Hey all! It was my birthday yesterday and as the celebrations seem to still be happening, the next chapter will be slower to upload - plus, I haven't actually started it yet. ^^' my apologies.
Anyway, enjoy!
~Lagiacrus
Mom and I had noticed it immediately – the changes in GLaDOS' behaviour, the dropping of her mood, the weird huskiness of her voice – something was wrong with her, and when something went wrong with GLaDOS, it was only a matter of time until disaster struck WITH EVERYTHING ELSE.
I stood in the Red Phone room for some time, watching her, searching for any symptom of anything. Her yellow optic flickered threateningly, and every so often she would painfully shift and give a badly muted groan. Something was hurting her. She kept insisting that she was fine and tried to distract herself with the testing of Atlas and P-Body, but it did bother me that she didn't want me getting too close. Every time I had tried to approach, she would shoot a panicked "Get back!" in my direction. Was something going to happen? Did she know about it? Why wouldn't she tell me, or even mom? I stepped away from the wall, keeping my arms crossed, glaring at her with stern eyes.
"GLaDOS, it's obvious you're hurt." I pointed out and she shook her head.
"I'm fine, really."
Now I know where mom and I get our stubbornness from…
"I'm gonna go get mom, we're gonna help you, okay?" I told her.
"N-No, don't…!" She fretted, looking suddenly up at me. A jolt of electricity shot through her body, she writhed for a moment and she fell limp.
"Okay, now I'm definitely getting mom." I turned around to run away, but I thought I heard her desperately cry out something.
"No, don't you dare…!"
She was downstairs in her bedroom, reading an old pamphlet on Employee Safety. She really didn't have much to do when not testing.
"Mom!" I rushed into the room and she shot up immediately – if there was one thing that was good about her traumatic past, it was the fact she couldn't ever drop her guard. She was always on edge, prepared for trouble. At a time like this I was glad for it.
"What's wrong?" Her voice was wracked with worry but she remained in control of it. Although barely.
"Right, don't panic immediately, it might not be serious…" I warned her. "…but whatever's wrong with GLaDOS is getting worse."
Her expression darkened and a wave of dread rushed through me. Wonderful...
"Where are the others?" she demanded suddenly, startling me.
"I don't know!"
"Gather everyone, get in the service elevator and take it down into the old salt mines. You'll be safe there." She zipped up her jumpsuit and slid past me, running back the way I had come, up the stairs.
"What, why!?" I called after her and she cast back at me a commanding glare.
"Just do it!"
What Caroline had told me was serious cause for alarm. When we woke up this morning and found GLaDOS hanging limply, in no mood for conversation, I had assumed she was just depressive for whatever reason and decided that just leaving her alone was the best option. However, Caroline had sneaked back in and kept an eye on her. Now, I was glad she did. If this was the problem I had a hunch it was, then we were in MAJOR shit.
I entered the chamber, where GLaDOS was squirming amongst an electrical thunderstorm emitting from her own body. When it passed and she collapsed again, I didn't dare get close. The change could happen at any time. She'd shrunken the chamber down a little so she was more enclosed – the panels on either side of her were badly bruised, some of them were bent so much out of shape that their mechanical arms had stopped responding to her commands, having received one too many bumps.
"GLaDOS." I let her know I was there. Her attempt to look up was thwarted by another painful jolt.
"…Chell." She responded, her computerised voice leathery with unrest.
"It's acting up again, isn't it? That thing you told me about?" I questioned.
"The DM Module is once again unstable." She confirmed. I nodded solemnly.
"Are the others safe?" She asked, surprising me. Since when did she care about anybody but my daughter?
"Hopefully, they should be on their way down to the old Aperture. Your network doesn't reach there…" Then, a wave of panic rushed through me when I realized I didn't hold much stock in my own words. "…Right?"
"As long as they get out of the elevator at some point soon, they should remain alive. Hopefully." She replied. I guess that was as good an answer as I was going to get.
"How long do you think you have?" I knew that I shouldn't have asked.
"I-I can't say," her voice suddenly dropped in pitch and tempo for a moment and I thought I had lost her. However, she shook her core rapidly as if clearing her thoughts, and her voice returned to normal. "But not long. I suggest you take your leave, unless if you have a death wish."
At this I nearly smirked.
"What kind of Test Subject do you take me for?"
"…You're not planning to murder me again, are you?" Her optic flexed in surprise. "I thought we surpassed that stage in our relationship."
"No, of course not," I chuckled. "But I will be putting up a fight."
"Hm," she responded quietly. "I would expect no less of the half-mute lunatic fatso." Another electric shock irked her mechanical form and the hairs on the back of my neck bristled.
"Get out of here!" she suddenly pleaded in a wavering, pixelated voice, but I would do no such thing. I had been through too much with this psychopathic supercomputer to just abandon her now. I backed away as much as I would dare and her system suddenly kicked into overdrive and vicious static played through her speakers with some sort of yelp mixed throughout. She flailed around painfully, accidentally bashing the sides of the chamber yet again, trying to dodge the violent flashes of electricity that scarred her white hide and sliced through her wires like hot knives through butter. I was far enough away that she couldn't hurt me during her episode, but in a few moments I was not so sure.
With one final body spasm, she collapsed forward, her yellow optic vanishing like the extinguishing flame of a candle. For what seemed like an age there was silence – I could hear the very faint sound of her hard drive attempting to restart somewhere above her. It made one whirr, stopped. Another, then stopped. One more whirr and this time it kept going, picking up speed. I sighed in relief as the rest of her parts rumbled to life and her optic flashed on. The fact that the optic was a bright, ominous red never even occurred to me at first.
"I thought we'd lost you." I commented, expecting a snide remark about my weight or jumpsuit, but nothing came. She lifted herself up as high as she could manage with her shaking chassis and stared down upon me with her judging red eye. I wondered at first if it was a start-up error that had changed her optic, but it seemed to be more than that. She was acting differently – her body gently rose and shuddered as it fell, like she was a human trying to breathe but something was choking her.
Having her wordlessly stare down at me, her body functions clearly hostile, was the most threatening situation I had ever been in. I hadn't even been this frightened of her when I had been required to 'murder' her the first time. Her behaviour was off, primitive and surprisingly human – it seemed like she was so angry that she could barely hold herself back.
I had never seen her like this before, ever. As a result I couldn't decide what she was planning, what actions she'd take next – which so far seemed to be nothing. She was regarding me like I was some sort of alien, tilting her head slightly to different angles every few minutes. It was like she couldn't decide – wait a minute… DM Module…
DM – Decision Making!?
"Oh, SHIT!" My first thought was to leap out of the way as with a strange scream, she attempted to swipe me with one of her maintenance claws. Bounding across the chamber towards her, I grabbed hold of one of her wires and hoisted myself up onto her back. The scream she emitted as a result left my ears ringing. I had to find this DM Module – and whatever it was, remove it, before she damaged herself further or worse. For all I knew, she could bring the whole facility down on us.
"Calm down, GLaDOS! Listen to me!" I called out over the static. A maintenance claw signalled her reply when I just managed to push myself forward enough to dodge it – damn thing would have taken off my head. She shook herself as violently as possible but I already had a handhold. No matter what bizarre and fierce movement she performed, she couldn't shake me – however, her crazed frolicking was making it very difficult to search for this DM Module. I didn't even know what the thing looked like, or where exactly to find it. I was expecting a chip of some sort, but that was all I had to go on.
She suddenly drew to a stop like the ending of a theme park ride, like she was catching her breath and her pained growling presumed in place of the static. I didn't drop my guard – it wasn't like her to just give up, malfunctioning or not. There was a little flap on the back of her core engraved with the Aperture logo, above one of her neck suspension tubes. I reached out towards it, hoping for the best and the chaotic rodeo we had landed ourselves in kick-started again, just as frantic as before.
"Goddammit GLaDOS!" I screeched, but was forced to hold my mouth. I was gonna be sick…
This time, remarkably, she managed to bash her head off the ceiling and bring several panels down. This seemed to stun her enough for me to wrench the flap open, but of course the kind scientists of Aperture had needed to make this difficult for me – several wires blocked my sight. If the DM Module was in there, I couldn't see it. She reared up, emitting a strange mechanical roar as I fingered through the wires and attempted to push them out of the way. There, I could see infused into one of her main circuit boards a little smoking green chip, divided in two as the rest had fried away over the years. Gotcha.
Just hold still, I willed and dug my nails under one side of the Module. If I could just get one piece of the card loose, GLaDOS would automatically shut down and enter Maintenance Mode – a safety precaution of the scientists' devise for situations just like this. Then, assuming GLaDOS hadn't knocked it out in her confusion, the auxiliary power would kick in and I could work on locating her spare parts – she had hinted once that she did have such parts, but had neglected to tell me where they were.
Finally, just as GLaDOS appeared to be gearing up for another hissy fit, the module came away from the rest of the circuit board and she slumped, the static from her speakers fading to a dull crackling. She was not switched off – she was simply disabled, as it were. Maintenance Mode did not deactivate GLaDOS, it simply switched off most of her primary functions so she could not disrupt manual maintenance – I recalled the time that she told Caroline and I of her once reducing a mechanic to tears by insulting his weight during her weekly maintenance check. "He wasn't nearly as fat a few weeks after I filled his lungs with neurotoxin," she had commented.
As I dismounted, slipping the frazzled device into the pocket of my tracksuit, I shot back in delayed fear as she turned to look at me – but said nothing, just watched. It must have been her automatic tracking system – GLaDOS' ATS allowed her to follow the movements of anybody in the room even if she was decommissioned, not that there would be much she could do if they meant her harm. It was eerie, to say the least – she followed me with her now yellow optic as I walked away, but she wasn't really thinking about it. She no longer could. The removal of the DM Module had basically taken away her ability to respond to things, as she could no longer decide what action needed to be taken. As GLaDOS' power finally drained from her unresponsive behaviour and the auxiliary power kicked in, Caroline charged in from beyond the Red Phone room, followed by Rosie, Vic and Eric.
"Why aren't you down in the mines?" I asked, relieved to see they were okay but also frustrated with Caroline. When did she ever listen to me?
"Our elevator broke. We had to use the maintenance ladders to climb our way back up." She wheezed – it wasn't like her to be out of breath. Just how many levels had they climbed? I didn't want to think about it.
"I guessed you'd done something when the auxiliary power turned on, so I suggested we come straight here," Rosie chimed in, taking a few steps forward so she was beside Caroline. "What was wrong with her?"
I took the DM Module from my pocket and held it out for her to see. The thin wires barely connecting both sides of the burnt out chip snapped as she took it from me. Sheepishly, she held both sides of the DM Module up to her eyes, disgruntled for having broken it further.
"The DM Module is a vital part of GLaDOS' system. She's practically a vegetable without it," She stated. Caroline broke away from the rest of us, jogging over to GLaDOS as if to confirm Rosie's words for herself. Eric quickly followed her, concern written on his features. "We need to search through the old GLaDOS Project labs for the spare parts and it won't be easy – that place is huge."
"But there is definitely a spare?" I inquired to which she nodded.
"Oh, there's several. The DM Modules were made of weaker materials than most of GLaDOS' other parts, so we had hundreds of the things ordered. I'm actually surprised that it has managed to keep working this long, despite looking like – like this." She held up the Module, split in two, for me to see again, in awe at the chip's nimble form.
Catching on to Caroline laughing behind me, I turned around to see her casually poking GLaDOS right in the optic – something that would have got her killed had GLaDOS been in the right frame of mind. Eric fussed over her with a frown, trying to coerce her into stopping, but was getting nowhere fast. I smirked. She just didn't take him seriously enough – maybe one day, but not now.
"Come on Caroline, stop! She could be able to remember all of this later!" I warned her. She stopped dead, nervously backing away, before spinning on her heels and darting back towards us with a nervous yelp. Eric scrambled after her, gritting his teeth. He was so determined to put up with her that it was almost impressive.
The Red Phone room door could be heard sliding open again, which sent all of us into a confused silence. The Maintenance rails didn't go this far, so it couldn't have been one of the cores. All of the humans were in this room – there was nobody it could have been. I looked beyond Rosie, who was nervously beginning to look back, when we took in the sight of GLaDOS' android body mumbling away to herself while typing something up on the computer beside the signature red phone. She withdrew from the computer just as the chamber flooded with the glow of the main lights and the auxiliary ones switched off. She saw us watching her with stunned expressions, stared back like a deer caught in the headlights for a few moments, before withdrawing as close to the door as possible and nervously scratching the back of her neck with a grin.
"H-Hi there." She mumbled, just loud enough for us to hear. GLaDOS shouldn't have been able to link herself up to her android body in her current state and a look back to her chassis confirmed this. Yes, she was still there. That only meant that it wasn't GLaDOS in the body.
"GLaDOS?" Rosie finally issued the question that we all wanted an answer to.
"Uhh, not quite. Think again." The nervous smile of this stranger inhabiting GLaDOS' body got wider and wider with every passing moment that we were silent. In fact, her mannerisms were so different to GLaDOS that it was making everybody feel incredibly awkward. I couldn't really tell why, but she seemed so familiar. Rosie seemed to be thinking a similar thing as she advanced on the stranger with glazed over – hopeful? – eyes. The stranger seemed to relax considerably upon her approach, her awkward smile becoming more daring.
In the next moment, Rosie inhaled as if holding back tears.
"You are so great, and I so small," Her voice was choked with overwhelming emotion.
"I am nothing, you are all," The stranger responded, going as if to step forward but hesitating.
"Being nothing, I can take this way." Rosie called back, urging the stranger to take a few more steps forward.
"Oh I need neither rise nor fall," Once again the stranger replied.
"For when I do not move at all," Rosie suddenly ran forward, nearly running the stranger off her feet as she took the android body into a bone-crushing hug. The stranger gave a delighted laugh as she returned the hug and finished the odd quote that only the two of them understood.
"I shall be out of all your day!"
"…What." Caroline mumbled. Never before had she faced the challenging prospect that was poetry.
"Wait a second…" Eric's eyes widened beside me. Both Caroline and I looked to him, searching for answers, but he simply gave us both a knowing smile and stepped forward to join in the confusing reunion. Vic appeared to be deep in thought, taking Eric's place beside Caroline.
"I feel like I know those verses, but I can't remember how." She grumbled, deeply troubled by her forgetfulness. There was definitely an air of familiarity around the stranger – I'd definitely met her before, but that didn't explain why she was in GLaDOS' android body.
Their conversation only lasted a moment before both Rosie and Eric grabbed the stranger by the shoulders and pushed her forward. She nearly stumbled in GLaDOS' high heeled long fall boots but quickly recovered, her weary mannerisms and smile having returned when faced with the daunting prospect that was Caroline, Vic and I.
"Chell," Rosie stated proudly, her eyes shining. "Meet your mother!"
Caroline. The stranger was Caroline I.
The ending was a really sudden idea I had a week ago, after this chapter had remained unfinished for a month or two. The verses that Rosie and Caroline are saying to each other is from a poem called 'The Child Dying', by Edwin Muir. Some of its verses remind me of GLaDOS and Caroline I's feelings about her, which is why I included it. In a separate one-shot I am working on, which will go into a bit more depth about Rosie and Caroline's friendship in the pre-GLaDOs era, you'll learn why the poem acts as a secret code between them, that only some trusted colleagues such as Eric knew about.
I know that the ending to this is a little unusual, and it's not something I've seen done before (at least in the way I've done it), so it was a lot of fun! Remember there might be a bit of a delay in the uploading of the next chapter so be patient, it will be along eventually :D
~Lagiacrus