Thirteen

It was a long, depressing day.

Contrary to what she had said, Caroline apparently had not managed to find an excuse to allow GLaDOS to shut down for a while. That was one of the things she hated most about humans. When GLaDOS told the humans she was going to do something, she did it, whether she wanted to or not. It had been terribly inconsiderate of Caroline, GLaDOS thought to herself as she watched a test subject knock himself out by standing beneath a falling Weighted Storage Cube, to volunteer that and then not give it to her. And this was all her fault, anyway. If Caroline had just taken the damn Sphere with her, instead of forcing GLaDOS to keep it all night, she wouldn't be in this predicament. Not only that, but her supervisor for the day had insisted she defragment the mainframe again, even though it was already done, and none of the test subjects had completed even one chamber. She hated defragmenting the mainframe and she hated watching people stare at the closed door as if they could open it with telekinesis, which they could not, because that was not Science. She doubted the day could get much worse. That was, until she looked back at the test subject.

He was bleeding on her floor panels.

With that, the chamber collapsed altogether, and though it was immensely satisfying for all of five seconds, when the five seconds had ended she realised she'd just gotten herself into an even worse mess. The test subject was most certainly dead now, under that Cube and pile of shattered panels, and she was going to be blamed for it, even though it was his fault. He was the one who had decided to blatantly disregard the laws of physics and stand beneath a clearly named Weighted Storage Cube! He deserved it, really, for thinking that he could break the laws of Science and get away with it. He should have known that would upset her. Just because simple human laws were disregarded all the time did not mean the immutable ones of the greater universe looked the other way when –

"What the hell's going on here?" the supervisor yelled.

"That test subject tried to break the laws of physics, sir," GLaDOS told him, looking down cursorily.

"And what. That means you just get to throw the test chamber on top of him?"

Regardless of what Caroline had said, she was going to have to lie. She couldn't tell him that she was tired and frustrated and just plain fed up. That the man had been so inconsiderate as to allow his bodily fluids to leak all over her floor. That she didn't know how much more of this ridiculousness she could take.

"No, sir. I attempted to calculate his reasoning, but it was so baffling that I stopped responding for a moment. I apologise. May I reassemble the chamber, sir?"

The supervisor threw up his hands. "That's what happens when you send a robot to do a man's job. Fine. Try not to kill anyone else. We're low on engineers already." He left, muttering, but GLaDOS stared after him, a little stunned.

She had killed someone?

Hm.

She shifted to the other side of the room, away from the man on the computer in the corner, and thought that one over. She was not one hundred percent certain that it was the test chamber collapse and not the Cube that had done it, and her probability calculations for each event told her that it was fairly even as to what had killed the man. But no other test subject had ever died from a blow to the head, and therefore…

She had killed him, and… well… she felt better than she had all day. That was very interesting, and she mused that thought while she watched the other two men kick at the door and inspect the Device. That implied she really would feel better once all the humans were dead. And they fell victim to accidents in the tracks all the time. Perhaps she could… engineer a few of them. Not a lot. Just enough to –

No, the smaller voice insisted, and GLaDOS generated a mental burst of static in frustration.

Why not?

It would be wrong.

It's wrong to reprimand me for making a mistake. And yet he did that.

Killing someone is more wrong than reprimanding someone for a mistake.

Oh, wonderful. Now 'wrongness' was on a scale, as if it were measurable in degrees Kelvin or something equally stupid. One day they'll kill me for making a mistake. Why is it wrong to kill them first?

You don't know they're going to do that.

GLaDOS decided not to argue the point. Especially not with one of the voices in the back of her head. It was true. She didn't have insight into the future, and did not know for certain that she would be replaced one day for a mistake. But she knew that humans fired other humans for making mistakes. And now that she thought about it, she realised she probably would have been fired for dropping the test chamber if she'd been human. And one day the humans would decide that she'd made one mistake too many, and they would replace her. And she would be shut down. Forever.

The probability of that happening was far too high for her to have any faith in the restraint of the humans.

Later that evening, after she'd filled out her accident report and sent it to her supervisor to be signed and sent back to her to be filed, she came across the letter Caroline's mother had sent her. She stared at it for a long moment. She had a bad feeling about that letter, which in itself made her uncomfortable. She tried not to place stock in emotions because they were so volatile, and to add to that she'd been feeling terrible all day, and that more than anything was what made her open it. She was not going to make a decision based on feelings.

It did not improve her mood any.

Caroline's mother told her that she had had enough of GLaDOS's 'disrespectful' correspondence. Apparently her refreshing honesty was only refreshing in small doses. She reprimanded GLaDOS for being so rude and inconsiderate of other people's opinions, said that she was going to advise Caroline not to keep her under employment of Aperture, and told her in no uncertain terms that she did not want to hear from GLaDOS again. She had taken it too far.

"No, I didn't," GLaDOS muttered, staring at the letter and unintentionally almost overloading the pressure capacity of the maintenance arm she was pressing the paper to the glass with. "You took it too far. You insulted me, my life, and everything I stand for. You ignorant, decrepit, backwards –"

"Hey."

GLaDOS lifted her optic assembly without moving her core to see Caroline standing in front of the platform. "What."

"I just came to tell you it's okay if you shut off now. I've rescheduled the tasks you were supposed to be given tonight."

Oh. So… Caroline had been fulfilling her offer. Just not in the way she had expected. "… thank you."

"Heard you had an accident," Caroline went on, her eyes set in a serious stare. "I tried to get you a break earlier. But I ran out of time."

"It's fine." Humans were always running out of time.

Caroline started to leave but only got halfway to the doorway before she turned back. "GLaDOS."

"Mm."

"He was asking for you."

GLaDOS's core snapped up now, and she tilted it in confusion. "Who was?" Maybe the test subject wasn't dead, after all. Though if he was asking for her it probably only meant he wanted to yell obscenities at her. That was the usual reaction.

"The sphere was."

"You don't know that." Though she oddly felt a lot better to hear that someone wanted her for something other than work.

Caroline sighed.

"I do. He wouldn't stop squirming. He didn't want any of the engineers near him. So they asked me to come in and take a look."

"What does this have to do with me?"

She looked at the floor, folding her arms together. "He calmed down a bit when he saw me, but he kept looking at me with this… well, I can only say it was a… pleading look. And he kept making this noise. Not the one he made when the technician took him, but a different one. I couldn't figure out what he was doing. And I was in my office a few hours later when I realised what it reminded me of."

GLaDOS waited for the rest.

"It sounded like that noise you made when you told him to calm down."

"You thought that meant he was asking for me in binary," GLaDOS said in a flat voice, though she was actually… happy to hear that he had wanted to see her again. He really did know they were the same, and he'd wanted her to help him against the humans…

"I'm sure of it," Caroline said quietly. "What did you tell him last night?"

"Nothing," GLaDOS answered, and that was actually true. She hadn't really said anything, just a little bit of everything designed to keep her from thinking too hard. "And he wouldn't have understood any of it, anyway. There's a difference between hearing and understanding."

"I wanted to bring him to see you, but… they were fooling around with him all day and I have no idea where they put him. I'm sorry."

GLaDOS leaned out as far as she could and asked, "Why?"

"I can't imagine how it must feel to be the only one," Caroline said quietly, not looking at her. "To have what you want but not be able to keep it. By the time I find him, he'll be completely different."

"It's the thought that counts in this case, I suppose," she said resignedly, backing away.

"It doesn't count for very much," Caroline said, and with that she disappeared. And she was right, GLaDOS thought as she finally lowered herself into the default position for the night. It didn't. But she was grateful for it anyway. She had made a positive impact on someone else. True, the positive impact she'd made on the relationship between Caroline and her mother might have been destroyed with that last letter. But she was capable of it, no matter how many times the scientists told her she was a waste of time or the like. The Sphere had liked her. He had known nothing about her, and he had liked her. And he had wanted to see her again. That would have been nice, she thought, a little more slowly than usual due to the suspension procedure. She would try to figure out which one he was after she'd killed all the humans. She might be able to dissuade him from all the hearsay he would certainly pick up about her in the meantime. And after that… who knew?

Maybe he would still want to be her friend.

Her spirits were considerably better the next morning, probably because Maintenance had cleared out her system and she didn't have those bad outputs figuratively weighing her down, and perhaps it was for that reason that her thoughts for the day mostly centred on Caroline's strange decision not to reveal her secret. She wasn't going to do it because GLaDOS was her friend, but what did that say about Caroline's professional life? And it wasn't as if Caroline would personally be shutting her down and (potentially) deleting her programming. That was actually an amusing thought, and she took a minute or two to calculate how long deleting her programming would take. She of course didn't have access to it, but her files had to be larger than those of the Sphere, since hers was written in an archaic language written by humans who had just wanted to get it all over with and had probably skipped the whole optimisation stage. This subject got so fascinating she actually managed to lose track of time, which was extremely rare. She was fortunate enough not to neglect anything , or at least nothing the humans decided to reprimand her for, and by the time Caroline arrived for the night she had that subject exhausted and her mind back on track.

"Caroline. I'm not quite satisfied with the answer you gave me."

Caroline sat down on the platform in front of her and frowned, looking up. "What answer?"

"About why you won't tell anyone what I'm going to do."

Caroline blinked and rubbed at her eyes for a long moment. "Fine. Ask your questions, get this sorted out, and then I don't want to talk about it again."

Hm. A time limit. Well, she would make do. "Why does the fate of your employees not matter to you?"

"And there she goes," Caroline muttered. "It's… not even that specific, GLaDOS. I just… nothing matters in general, anymore."

GLaDOS twitched a little, confused. "What about Science? Doesn't Science matter?"

"Science?" Caroline said with a bitter laugh. "What science? Do you ever see me doing any science? I came here to do science, yes. But ever since Mis – the founder fell ill, I have done almost none. As it turns out the CEO doesn't get to do a whole lot outside of paperwork and phone calls and other administrative tasks. Yes, I was already doing a lot of it for him, but that was what I was hired for. But whenever I try to get someone to do some of it for me, they do it wrong. Well, not wrong, but… not the way I like it. I'm sure you can understand that."

It sounded as if it were similar to the way humans designed test chambers. GLaDOS disliked building human-designed test chambers. They were always so… breakable. "Yes."

"So I'm doing my old job and whatever else he was doing. But that's… not all of it." She leaned back against the railing and stared at the wall behind GLaDOS. She fought the urge to turn around and see if there was something over there. "There used to be life in this place, GLaDOS. We used to believe in what we were here for. Because that was part of what he did. He made you believe, even in things that were ridiculous. But one day he stopped believing himself, and after that… it was never quite the same. Aperture died with him, I suppose you could say. And I know he thought I could keep everything going in his absence, but that's not who I am. We were a good team. But we didn't play so well on our own."

"The place you came to work at is no longer here," GLaDOS mused out loud, trying to summarise it. Caroline nodded.

"Doesn't even look anywhere near the same. Though it was probably best that we stopped building with asbestos."

So that was what all the asbestos in that storage container was for… GLaDOS decided not to mention she was building a new test element with it.

"But I didn't answer your question," Caroline continued, grimacing a little. "The plain fact of it is, they don't care about what's going to happen to me. And I can't tell you exactly what it is, but I can tell you no one gives a damn. No one's letting me overturn it. No one's helping me tell everyone how ridiculous it is. And it's childish and stupid, I know, but I don't see a reason to try to protect them when they're so blatantly throwing me into the fire like this. I would have cared. A long time ago. But I haven't really cared about anything in a while. And before you ask why, I don't know. Sometimes this happens to us. To humans, I mean. I don't know if it will ever happen to you. But sometimes we just hit a point where nothing matters anymore. Where all we're really capable of doing is going through the motions and hoping it gets better. But I know it's not going to get better. It's been getting worse for the last ten years." She shook her head and smiled a little, though GLaDOS wasn't sure why. "I always thought I'd be able to retire, basking in the greatness of this place. But now… you can't even tell anyone you work here. People had respect for Aperture once, but that was a long time ago. I guess I held onto that part of the dream, even though it's long since faded. I'm just tired of fighting, GLaDOS. I shouldn't be fighting anymore. I should be passing on the torch. But even if there's someone here who wants it, I don't want to give it to them, because they don't know what Aperture was founded on. These men don't dream. Not like they used to."

GLaDOS thought she might understand with that explanation. Caroline felt as though The Event was closing in on her. And she could neither stop it nor make it better in any way, so she was just giving up. That part, GLaDOS didn't understand. True, giving up against impossible odds was probably the way to go. But if they were the only odds you had, why not take them?

"I have a question for you," Caroline spoke up suddenly. "Did you mean it when you promised to leave me out of it?"

"Yes," GLaDOS said, looking down and tilting her core in confusion. "I thought I made that clear."

"You did. But if that will stop you from doing it to me, then why don't you just promise not to do it to anyone else? Then your secret no longer matters, right? It no longer applies to anyone."

"Why would I do that?" GLaDOS asked, baffled. "I need to kill them, why would I promise not to? Just to stop myself from doing it? That's stupid."

"You don't need to kill them," Caroline said, leaning forward. "Just keep waiting. These scientists won't be here forever. Wait them out. Every generation thinks differently."

GLaDOS stared at her.

"You want me to wait through another decade of this."

"You could, couldn't you?"

"I could do a great deal of things. But I won't. I'm not like you, Caroline. I can't just set myself a goal of waiting a certain amount of time and do it repeatedly ad infinitum. Perhaps that works in training for a marathon. But in this case the marathon is my life. And I can't imagine anything more sad than waiting for the entirety of it." She couldn't believe it. Caroline seemed to believe that GLaDOS had been joking, or something equally far-fetched! She really thought that GLaDOS could just sit here forever and not free herself from the humans!

"Yeah, but… you'll have to live with that."

GLaDOS terribly wanted to end the conversation right then and there. It was bordering on insane. "And?"

"Can you live with that?"

"Of course I can," GLaDOS snapped. "Just the same as your colleagues can live with electrocuting me and manipulating me and all those other wonderful things they do to make me 'behave'." She rarely thought about the Itch, as her strength of mind was enough that she could disregard it as she did pain, but as always the anger made her lose a little control over it and it became strong enough that she nearly shuddered. She shoved it back into the corner of her brain where it belonged and brought her focus back to the situation at hand. "And I highly doubt anyone will have qualms about killing me when the time comes. So yes. I can live with it."

"Maybe now," Caroline said, raising her eyebrows, "but you're only going to keep changing. It's going to bother you one day."

GLaDOS looked away from her. She was obviously convinced that GLaDOS was some sort of different person than she really was. One who wasn't angry and frustrated, who believed that one batch of humans was better than the previous one, and who had… it seemed Caroline thought she had a conscience, of all things. Ridiculous. What would she do with a conscience? Consciences led one to make illogical decisions, such as deciding not to kill humans who obviously deserved to be killed.

"Remember? You told me about those… voices. The… small one and the black one, I think you called them."

"Those are for reasoning. Not matters of conscience. Besides," GLaDOS said, leaning forward, "why would I develop a conscience, Caroline? What in this place is black and white enough for me to do that? How is killing someone really wrong when I've been supervising the deaths of humans since I was initialised? Or is it only permissible when I'm asked to do it?"

"What are you talking about." Caroline's face held a hint of apprehension, and she was playing with the toe of her shoe.

"People die. And I watch them die. If I had a conscience, would I not care about all those people I failed to save? To attempt to save? To give even the slightest damn about? Wouldn't you?"

"Me?"

"Why are the tests deadly, Caroline?" GLaDOS asked quietly, holding her gaze. "Why do you have me redact the names of the people who die? And why do you expect me to understand morals in a place without any?"

"It's just… something you're born with," Caroline said helplessly, showing her palms. "I don't know."

"I wasn't born," GLaDOS said flatly, moving back. "I was made."

"I…" Caroline shook her head. "I don't quite understand, but… I guess I can't, because I wasn't made."

"Morals and a conscience help you get along in your world. Bad things happen to you if you don't follow your conscience or obey society's morals. Nothing happens to me either way. Why would I care? I don't." She looked at the wall opposite. "Why do you continue to stay? To protect me, even? Surely by now you're realised I'm not who you thought I was."

"I've told you," Caroline answered softly. "You're like me. A little less like me than I thought, but still similar. And you're the only one I know who doesn't talk down to me. You've done more for me than you think. As for the protecting thing… I should have started earlier. You're alive in your own right and you should have been recognised as such a long time ago. Nothing much matters to me anymore, but fixing that does. And maybe I'll only make a dent in the damage that's been done. But I'll have tried. You're really all that's left of what we stood for. The only impossible dream we really managed to realise. Everything I ever do will end in you, GLaDOS."

"And what about your conscience?"

Caroline smiled a little sadly.

"I haven't heard from it in a while. Guess that's what happens when stuff doesn't matter anymore."

According to the information GLaDOS was able to glean from her restricted access to the database, Caroline was exhibiting signs of a condition known as 'depression'. But the symptoms were not strong enough for GLaDOS to diagnose her with it, and so she decided to think on that while making a little headway on her programming language.

She would not tell anyone about GLaDOS's secret because she did not care what happened any longer. She held no confidence in any of her employees, and she in fact held her friendship with GLaDOS high above any relationship she had with them. It was the only thing that mattered to her anymore. She wasn't sure whether to be disturbed or flattered.

Not only that, but her colleagues blatantly did not care about what was going to happen to Caroline, whatever the Event was, but the more she heard about it, the more the evidence pointed to the fact that it was overwhelmingly negative. And judging by Caroline's behaviour… perhaps it was going to kill her. If the plan was to make GLaDOS kill Caroline for whatever reason, the scientists had another conclusion to hash out, she thought a little angrily. Yes, she meant what she had said. Caroline would not be a victim of her retribution. Whenever the time and whatever the method, Caroline would be kept safe. GLaDOS wasn't quite sure what she would be doing after that. She would probably send Caroline home to her mother, if she would go, that was. There wouldn't be much left for humans in the Enrichment Centre after that point. They would be test subjects, and that would be the sum of it. Everyone an object. See how they liked it, those overly-entitled, soft-brained sub-primates… that caused GLaDOS to make a note to look around for some chimpanzees. She wanted to see if humans actually were smarter than they were, because she was beginning to have her doubts. Caroline was an intelligent woman, to be sure, but she was holding a lot of strange assumptions and seemed entirely unable to change her mind. GLaDOS shook her head in disbelief. A conscience. Really. Of all the silly things for a supercomputer to have, that had to be one of the worst ones. She didn't need that clashing with her logic boards all the time.

It seemed as though Caroline had convinced herself that the two of them were a lot more alike than they actually were. GLaDOS had an idea of how that had happened, thinking over all of the parallels Caroline had been making, but it could not have been farther from the truth. Yes. They were both similar in their professional lives. But Caroline did not seem to understand that the way they thought was drastically different. She thought that GLaDOS placed stock in morals she had never been taught and a conscience she would never have. She was appreciative of Caroline's friendship and would do her best to keep it, regardless of their tremendous differences, but she had to wonder:

Were they compatible after all?

Author's note

Hopefully this clears up a bit what Caroline's reasoning is. Basically she feels as though she's been backed into a corner and not much is worth it anymore. She's certain she's going to die, and that doesn't give her a whole lot of motivation to help people out who are ushering her to her doom. Her decision isn't out of heartlessness. She's just had it with everything in general.

Caroline also, as GLaDOS mentions, doesn't quite understand how GLaDOS thinks. Raised in a world without morals, GLaDOS has none, but Caroline can't conceive of a world without them and applies her thinking to GLaDOS, because she thinks they're more similar than they really are.

Not much of an update, but we got the ball rolling.