Resolution
(A/N: I'm a liar. This isn't the last chapter. It got too long and I didn't want you guys waiting too long for it. Don't listen to me if I try to tell you how many chapters are left. I'm just…gonna write till it's done.)
Chapter Twelve: Worth
Restoring Chell's voice was proving to be more difficult than GLaDOS initially expected.
Well—maybe not difficult in the sense that she was actively doing something to restore it, but difficult in that it still hadn't returned after about a week and a half of recovery following their incident with the Black Mesa scientists. Then again, the threat of more Black Mesa goons showing up was still looming over their heads; maybe Chell couldn't relax amid all the veritable frenzy of maintenance GLaDOS was doing on the Enrichment Center's defense mechanisms. Though for reasons that she couldn't quite comprehend, GLaDOS felt part of her friend's anxiety was related to the death of Fat Black Mesa Scientist: while Chell had already brutally murdered GLaDOS once and tried to do it two more times, GLaDOS was reasonably sure that Chell had never killed a human being before. Not that Chell had killed FBMS, of course, but she'd given up on trying to stop GLaDOS from killing him, and she supposed that Chell likely thought it to be as good as killing him. Maybe it was that empathy thing affecting her—it had been another human being, after all, and weren't a lot of non-sociopathic humans full of empathy?
Fortunately, as each day passed, Chell seemed to push it further and further from her mind with a little encouragement from GLaDOS ("You didn't murder him—I did."). Her eyes still held a sort of far-off sadness in them—the sorrow had been there after she'd discovered that her voice was nonfunctional again, but it was likely exacerbated by the death of FBMS. GLaDOS knew she probably shouldn't worry about it too much, but it left her with only Wheatley to talk to and he was a very poor conversationalist (and even poorer now because he was so worried about Chell that he had a hard time talking about anything else). She tried talking to the lost turret she'd rescued from the empty room, but despite the fact that it had talked to the moron before, it merely repeated the phrases "you're lost," "I don't have a mouth", and "that's all I can say." It was irritating enough that GLaDOS considered baking a cake just so she could eat it in front of the turret.
What had Chell done to her? GLaDOS had never felt such a need to talk to anyone before, and here she was trying to talk to turrets.
What did come out of it all this madness was that GLaDOS had finally—reluctantly, as though it might have killed her—picked up a pen and drew a picture. If she couldn't have any sort of conversation with them, then she might as well join the duo in their artistic endeavors.
"Wow, GLaDOS," said Wheatley, glancing at her drawing in awe as Chell did the same, "I didn't know you were so bloody good at drawing."
GLaDOS looked down her drawing of a deer and let out a little sigh. Her body's ability to render near-perfect illustrations sort of defeated the purpose of art, didn't it? The drawing honestly looked like it could have come out of a printer despite trying to apply a sort of imaging filter and make it look like a sketch. Maybe it was because she was drawing something from memory (in this case, a fifteen-megapixel photo of a deer). Perhaps her drawings would look more…artistic if she drew something not stored in her hard disks.
Well.
Almost.
While it was great that her spatial and image processing powers were beyond powerful, even something she hadn't encountered before (in this case, a raccoon in a three-piece suit doing a somersault over Chell's head) looked as though it might have been rendered in 3D with a sketch filter put on it before getting printed out by a relatively mediocre printer. GLaDOS looked to Chell's doodles of flowers and Wheatley's squashy turrets and found herself becoming inexplicably irritated with herself. She might have thought her artistic conundrum might stem from the deeper and more philosophical question of whether artificial personality constructs were capable of making art, but it seemed Wheatley wasn't having the same issue that she was. Was his inability to generate near-perfect drawings because he had more solid roots as a human, or was his simpler core design more suited to art than GLaDOS's was?
She hated the idea that he might be better than her in something. Even if the something was silly like the ability to draw lopsided turrets. Sure, she could draw lopsided turrets herself, but each pen stroke would have purpose and would be deliberate—very much unlike the way he haphazardly (and very happily) pulled his pencil across the paper with a sort of spontaneity that GLaDOS wasn't sure she was capable of.
Tap tap.
GLaDOS looked up from her drawing when Chell tapped her hand with a pen and found her holding up her notepad.
"something wrong?" she'd written.
"No," said GLaDOS flatly. Chell rolled her eyes and took a moment to scribble something on the notepad before holding it up again.
"liar. it's all over your face."
She had to resist the urge to put a hand to her face as she glared at Chell. The facial mechanisms on her androids were sophisticated, sure, but they didn't quite have the nuance of organic tissue: when she quickly reviewed the configuration of her facial panels, GLaDOS found that she hadn't been doing much more than examining her drawing in mild boredom. How in the world could Chell read her so well when there had hardly been anything to read on her face in the first place?
"It's such a tragedy: it looks like you're mute and now you're going blind," said GLaDOS, smirking in an attempt to mask her irritation (and slight surprise) while Chell snorted and gave a silent laugh.
"Wait, Chell is going blind? But she was just fine a moment ago—doesn't need glasses or anything!" Wheatley said in horror, looking up from his drawing. When nothing but silence and an arched eyebrow from Chell answered him, he let out a small, embarrassed laugh. "Oh, right. That's sarcasm! I get it. Sarcasm. So you're not going blind after all! Which is a relief, frankly. N-not that I thought you were, of course!"
He laughed nervously as Chell rolled her eyes again and tapped him once on his knuckles before returning to her sketch. GLaDOS, however, had no desire to continue drawing; it was a pointless exercise for her, and it'd only irritate her more to watch the moron make his misshapen drawings.
It wasn't jealousy or anything.
Imagine. GLaDOS, jealous of that moron.
…
For god's sake.
"As much as I'd love to waste more of my time here, I'm going to do some tests," said GLaDOS, getting to her feet and rattling the cables coming out of her head.
"More tests with Blue and Orange?" asked Wheatley, scratching his chin with the eraser of his pencil.
Him and that blasted pencil…
"You know, you and I are going to test," GLaDOS said slowly, a devious smile spreading across her face. "We haven't done that yet, have we?"
The idiot looked deliciously horrified by the idea. "Y-y-you mean do a test? With you? As in…with the portal gun?" he sputtered, dropping his pencil as GLaDOS pulled him to his feet by his neck.
"Yes, you. Does it look like Chell is in any condition to do any tests? Put on your Long Fall Boots and meet me in the Cooperative Testing Hub, or I'll blow you up and have you reassembled there," GLaDOS said, pushing him toward the door. He stumbled, nearly falling flat on his backside as he twisted around to give Chell a terrified look—as though begging Chell for help might actually get GLaDOS to spare him from testing (it wouldn't). When she could only give him a helpless and apologetic shrug, he let out a nervous laugh and began backing away toward the door.
"Right. Testing. I—ah—I'll be right down. You know, even though I'm not very good. At testing. Absolutely awful at it, really, you don't want me as your testing partner. I just—"
"Just go," GLaDOS snapped.
When he let out another nervous laugh and finally trotted out of the room, GLaDOS sat down beside the core transfer receptacle and plugged the transfer cable in. "I'm going to modify the euphoria parameters again," she said when Chell sat down beside her and gave her a questioning look.
They sat in silence while GLaDOS reviewed the previous versions of the euphoria modifications she'd made. Trying to modify it now might be just as pointless as her trying to make art, but she refused to simply accept the humiliation of making that disgusting sound whenever she completed a test chamber. "What's so funny?" said GLaDOS, frowning when she realized that Chell was silently laughing beside her as the modified code began compiling. Chell waved her comment away and shrugged again, all the while laughing away like the lunatic she was. "I can give you a voice, you know. As a gift because I'm so generous," GLaDOS said, a smirk spreading across her face. "I just need to put a few chips in your head and give you a voice modulator and that muteness will clear right up. I can even give you a voice doesn't sound as dumb as yours does."
Under normal circumstances, GLaDOS would have expected a sarcastic retort, but Chell was very mute at the moment and, of course, had no voice for a retort.
So Chell shoved her instead.
This was so unexpected that GLaDOS had to throw her arm out to keep herself from toppling sideways onto the floor. "The Enrichment Center would like to remind you that physical violence against the central AI unit is against protocol," GLaDOS said huffily, glaring at her smirking companion.
And what did that smirking madwoman do?
Shove her again.
"Stop that!" GLaDOS snapped irately as she straightened up. Frankly, she should've seen it coming, considering who it was she was talking to. When Chell could only snicker in silence, GLaDOS sullenly turned away. "I could push you back, you know. Except you're injured and I'm not a monster, so I won't."
Surprise briefly flashed across Chell's face and, if GLaDOS wasn't mistaken, she looked slightly ashamed of herself. GLaDOS would have felt gleeful at that little triumph if it hadn't been for the slightly distressing fact that she now found herself pulled into a hug. "I'm starting to wonder," GLaDOS said, unable to escape her grasp since she was still waiting for the euphoria suppression code to finish compiling, "if maybe the carbon fiber reinforcements are poisoning your brain." When Chell did not let go and in fact held on tighter in lieu of a vocal retort, GLaDOS frowned and let out a small sigh. "Seriously, let go. I don't want any part in your disgusting human interactions."
She actually had the gall to start laughing. Voiceless, raspy laughing, but laughing nonetheless.
Also, she didn't let go.
"You're taking advantage of the fact that your little—oh, sorry, slip of the tongue—large human body is hurt."
But Chell had that face. The determined, testing face that had been the bane of GLaDOS's existence after this entire business of waking Chell from stasis the first time, getting killed, getting put into a potato, nearly getting blown up by a moron, getting removed from said potato, and making friends. What was she trying to get with that face? Did she want GLaDOS to return the hug?
Judging by her expression?
Yes.
"You've got to be kidding me."
Chell's face was unfazed, unwavering, and she stubbornly shook her head.
"Oh, for god's sake. Are you so starved for human contact that you're resorting to me?" GLaDOS said derisively, rolling her eyes and letting out a dramatic sigh. Chell, unfortunately, was still undeterred by the bite in her words and still looked at her expectantly, as though to say "It's not going to kill you." This lunatic was pushing GLaDOS so far out of her comfort zone that she might as well be out orbiting said comfort zone in space, but she supposed the longer she spent trying to avoid hugging her, the longer she'd spend trapped in her grip (which was surprisingly strong for someone whose back was recovering from being discouraged by a laser).
The euphoria modification would be finished compiling in three seconds.
Two.
One.
GLaDOS quickly wrapped her arms around Chell and squeezed once—and when Chell's grip loosened in surprise, she took that opportunity to unplug the transfer cable and slip out of her arms in one fluid motion. "I hope you're happy, because that means one of us is," said GLaDOS, frowning as Chell got to her feet with a smirk. She gave GLaDOS a light pat on the shoulder to indicate that yes, she was quite happy.
As GLaDOS walked to the Cooperative Testing Hub with Chell, who was carrying Wheatley's portal gun, she struggled to suppress the distressing desire to talk to her currently mute friend in spite of the fact that she was, in fact, currently mute. She'd spent long enough talking to a person that didn't have the decency (or ability) to respond to all the things she'd been saying for her benefit (because really, insults build character), and she'd gotten used to having a person that did have the decency (and ability) to respond. Then again, maybe her cravings for conversation had gradually developed and she'd never actually noticed it until Chell could no longer speak.
She'd be…enhancing the truth if she said that she didn't miss having someone who could talk with her, rather than the way the abominable Aperture scientists had talked down at her or the way that the moron talked up to her as a superior. No, GLaDOS and Chell—they were equals, and just admitting that was probably a milestone development as far as GLaDOS was concerned. Honestly, she ought to be given a medal of some sort. She could award herself some Science Points, of course: a cool million or so would probably be appropriate.
Wheatley was already waiting in the Hub when they arrived and seemed to be playing charades with Blue and Orange (not that his flailing made it particularly obvious). The perplexed looks on Blue and Orange made GLaDOS briefly consider modifying them to be capable of speech, just so they could tell Wheatley verbally that he was terrible at the game. "Ah, Chell! And GLaDOS! With the portal gun," added Wheatley, laughing nervously and eyeing the portal device in Chell's hands. "So, ah, just thought I'd take a moment remind you that I'm not particularly good at testing—"
"I know you're not, moron," GLaDOS said in exasperation. "Just take the portal device. We'll do simple ones, for your sake and mine."
It was painfully obvious that he hadn't held a handheld portal device ever since that day he and Chell ran the Calibration Course (and decided to play soccer with an Edgeless Safety Cube)—it took him a moment to find the triggers and when he did, he accidentally shot a portal at Orange's backside, prompting her to trill indignantly at him. When Chell took pity on him and helped him hold it properly (which he did with an almost pathetically triumphant grin), GLaDOS rolled her eyes and began walking off toward the entrance of one of the simpler testing tracks.
"You can come to the chamber if you want," GLaDOS said, glancing at Chell as she stepped into an elevator. "I removed all the exciting, deadly testing elements so you won't be killed by any exciting, deadly testing elements."
The testing itch (or general boredom) must have been getting to Chell, because a delighted grin spread across her face as she nudged Wheatley over to the opposite elevator and gleefully squeezed in with him. He seemed to be completely taken by surprise by this and accidentally shot a portal at the elevator door and nearly dropped the device when he realized just how close Chell would need to be in order for them to fit into the elevator.
"A-ah, so you're coming too? To watch us test?" GLaDOS heard him say before their elevator doors slid shut and the elevators sped down to the first test chamber of the track.
Moron.
"All right, then! Just watch—Wheatley can do this! N-not a problem!" said Wheatley when he stumbled out of the elevator. He seemed to be doing his best to look determined and confident, as if he actually knew what he was doing. Just what happened in that elevator during the 4.1359-second trip down to the chamber?
As promised, the chamber was actually quite easy: GLaDOS effortlessly saw the solution after a cursory glance around the room while Wheatley was still preoccupied with beating his chest about how he would definitely be able to help solve a test. "All right then, moron," said GLaDOS, glancing at him and smirking, "you tell me how to solve it. I'll put my portals wherever you say."
He seemed to deflate almost immediately, but he glanced once at Chell and tried to pull himself together. "Okay, just watch. I can do this. Really. Really, I can. Just…need…to—ah! We need to get that cube!" he exclaimed, looking up at a Weighted Storage Cube sitting on a high ledge. "Just—how the bloody hell do we get up there?"
It took every ounce of self-control that GLaDOS had to keep from simply solving the test herself—a problem that Chell also seemed to be having, if the frustrated grimace on her face was anything to go by (which she quickly changed into an encouraging smile whenever Wheatley looked back at her). In fact, GLaDOS was ready to hit him and just get the cube herself when he finally figured out that he needed to place a portal onto the floor of the chamber's pit and a portal on the high panel opposite the ledge in order to fling himself across. When he did so (with an awkward flail once he realized he was falling quite a ways, GLaDOS smiled in vindictive satisfaction as his momentum carried him face-first into the far wall on the ledge.
"Okay, I've got the cube!" he said triumphantly, holding the cube aloft with the portal device once he recovered from getting his face smashed into the wall. "Er…now what? I'm fairly sure we need to put this cube…on that button. Cube, button. Great! But how do we get up to the button?"
The button in question was one sitting atop another ledge and had blue lights leading to the exit door. It was, needless to say, unreachable by jumping. "What if I…threw the cube there? No, what…can't throw that far. Bit too heavy for that," Wheatley added just as GLaDOS was about to snap at him to not waste time by trying it. "Oh! Er—GLaDOS? What happens when you step on that button there?"
Finally.
With great relief, GLaDOS stepped on the button he was pointing at—it was a button on ground level, which flipped a panel high on the wall around so that it revealed a white portal-conducting surface. "Er…what did it do?" Wheatley called, looking slightly perplexed.
"It flipped a panel around up there. It's possible to shoot a portal onto it," said GLaDOS, pointing up at the wall. It was out of his view, so he wouldn't be able to put a portal onto it himself, but it was what they needed to get the cube over to the button by the exit.
"Right. Rrrrriight. Seems we're in a bit of pickle, aren't we? Bit of a pickle," she heard him muttering to himself. It was almost painful to see him thinking so hard—GLaDOS knew it wasn't his fault that he was no good at solving puzzles, but the sight of him musing so intensely about such a simple solution was difficult to watch without acting upon her desire to violently crush something.
"If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were stumped," GLaDOS said, resting her portal device on her shoulder and smirking up at him.
"Nonono! I can do this! I can still figure it out!" he said indignantly. "Errrrm…probably not an option to give the cube wings at this point, is it…?"
GLaDOS didn't want to dignify his question with any answer apart from giving him the most venomous glare that she could manage, but he proved to have enough sense in his idiotic little brain to cringe and apologize profusely while Chell slapped a palm to her forehead. "Errm…uh…I've got it!" he said finally, once he managed to pull himself together. "GLaDOS, could you—um—put your portal down in this pit, and one on that panel from the button?"
"So you can actually solve tests," said GLaDOS airily as she walked over to put a light blue portal down in the pit. "I guess you did well. For you."
He managed to pick up on the thinly veiled compliment and sputtered a nervous "thank you!" while she returned to her place atop the button and shot a purple portal onto the flipped panel above. When she nodded to him, he stepped off the ledge and into her light blue portal, flailing madly as he was flung across the room to the exit ledge. He was actually doing pretty well until he nearly dropped the cube off the ledge when he tried to disengage it from the portal device's zero-point energy field manipulator, but thankfully he managed to catch it in time and triumphantly placed it on the button.
Chell pat him on the shoulder and gave him a hug when she climbed up the stairs that the button had activated. "Oh—uh—thank you!" he said, grinning as they walked over to stand in front of the camera by the exit.
Well, here it was again. The moment where GLaDOS would see if her euphoria modifications worked or not. It was a small consolation to know that even if the modifications failed (again), Wheatley was incapable of feeling the testing euphoria in that body and so would not be joining her in The Moan That Transcends All Code.
She steeled herself for the inevitable failure and stepped in front of the camera.
A faint tingle registered in her sensors. So far so good, but this had happened before and resulted in the cybernetic equivalent of an acid trip.
Still no disgusting moan, but a pleasant lightheadedness began to overtake her head. It was beginning to interfere with her thought processes, but it was definitely better than that horrid moan.
When five million nanoseconds had passed without her losing all control over her body, GLaDOS let out a laugh of triumph. "It worked," she said. "It worked!"
"Brilliant! Er—what worked?" asked Wheatley, giving her a perplexed glance.
"The solution euphoria suppression modifications. Let's see if it'll last—let's do another test."
GLaDOS got the feeling that something was slightly off when the short elevator ride down to the next test chamber seemed entirely more exciting than she recalled it ever being. Maybe it was simply a symptom of the excitement of finally making a successful modification to the euphoria effects. However, a little nagging feeling in the back of her head told her that stumbling upon exiting the elevator was not quite normal (though fortunately, Chell and Wheatley didn't notice), but, oddly, she was feeling entirely too cheerful about her success to care one way or another.
The next chamber was almost as simple as the previous one, though it also included a lone Aerial Faith Plate. GLaDOS peered around the chamber in order to see the solution, but an odd fog was beginning to descend in her mind that was making it a little difficult to think. She was distracted, however, when Wheatley wandered a bit too close to the Faith Plate and was subsequently flung in a high arc across the room and onto a tilted portal surface. It was then that GLaDOS realized the solution: place portals on the tilted surfaces in order to reach a switch that would deposit an Edgeless Safety Cube from a vent. Without bothering to wait for Wheatley to get off the tilted surface, GLaDOS shot a portal on the tilted panel he was standing on and one on the other tilted surface, causing him to fall through with a strangled yelp of alarm while she walked over toward the Faith Plate. Firmer distress signals began going off in the back of her mind when it became a chore to walk in a straight line, but it could wait until after they finished this chamber—she pushed the little warning signals as far out of her mind as possible and stepped onto the Aerial Faith Plate without hesitation.
Dear god, why did flying through the air feel so exciting?
It felt so good that she felt the need to make some sort of announcement indicating this.
"Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"
When she found herself deposited neatly on the ledge with the switch, she stopped making her exciting announcement and pressed said switch.
Or would have, if she hadn't been distracted by the slightly odd sound coming from the area near the chamber entrance.
"Ha ha ha ha…"
That sound…
"Ha ha ha ha ha ha…!"
That voice.
"Hahahahahahaha!"
GLaDOS could see Chell doubled over in laughter while Wheatley looked at her with his jaw hanging slightly open, and this piqued GLaDOS's interest because she couldn't quite see what was so funny and was curious as to why Chell was laughing so hard, but more importantly—
Chell was making sound again.
"You're—you're speaking! Well, laughing actually, but making sounds again! Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant!" Wheatley exclaimed, bounding over to her with a grin on his face as her laughs grew louder and louder.
"What—whasso funny?" GLaDOS demanded, but she quickly took a step back in shock and swayed on her feet. "Why can't I—why am I talking…like thissss…?"
"Oh god," Chell gasped, her voice raspy but making sound nonetheless, "are you—drunk, GLaDOS?"
"It's—it's imp—impossssi—illogical for me to be drunk," GLaDOS managed to say, and she was horrified by her sudden speech impediment. "I'm not—can't get drunk. I'm not hoo—human."
Chell laughed even harder and sank down onto the floor, curling up as her body shook with each laugh. "I—I never thought I'd live—to see this," she gasped, wiping tears from her eyes. "Oh, god…hahahahahaha!"
"Whyyyyy do I even—have this func—function?" GLaDOS said irately as she jumped off the ledge. She mentally thanked the Long Fall Boots for being there on her feet—in her current state, she might have broken both her legs if she tried that little stunt without them. If there had been any Aperture scientists left after she killed them all with neurotoxin, she would have killed them all over again for this—whatever the hell this was. Honestly, nobody but an Aperture scientist would think it'd be a good idea to give their facility's main AI unit the capability of simulating drunkenness. She'd definitely have to look in the version changelogs to see if they included any particular reasoning other than the "why not?" that was Aperture's usual research and development mantra, and this was definitely the last time she played with unhelpfully-named variables without consulting documentation first. Maybe the scientists thought that once Caroline was uploaded, she might want to have a few digital drinks in order to unwind after a hard day's testing, as though it would be enough to relax from the horrible fate of being poured into a computer like GLaDOS in the first place?
Wonderful.
So at the moment, her only options when testing was to either moan like dirty human or totter around and slur like she'd just done a kegstand.
She almost preferred the dirty moan. Actually, she did prefer it. A few seconds of humiliation was far superior to this currently ongoing (with no end in sight) condition of not being able to walk or think properly. In which case—her success was actually a failure. A horrible failure.
"Let's—let'sss go back," GLaDOS managed to say, teetering over to where Chell was lying on the floor and laughing her guts out.
"You—you can't even—walk," Chell squeaked, her face contorted in a mixture of helpless laughter and horrible pain. GLaDOS glanced at Wheatley, almost daring him to burst into laughter, and she was pleased to see him shrink away a bit and give her a nervous half-smile.
If anything came of this humiliation, it was that it got Chell speaking again.
So it was worth it. A little bit.
"Come on, let's—let's go back," Chell said breathlessly, picking herself up off the floor and running her fingers through her hair.
While GLaDOS desperately wanted to return to the Central AI Chamber, she dreaded having to take another step to get there because her balancing mechanisms were completely unreliable at the moment. To her relief (or dismay—she couldn't decide which yet), Chell noticed her silent quandary and without any sort of warning, grabbed GLaDOS's arm and pulled it over her head and across her shoulders. Since she was slightly shorter than GLaDOS's android body, Chell actually fit surprisingly well under her arm and made a very good support.
"Come on, lean—on me. Wheatley—get her—o-other side," said Chell, jerking her head toward GLaDOS's unsupported side. It seemed she was having some difficulty making the sounds come out of her throat, but the important thing was that she was actually making sounds again. Eloquent speech would probably return sometime soon.
GLaDOS almost tried to twist herself away from Wheatley—honestly, she didn't want him touching her for fear of him somehow bumbling his way into accidentally throwing them all into a pit—but as an inexplicably drunk computer that probably couldn't even add in binary at the moment, it was probably best to just swallow her pride for once and let them help her. If she didn't, they might just leave her there to crawl her way back to the Central AI Chamber on her own—she could see Chell pulling something like that on her. How utterly pathetic would that be, crawling back to her chamber all alone?
Pride tasted bitter and she did not like swallowing it.
"GLaDOS, your—body—is heavy," Chell said as they shuffled through the Cooperative Testing Hub like some bizarre six-legged creature.
"Calling me—fat noooow?" GLaDOS managed to say through the maddening fog in her head. "Breaking—my heart—insss—insulting me after I wwwwent through aaaaall this—to get your voice back. You mute—ungrateful—lunatic."
"I thought—this was for euphoria—problems."
"Got your voice back—dinntyou? Close enough."
"Heh. Th-thanks."
GLaDOS let the words sink in. They felt pretty good, but she wasn't sure if that was the digital inebriation speaking or if it actually felt good.
"Dongetusedtoit."
"Rrriiight. Sure thing."
She wasn't even sure when they had reached the Central AI Chamber—all that she knew at the moment were the vague and almost far-off voices of her two companions and that she was somehow now lying on the floor beside the core transfer receptacle. And before she could show them which cable to use out of the ones extending from her head, her android body suspended all unnecessary processes and plunged her into the darkness of sleep mode.
The first thing GLaDOS noticed upon coming back online was that she was curled on the floor of the Central AI Chamber.
The second thing she noticed was that Chell was beside her, lying on her stomach with the side of her face squashed against the floor.
The third thing she noticed was Wheatley in sleep mode, lying next to Chell with his fingers curled around hers.
These were three things whose inexplicable idiocy, in the past, would have surprised her, but after what happened 7.62 hours ago (according to the diagnostic report she ran on her body)...
She did feel herself bristle in annoyance at the thought that the great chamber housing her main body was, at the moment, being used for some sort of bizarre slumber party, but the thing was that she wasn't exactly surprised that it had all happened that way. She wasn't sure if there was much that would really surprise her anymore.
Test subject escaping incinerator and coming to kill her? Wouldn't even bat an optic shutter.
Getting put into a potato? Been there, done that.
Getting put into a tomato? Not a potato, but not all that surprising either.
Black Mesa scientists bearing down on the Enrichment Center? What else was new?
And now she probably had the distinction of being the only computer ever to have passed out drunk. Short of Caroline's ghost suddenly emerging from her hard disks and telling her to get it on with Chell and the moron (whatever "it" may possibly be—GLaDOS didn't want to think about it), there probably wasn't much else that would make GLaDOS truly frustrated and angry because she was going to be sure to never use that euphoria suppression modification ever again. After plugging in her transfer cable to prepare for resynchronization with her main body, she made doubly sure to leave a note (in big red letters) in that euphoria mod's metadata to absolutely never under no circumstances induce solution euphoria while running that modification, and she put a nice big lock on the file so that it would require some work to remove should she ever completely lose her mind and decide to try it again.
Still, regardless of all the humiliation of having to get dragged back to the chamber by her only friends, it really was worth it. It had amused Chell enough that her voice returned for the purposes of laughing her backside off, and when GLaDOS looked down at her sleeping friend, she felt a brief ripple of relief go through her at the sight of Chell's placid and almost carefree expression (so carefree, in fact, that she was freeing saliva all over the floor panel).
She allowed herself a smile (since, thankfully, nobody around her was awake to see it) and lay back down on the floor. It wouldn't hurt to stay like that for a little while longer.
Maybe she was starting to get the hang of this empathy thing after all.
A/N: So like I said up at the top, this isn't the last chapter because it got really long and it would've taken me a few days to a week to finish (and I know some of you may have been waiting for an update…maybe). Anywho, I'm not gonna make any more chapter promises because I obviously can't keep them. So. I'll just write till it's done, whether that means there's one chapter left or five. I hope this chapter was passable, though. : (
Lots of people have watched I, Robot, right? The way that Sonny draws his dream is how I imagine GLaDOS would draw. XD
So…I'm not sure what exactly possessed me to write GLaDOS getting drunk off solution euphoria, but I hope it was entertaining for you guys. It seems almost as ill-conceived as that comic I did about SHODAN wanting GLaDOS back (for those curious, check my Tumblr). In any case, if you didn't like it, the story's almost over so you won't have to suffer through my madness much longer.
BOXES WITH WINGS, EVERYBODY. IT'S THE FUTURE OF STORAGE CUBES.
