiment on now, after all.
How…annoying.
Experimentation on the Black Mesa scientist, regrettably, could not proceed until he was, in fact, conscious.
So GLaDOS found herself sitting and waiting in the infirmary at Chell's bedside, wirelessly observing Blue and Orange as they tested to pass the time. It felt…less bad to be sitting there in the room with Chell and Wheatley (and the unconscious Black Mesa scientist who she banished to the far corner of the infirmary). Wheatley had pressed a chair against the side of the bed and sat there looking utterly dejected, his body drooping as he held one of Chell's hands in his own. Neither of them had spoken in over six hours: instead they quietly sat there in odd solidarity amid the silence that was punctuated only by the beeping of the heart monitor, sitting motionless except to replace the damp towels covering the burns on Chell's back.
It was really just a waiting game now—Chell had finally stopped bleeding from the gunshot wound so that the wound could be properly sealed, and if her luck held out, the chest tube would get the air out of her chest cavity so her lung could reinflate. It probably wouldn't be much longer before she woke up, and once she did, GLaDOS would treat her to quite a show of Black Mesa scientist experimentation (using a Weighted Storage Cube weighed down with blocks of pure lead). Really, what could be better than waking up and then being serenaded by the screams of a had-too-much-cake-to-eat scientist? That was orders of magnitude better than any overly sentimental song a guitarist could produce as far as GLaDOS was concerned, and it was the least she could do after Chell had been so generous as to deposit the scientists on Aperture's doorstep.
Still, a guitar serenade would be something, wouldn't it? She taught all those turrets how to sing, after all, so how hard could playing the guitar be?
It'd be great: a heart-rending guitar serenade accompanied by Black Mesa man's horrible screams.
"GLaDOS?" came Wheatley's voice through to her head.
"Why are you using the link?"
"It's…I don't know, actually. Thought it would be—ah—better? I don't want to wake her or anything like that…" He raised his gaze toward her, his eyes casting a faint blue glow over her in the dimmed light of the infirmary.
"What do you want?"
"I—can you show me how to, er, use a gun?" he asked, though he immediately turned away in embarrassment.
Well, this was interesting.
"Why? You'll probably just shoot Chell on accident, and if I wanted that, I'd put a turret in front of her."
"N-no! I won't shoot her! That's why I'm asking you to show me how!" he blurted, his voice piercing the silence of the infirmary as he jerked his gaze back to GLaDOS. There was frustration in his voice—desperation, almost—and it was very different from how GLaDOS recalled him ever being. "I just…I don't know how to do much of anything, really—you know that. I—I can't do anything to help her. In fact, I think I might have almost killed her more than I've ever helped her. I want to…to be able to protect her."
Wheatley looked so determined that his face mirrored that of Chell's own testing face, and if GLaDOS was completely honest with herself, she was actually a little surprised. It probably wouldn't hurt to teach him how to shoot a gun—not that GLaDOS had ever shot one before (apart from the portal gun), but she had access to all sorts of gun blueprints and there was plenty of old testing footage of subjects and test proctors shooting guns, so it wouldn't be hard to figure out how exactly to do it. Truth be told, it might actually be fun to shoot one. Into the Black Mesa scientist. For when she was finished beating the shit out of him with the Storage Cube.
"I'll…think about it."
"Ah—great, then! Great. Brilliant. I—uh—thank you." He flashed her a grateful smile before turning his attention back to Chell, his body drooping less than it had been before and the smile lingering on his face. The fact that he so readily assumed that her words would be leaning toward him learning to shoot a gun rather than him exploding into pieces may be a testament to the odd and slightly strained friendship that had (to her dismay) grown between them, and it made GLaDOS worry (again) that she was going softer than the insides of a roasted marshmallow. What did he think she was, some endearingly sharp-tongued matron figure (with maybe one too many cats) who was actually a really great person underneath her icy exterior and had plenty of relevant life experience that she was just itching to share with him?
He certainly acted like he thought that on some days. Maybe throwing him onto a testing track filled with Thermal Discouragement Beams, mashy spike plates, and a couple dozen turrets would knock that right out of him.
It was actually a very attractive idea that GLaDOS might have actually gone through with (since she was getting a little irritated by Blue's and Orange's disgustingly human interactions with each other), but it seemed that Wheatley's little outburst did exactly what he'd been trying to avoid by using the mental link: Chell stirred, groggily opening her eyes and grimacing when she tried to move and discovered that her back was causing pain that looked to be about an 8 on a pain scale (and, in fact, she made the corresponding face). "No, no, don't move! Not the best idea, considering all the things that happened to you. You've got a bullet in you and a gimpy lung—sounds terrible, but GLaDOS stuck a tube in you and said you'll be fine," Wheatley said hurriedly as he awkwardly tried to keep her from trying to sit up without actually touching her. "Actually, you might think that getting a tube stuck in you sounds terrible too, doesn't it? Absolutely awful. But it's not! Er—no, don't take the oxygen mask off, you need it to breathe and all…"
GLaDOS got to her feet, her eyes fixed on Chell's face as she pulled the mask off. She was visibly distraught, her lips moving but no sound coming out of her mouth, and her eyes—she stared up at GLaDOS, her eyes begging, pleading while she desperately tried to speak. "Chell—you can't speak?" GLaDOS said quietly. Chell nodded, tears welling up in her eyes.
"Wh-what? Did the brain damage come back? But nothing even happened to your head! Do bullets cause brain damage?" Wheatley asked in alarm. "Maybe a simple word, then? Say 'apple.' That's simple, isn't it? A-and don't jump this time, because you'll disturb the tube in your chest."
Chell's lips formed the word, but no sound came out of her throat.
The heart monitor began beeping faster. Chell was panicking.
"Calm down," GLaDOS said, standing at Wheatley's side. "I scanned your whole body and there was nothing wrong with your larynx. And you don't have any brain damage either, even if you trying to protect the facility makes it look that way. Lunatic."
GLaDOS's words had the desired effect on Chell, because she gave a silent laugh and seemed momentarily distracted—at least until she realized that her laugh made no sound, whereupon she continued where she left off and started panicking again. "You need to calm. Down," GLaDOS said, putting a hand on Chell's arm. "We've already established that you can be a vocal murderer, so it's just a matter of figuring out why you're a mute murderer again."
Fortunately, Chell's capacity to understand logic far surpassed Wheatley's, so even though he was still blithering on about brain damage, she seemed to already be calming down. "You'll be fine as long as you stay here and don't move," GLaDOS continued after shooting Wheatley an irritated glare. "The gunshot wound looks like it'll heal well, as will the laser burns, and your lung should reinflate soon. You should be grateful that you decided to get shot on top of the Enrichment Center." Chell rolled her eyes and very much looked like she wanted to make some sort of retort, and in fact she started trying to make one before remembering her voice (or lack thereof) and letting out a sigh.
It was a little disappointing for GLaDOS to find that her dangerous lunatic was now a dangerous mute lunatic again. Bit of a pity, actually; she'd been looking forward to hearing Chell laugh (or scream in horror—anything would do, really) when she started work on the Black Mesa scientist. Still, with any luck it wouldn't be hard to find the source of Chell's vocal problems—she'd regained the powers of speech after being let loose to wreak havoc on the surface, after all. Perhaps it was some sort of psychosomatic response to stress. She'd been removed from the source of the stress, which had allowed her voice to return, so in that same vein…maybe her voice would come back once it sank in that there were no gun-toting scientists out to shoot her here in the Enrichment Center. There were plenty of other things that could shoot her here, of course, but she seemed relatively well-adjusted in that regard so hopefully she hadn't regressed.
"Ah, GLaDOS?" said Wheatley, turning to look up at her. "I think she—er—is asking about that Black Mesa scientist. Or, alternatively, a mashy spike plate. I'm not particularly good at charades, it seems."
Chell rolled her eyes again and gave Wheatley a look that plainly said, "Really?"
"The fat one is still alive," GLaDOS said, glancing over to the far corner. "I was going to ask him a few questions once the both of you were awake. That is, if he makes it. It turns out that the Discouragement Beam nearly discouraged through his chest and abdominal cavity. He'd probably be dead if he wasn't so generously proportioned."
At that, GLaDOS turned and took a seat in her chair again, leaving Wheatley to ramble to Chell about whatever it was he wanted to ramble about (charades, actually—he spoke of how, back in the days before Bring Your Daughter to Work Day, he hadn't been very good at charades because he'd been a sphere and lacked any body parts with which to play). It was interesting to see that Chell wasn't as irritated by his inane chatter as she should have been—GLaDOS wondered if maybe, in light of her current mute condition, she was allowing Wheatley to speak enough for the both of them.
And he was.
Non-stop.
In the three days that it took for Chell and Fat Black Mesa Scientist to move out of teetering-on-the-brink-of-death status and into alive-but-inconvenienced-by-injuries status, it seemed like Wheatley had stopped talking only when Chell was napping. GLaDOS had flatly told him to shut up more times than she could count and resorted to returning to her main body so that she could sit in silence while she blocked off the audio feed from the infirmary. All the air stuck in Chell's chest cavity had drained without incident and, with the magic of Aperture Science Intramuscular Pain Inhibitors (one of Aperture's special blends of local anesthetics) and Aperture Science Artificial Skin Replacement Mesh (artificial skin grafts developed for use on injured test subjects), Chell was sitting up and even walking, albeit very slowly, to and from the restroom. GLaDOS wasn't quite sure what color the skin graft was going to be once it healed—the datasheet for the mesh said that it was capable of adaptive pigmentation, but it was actually turning a faint sort of rainbow color. If that kept up, Chell would have a rather interesting splotch of rainbow-colored skin on her back that might be a hilariously awkward thing for any of Chell's potential lovers (though GLaDOS wasn't sure if she even had any) to find.
Fat Black Mesa Scientist (or FBMS for convenience) was doing well enough, as far as living went. His burns were deeper than Chell's and, under normal trauma center conditions, would have likely have required full-thickness skin grafts that went down into all layers of his skin. But, seeing as this was not a normal trauma center by any means and because GLaDOS had little pity for the man (in fact, none at all), she simply cut the burned tissue away and grafted the thin Artificial Skin Replacement Mesh over his wounds and just called it a day. She did put him on the same local anesthetic she used for Chell and was also pumping him full of pain-killing analgesics, but this was just to keep him from moaning and crying in pain and not because she particularly cared if he was hurting. But he was keeping the moaning and groaning to a minimum, so it was worth it.
The man was high as a hang glider.
Chell had initially been slightly disturbed by her treatment of FBMS at first, but GLaDOS had managed to talk her down into a sort of strained disinterest ("They did try to kill you, after all, and they almost succeeded. Well, I tried to kill you before, but they never even offered you cake. How rude is that?"). And though Chell seemed to make a habit out of befriending things that tried to kill her, she didn't seem to like FBMS all that much.
"Those scientists were really smug. Wanted to punch them," was what Chell wrote on her notepad.
By the fourth day, Chell was beginning to show signs of boredom with the infirmary and had wheeled her IV pole into the Central AI Chamber to sit with GLaDOS and draw pictures with Wheatley. The Artificial Skin Replacement Mesh was working wonders for her back and it made GLaDOS wonder why Aperture hadn't simply marketed their medical technology to the world if they were constantly teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. Granted, in addition to the normal and medically-helpful technologies they had (like the Artificial Skin Replacement Mesh) they had more hazardous and experimental versions of the those technologies (like Artificial Skin Replacement Mesh that would purportedly develop into a Kevlar-like material to replace fragile human skin with side effects including but not limited to, of course, tumors). Besides, that would make too much sense for Aperture: if the Enrichment Center's current state of being absolutely controlled by GLaDOS was any indication, Aperture did not put much stock in tact and sense and often labored to do the exact opposite.
The moron and Chell had taken to playing charades when they got bored of drawing—Wheatley seemed to have strained what capacity he had for imagination after drawing a veritable masterpiece of hardly recognizable birds nesting in what was apparently a test chamber. He also kept drawing GLaDOS with a crooked little crown atop her headpiece, which earned him a smack to the back of the head whenever she caught him doing it. He wasn't much better at charades, though, and could neither guess Chell's pantomimes nor mime anything coherently, not that it was for lack of trying because trying was certainly all he could do. But GLaDOS didn't want to discourage him—his antics were clearly amusing Chell, which would hopefully relax her brain enough to let her vocal cords start working again. She considered sending Blue and Orange up so they could play and increase the idiot factor twofold, but ultimately decided against it.
What was she doing, running some kind of idiot daycare center?
While Wheatley was flailing around apparently trying to act out a hedgehog, GLaDOS found something very interesting in an old break room—something she hadn't noticed during Wheatley's or Blue's or Orange's adventures outside the maintenance areas.
A guitar.
Two, actually, if the number of cases present were any indication. She vaguely remembered some of the Aperture employees planning to do some sort of sing-along with the little girls on Bring Your Daughter to Work Day, so perhaps these abandoned guitars were remnants of that wonderful day.
And that was how Blue and Orange ended up playing charades in the Central AI Chamber.
GLaDOS had sent them to retrieve the guitars and, of course, they got sucked into the game of charades once they delivered their charges. It was like some sort of idiot gravitational field, really—no matter how hard GLaDOS urged them to simply return to the Cooperative Testing Hub, they stubbornly lingered to play. GLaDOS was loath, however, to explode them in such close vicinity to Chell. She really should have known better and not given the Cooperative Testing Initiative robots the chance to get embroiled in the stupidity, but she didn't want Wheatley getting himself lost or dropping the guitars off a catwalk on accident and it wasn't as though Blue and Orange were testing anyway. It was a small consolation, though, that the guitars were in surprisingly good condition for just sitting there for years, even if they were probably horribly out of tune. They would suit her purposes, anyway.
The game going on near her core body no longer looked like anything remotely resembling charades. There was a lot of flailing and a lot of chirruping from Blue and Orange, whom GLaDOS suspected didn't even know what they were doing except that they had fun doing it. Honestly, it really was like babysitting children. Chell looked beside herself with (painful) silent laughter and probably would have been rolling around the chamber if it hadn't been for her back injuries. There still wasn't any sound coming out of her mouth, however, and it was beginning to make GLaDOS worry that she'd have to do something drastic. Like sing another song for her or something equally inane.
Well, she might not have another song for Chell, but maybe she could do that guitar serenade with FBMS on harmony.
Oh, FBMS would be in for a surprise once the anesthetic and analgesic wore off. Which would be in about ten minutes.
Partly because she would be standing in front of him holding a guitar in her hands, but mostly because he would find himself tied to a flipped-up floor panel in the Central AI Chamber.
She'd wheeled him out of the infirmary herself in the early hours of the morning after sending Wheatley away to do a meaningless task like cleaning the leaves out of one of the ruined test chambers (and, him being who he was, he didn't question why it needed to be done at six in the morning). It would ruin the surprise if Chell saw her moving FBMS, and GLaDOS didn't want to feel that tiny pang of guilt that she was doing something a little bit wrong. Not that she particularly thought that horribly maiming the scientist was wrong, but she didn't like the almost hesitant expression that appeared on Chell's face whenever killing the scientist came up. But that would pass with time—she was not about to have mercy on a Black Mesa scientist of all people after he had the audacity to threaten her test subject with death.
"Hnnnggghh…" came a faint moan of pain from FBMS.
For now, GLaDOS was standing behind the flipped-up floor panel and out of sight and would stay that way until Chell showed up in the chamber. Which wouldn't be too long, as it seemed that Wheatley had woken her with his chatter about ten minutes ago and was currently helping her make her way there. GLaDOS held the guitar up, her mechanical fingers forming the one chord she had bothered to learn and giving the strings a gentle strum, the faint chord drifting up into her aural sensors. Not bad for a twenty-year-or-older guitar (after tuning, of course). She almost felt sorry for the Aperture scientists that she neurotoxined to death—they didn't live long enough to see their creation learn how to make music in order to taunt a rival scientist and/or entertain a test subject.
"Wh-where am I? Oh god, what the fuck…it hurts…"
GLaDOS turned her gaze to the door as it opened and let Wheatley and Chell through. They both looked quite surprised—Chell's face plainly said, "What's going on here?" while Wheatley actually said, "Oh! What's going on here?"
With a devious smile, she strummed the chord louder this time, its melodious sound echoing off the chamber panels. "I brought the Black Mesa scientist here for questioning," said GLaDOS as a Vital Apparatus Vent was lowered in from the ceiling and dropped a Weighted Storage Cube onto the floor with a particularly heavy thunk.
"Huh? Who—who's there?"
The panel that FBMS was bound to suddenly wheeled around so that he, in all his Black Mesa girth, was facing the two androids and single human. "W-w-what's going on h-here?" he said nervously, his round face contorted in pain. "Who are you…people?"
"Hello, and welcome to the Aperture Science Computer-Aided Enrichment Center," said GLaDOS with a small smile as she gave the guitar a light strum. FBMS looked momentarily triumphant before looking visibly distressed by the fact that he was tied down to a panel before an android holding a guitar.
"Aperture…I did it. I found it! B-but wh-what's going on h-here? I th-thought I saw Rob shoot you…"
Instead of directing his question at GLaDOS, who had very clearly spoken, moved her mouth, and looked very obviously human, he looked to Chell, who hadn't so much as opened her mouth at him. Irritation spread through her circuits at the fact that he completely ignored her and also the fact that he was speaking so casually to the woman he'd been so ready to kill.
"A better question would be who you are," said GLaDOS, stepping in front of Chell and carefully making sure to suppress the sound of her anger. "Because I want to start a file for you. Just so I can put a check in the box marked 'deceased.'"
"N-n-no, wait, let's not b-be hasty h-here," he sputtered, straining slightly at the cords that bound him. "I'll tell you what you want, j-just don't k-k-kill me!"
Figures. Coward.
"Then let's start with what I asked in the first place. Who are you and what does Black Mesa want here?"
"G-Gilbert Lasseter. I—I'm a r-research associate with Black Mesa," he said, panting slightly as sweat began beading on his brow. GLaDOS glanced back and found that Chell and Wheatley were now standing close behind her, Chell glaring at this Gilbert fellow in disdain while Wheatley looked bewildered. "Th-they sent me—to find Aperture's f-facility."
"Why?" GLaDOS hissed, swinging the guitar toward him and jabbing him in the chest with the wide end. He let out an agonized groan, his eyes clenching shut in pain.
"They—they found the Borealis," Gilbert moaned, his head drooping forward. "All the tech in it was busted…they wanted—to see if anything was here…We need it…they said to kill to g-get it..."
"Why? What did they see on my ship?" said GLaDOS, putting the guitar down and picking up the Weighted Storage Cube. Hefting it slightly to feel the weight of the blocks of lead, she smiled at him and pressed it against his chest.
"Aaaaarrghhh! I don't know! That's all they told me! I swear! Please, stop!" he screamed when GLaDOS didn't remove the cube from his chest. When she finally let up, he gave a sob, his breathing growing ever more ragged. "Who a-are you?"
GLaDOS let him sit there panting for a few moments before bothering to reply—she wanted him to be able to comprehend what she was about to say. "My name is GLaDOS. Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System. And the Borealis is my ship, this is my facility, and you tried to kill my test subject."
It seemed that the mere mention of science-ish words suddenly focused the attention of FBMS Gilbert. "You—you're GLaDOS? The name on the blueprints?" he said, his mouth hanging open. "We—we had no idea—incredible. Aperture really built that supercomputer…Oh, I want to see how you work...They'd love to take you apart..."
The irritation that had been slowly dissipating from her suddenly came back as a near-blinding rage. Really, did Aperture or Black Mesa have any scientists with any shred of tact whatsoever? Here she was, standing in front of him with a decidedly un-computer-like penchant for sadistic torture while he was bound and helpless, and all he wanted to do was take her apart? Without even asking first? She hefted the Weighted Storage Cube again and, just as comprehension began dawning on old Gilbert's face, she flung the cube right at his chest.
There was an audible THUD as the cube connected with his chest and fell to the floor, the sound of the THUNK getting drowned out by the terrible scream that rent the air. She picked up the cube and hefted it in preparation for another throw, but she felt a hand pulling on her arm and turned, raising her fist to punch the hell out of the person who dared to try stopping here—but she immediately froze when she found Chell staring up at her. It was all clear in her eyes: she wanted GLaDOS to stop, even though GLaDOS hadn't even gotten started yet.
"They're all monsters," GLaDOS snarled, wrenching her arm out of Chell's grip. "They're the same as Aperture's morons!"
"L-look," Gilbert wheezed when he finally stopped groaning in pain. It seemed that being pushed toward death was drawing the smug right out of him, because he had a sort of weary half-smirk on his disgusting, sweaty face. "There's—no use—acting like it w-won't happen. They'll find you—and tear y-you apart—and make a b-better one. Even i-if you kill me. More so—if you k-kill me."
GLaDOS looked back to Chell, whose look of pity was now replaced by a look of utter disgust. Chell gave GLaDOS a brief look, their eyes meeting for but a second before she slowly turned her back on Gilbert.
Well, that was enough for GLaDOS.
"I'm making a note here in your file," said GLaDOS cheerfully, smiling at FBMS, "and I'm checking off that box labeled 'deceased.' Because you will be in a few minutes. Goodbye."
His screams filled the air as GLaDOS ignored his begging and pleading and pummeled him mercilessly with the Weighted Storage Cube. Blood splattered onto GLaDOS's face as it bubbled up out of his throat mid-scream, but she was undeterred and even felt slightly invigorated by it. And she kept pummeling for a few moments after he finally stopped screaming and went limp, until finally she hurled the bloodied cube down onto the floor. The silence as she examined the disfigured body of FBMS (she didn't even want to dignify him by referring to him by name anymore) was overbearing and almost palpable, and though her conscience vaguely told her that this was not such a good thing that she'd done, she pushed the feeling away with pleasure: screw her conscience. At least this time.
She took a moment to relish the sight of him before disengaging the floor panel, dead scientist and all, and letting it fall down underneath the floor into a chute leading to the incinerator before another panel flipped up to replace it.
Once it was in place, it was as though nothing had ever happened. The blood on GLaDOS's face and the Weighted Storage Cube were the only remnants of what she had just done. And she wasn't ashamed. Not in the least.
GLaDOS slowly turned to her two companions and found them sitting on the floor, Chell's body quivering as tears streamed from her eyes while Wheatley sat in silence, unsure what to do with himself other than to put a comforting hand on her shoulder. GLaDOS wordlessly walked over to them and sank down onto the floor beside Chell while she silently wept.
She sniffed once, glancing from Wheatley on one side and GLaDOS on the other before pulling them close, resting her forehead on GLaDOS's shoulder while clutching Wheatley's hand and simply weeping.
A/N: Okay, so I fail at gauging how long these chapters are going to be. BUT. The next one will be last. VERY SURE. Even if it's double the length of this, it will be the end.
The idea of GLaDOS running a daycare was so funny that I borrowed Faux Promises' idea a bit. XD Also, GLaDOS sure is possessive. Or at least, that's how I imagine her to be. I've also gone insane. GLaDOS + guitar.
So, obviously I am not a doctor or even an individual trained in medicine, but I did spend all week reading about collapsed lungs, gunshot wounds, hypovolemic shock, burns, and skin grafting. Hopefully it was believable enough for you guys. Also, rainbow skin. I'd love to have rainbow skin. But I wouldn't be surprised if Aperture Rainbow Skin Mesh gave you tumors. Or superpowers. Or something.
