Triple Point (Fight Flight Freeze)

Part 2 of 2

"Well that was uncalled for," GLaDOS muttered. She went to all of the trouble of saving Chell from danger and all the human had done was throw her off like a comforter on a bed.

After taking a moment to make sure that the human hadn't broken any of GLaDOS's vital components (no diagnostic warnings had appeared), she gathered herself and got to her feet. She straightened her blouse and smoothed her skirt, tugging it back down a bit where it had ridden up. There didn't appear to be any tears, thankfully. Just some grime. She still frowned. But the gunk could be washed out, she hoped. Washing clothes was a new concept to her, but she supposed she could see the efficiency in re-using clothing instead of simply incinerating it after use. It would be a shame if she had to discard it. She was actually beginning to like this outfit. If Chell had messed it up, she would have been annoyed. Well, even more annoyed. This whole thing had been a mess.

She glanced down at Chell and noted that her arms were obscuring her face.

"Ah, finally. The self-preservation instinct of 'shield-my-face-from-bullets' has kicked in. It's too late, but at least you had the right idea. Even though your arms wouldn't do much to stop bullets," she said.

Chell did not move her arms or give any indication that she had heard GLaDOS.

All right. Perhaps she needed a minute to process everything before she got up. Chell didn't have the luxury of using multiple processors to neatly go through everything, and it had been quite the experience. Even GLaDOS wasn't entirely sure what had happened. It warranted further investigation.

Caroline finally spoke up. "So. Are you going to help her up?" she asked.

When GLaDOS nearly scoffed out loud and did not move at all, Caroline added, "You were the one who knocked her down. It's only polite to offer to help her back up. You've heard of politeness before, right? It's generally viewed in a positive light."

GLaDOS mulled it over for another moment. She supposed that lending a hand was indeed a human gesture of friendliness. It also could act as a visual indicator of extending an olive branch. GLaDOS hadn't meant any harm by knocking Chell over, so this could help to strengthen that message. She supposed it wasn't a terrible idea.

She bent down slightly and reached out a hand. "Here," she said, palm outstretched.

Chell's eye peeked out from behind her arms. It looked at the hand, studying it for about 1.2 seconds, and then disappeared back behind the arms. Then she shifted, rolling on her side so her back was to GLaDOS. She did it slowly and carefully so that she didn't fall off the edge, which made it clear to GLaDOS that it was a deliberate action.

Why would she— ?

Her eyes narrowed. Oh, that was rude. There were other ways that Chell could have turned down the help. Was it really that hard to say no thanks? Did she really have to make a big show of rejecting her help?

GLaDOS huffed and retracted her hand.

"Don't take it personally," Caroline said. "It's a pride thing. She probably doesn't want to admit to needing any help right now. Which is silly, because that doesn't change that you already provided help to her in a moment of vulnerability. But that's just how people are. What matters is that you made the gesture. She'll remember that, and that's the important part. "

That didn't really make sense to GLaDOS. Why even bother with the gesture of goodwill if Chell was just going to refuse it? It seemed like a waste of time. But sure. Whatever.

Chell sat up, resting her head on her knees and taking a moment to take in some deep albeit slightly ragged breaths. GLaDOS could see that she was squeezing her hands together. She took her time, and GLaDOS did her best to do nothing and not just stare at her.

Chell finally got to her feet. She held onto the railing tightly with both hands and stared out across the abyss, much like she had stood before they had encountered the defective turret. It was almost as if she had stepped back in time, rewinding to where she had been before so that this time she could move forward in a different direction. Reload, restart, retry. Her head was turned away from GLaDOS, though there was nothing in particular in that direction that was visually interesting.

After a pause, GLaDOS said, "You're welcome, by the way."

No response from Chell. In fact, there was no visual indication that Chell had heard what GLaDOS said.

Ugh. So ungrateful. And impolite, too. Not that she had really expected anything otherwise, because Chell was hardly a person she would consider to be polite, but it irritated GLaDOS more than normal because GLaDOS was at least making an attempt to be polite. If she could do it, why couldn't Chell?

GLaDOS took a step toward the railing, also placing her hands on it. She leaned forward slightly to put herself into Chell's line of sight and took a closer look at Chell.

Chell shifted away again, shoulders pointed in the other direction. She was definitely avoiding looking at GLaDOS now.

All right, this was officially getting weird. Something was up. But GLaDOS didn't know what was wrong, and she especially did not like not knowing what was wrong.

Caroline was unhelpfully silent.

"Are you all right?"

Chell blinked. Then, she realized that GLaDOS was indeed speaking to her. She frowned. Why was she asking if she was okay? Since when did she care? Chell leaned back slightly, keeping her hands on the rail but shifting her center of balance toward her heels. She opened one hand, fingers toward the sky, and tapped her thumb to her chest twice. "I'm fine."

"Are you sure?"

Chell nodded. She pulled in her arms and shifted partially farther away from GLaDOS.

GLaDOS watched her for a moment, preparing a visual health scan. She took a few steps behind her and then one side to get a good three dimensional look. It didn't seem like Chell had been hurt— she hadn't hit her head (at least not hard) and wasn't showing any signs of head trauma (at least more than usual). But it was possible that she was hurt in a more subtle way that GLaDOS hadn't noticed yet. Hence the medical scan.

It just took a moment once she farmed out the footage to other processing power within the facility to be processed. The health scan came back clear. It appeared Chell had acquired a few minor lacerations on the skin where it had made direct contact with the catwalk. She had dragged against it a little bit when she had skidded. Kind of like a terrible cheese-grater.

It didn't appear that she was hurt in any meaningful way, but GLaDOS couldn't shake the feeling that she was missing something. But it was just a feeling, and that feeling was not yet supported by anything she had observed. "You're really sure?"

"I'm fine." Chell repeated the sign, this time a bit more emphatic.

"No you're not. You look like you're going to fall over. And you keep turning your back to me. Something's wrong."

As if to spite her (or perhaps just prove her wrong), Chell pulled her hands off the railing and stood upright, with seemingly normal balance. "I'm fine," she signed. "Stop asking." After a moment, she turned toward the catwalk leading away from this area and began to walk. "I need to go."

GLaDOS, without thinking, began to reach out an arm toward Chell's shoulder. She still didn't know what was wrong and she wanted an answer. But before she touched Chell's shoulder, she heard a sharp voice in her head.

"Drop it!" said Caroline.

GLaDOS hesitated, and then drew her hand back toward her chest as a spike of irritation went through. It was like Caroline had been yelling at a dog. A bad dog. One that was chewing up the carpet or something. And still, GLaDOS had listened. She almost began to argue with Caroline right then and there before she remembered that Chell was still there. Well, she was there for a moment. It appeared she would not stay within hearing range long, judging by the speed at which she was walking away. "Alright," said GLaDOS almost quietly.

As Chell walked, Caroline piped in. "What did you do that for? Did you forget everything that we learned earlier?" she said. "One of the essential components of de-escalation— which means to not make things worse, remember— is to not block an exit or stop a person from leaving. And what did you try to do? Stop her. If you made her feel trapped then she would have gotten angry or upset or even destructive, and that is not what you want. I thought you were supposed to be smart."

GLaDOS bit her metaphorical tongue and took a moment to calm down. She wanted so badly to refute what Caroline was saying. Chell was nearly to the end of the catwalk. She also had wanted to ask Chell where she was going. The two of them hadn't gone in that direction together before. What if she got lost?

Logically, though, she knew that she would have access to Chell's location. Chell would figure it out. If she did get lost, then she'd just have to keep wandering until she decided to ask for help. Maybe she'd use her new badges and summon Blue or Orange to help her. No matter what, GLaDOS really didn't have to worry about it, at least at the moment. It just bothered her to not know Chell's intended destination.

"What's her problem?" GLaDOS said when at last Chell was out of hearing range. "I helped her! I didn't have to do that. And now she won't even look at me. Much less thank me."

"I think," Caroline said, "that she just needs some time to process everything. And maybe she was feeling embarrassed."

That surprised GLaDOS. "About what?"

"Perhaps she was embarrassed that her reaction time wasn't quick enough and you had to save the day," suggested Caroline. "It can be tough to feel out-performed by a robot."

GLaDOS thought about it. She didn't know why humans felt that way. Robots were just better than humans. Undoubtedly. There was no reason for the humans to feel bad because of it. It's not like it was something a person could fix about themselves and even out the playing field. That was just how things were.

GLaDOS also thought about what Caroline said. Maybe she was right, and maybe Chell also felt embarrassed at having needed GLaDOS's help in the first place. "All right," she said, "so she's embarrassed that I helped out. That doesn't explain why she wouldn't even look at me."

"Have you looked at any of this from her perspective?" Caroline said.

"A little," she lied.

"Well...your actions were uncharacteristic. You put yourself in harm's way to help her."

"So?" she said. GLaDOS felt something flare up inside of her. "I was just trying to keep her from getting hurt again. It would delay her healing process, which means it would delay her return to testing."

"I doubt she was thinking about that in the moment. And I doubt that's what she's thinking about now."

"What do you mean?"

"She was in danger, and you saved her. Willingly. That's not like you."

GLaDOS tried to shrug it off. "I didn't have a choice."

"You did."

Technically, Caroline was right. She could have done nothing and everything would have turned out alright, though GLaDOS couldn't have known that beforehand. She would have had to hedge her bets. The thought of choosing to do nothing and allow Chell to potentially be harmed was making her feel not-so-great. But at the same time, knowing she had protected Chell was making her feel not-so-great, just in a different way. "So what? I helped her. It's not a big deal."

"Perhaps your actions are changing the way that she sees you. You helped her. Suddenly you're not just the computer making her life a living hell anymore. I think a part of her is realizing that."

All right, GLaDOS could follow that logic. This situation would, at the least, increase the woman's trust in her, she hoped.

"This is a good thing, remember?" said Caroline. "That was a genuine act of trust-building, which is much more effective than a staged act of trust-building. Once she comes around to the idea, she won't be able to deny that you assisted her."

"I suppose. I guess I can see why she is acting strangely now. But how she acted earlier still doesn't make sense. She didn't even try to get out of the way. She just stood there. Like she was frozen."

"It happens. You do know that freezing is a built-in human reaction to high-stress situations, right?" Caroline started.

GLaDOS paused. She wanted to know more, but she wasn't sure on how to ask in a way that didn't reveal how much she didn't know. "I'm not as familiar with that response," she tried. "It's not one I have seen before."

That was good enough for Caroline. "Well, now you have. The fight or flight response is much more commonly known, but a freeze response exists as well."

"That's stupid," said GLaDOS.

"It's not like she consciously chose that reaction. You've had system glitches before, yes? Think of it like that. You don't choose for those to happen to yourself. A freeze reaction is a self-preservation instinct. When the fight or flight responses fail to remove a person from danger, an even older and more primitive part of the brain takes control and determines that the best course of action is to do nothing and shuts things down. Like a fail-safe."

"How could that possibly be helpful? Ever?" All she could think about was a deer in the headlights, condemning itself to getting run over.

"Think of a rabbit— sometimes instead of running, it's in the creature's best interest to freeze in place and hope that a predator will lose track of them. Many predators track moving targets best."

"But a turret's vision is not motion-based."

"I know. It was just an example," said Caroline with a bit of irritation. She hadn't meant for GLaDOS to take this so literally. "I don't know the inner workings of her limbic system. Maybe she has had success with this response in the past and defaulted to it."

GLaDOS paused. She couldn't imagine how freezing in place could have possibly benefited her within the facility, but she also knew Chell had more recently been living on the surface, which was a period of time she knew little about. After a moment, GLaDOS said, "I still don't get it."

"You don't have to get it," said Caroline. "It's her neural wiring. Not yours."

"It would still be nice to know," GLaDOS said under her breath. Maybe reviewing the video captured from the incident would give her some more insight.

Not finding any other cameras in the vicinity, GLaDOS instead pulled the footage from her own optical sensors, backed it up just in case, and then delved into it.

She assigned some of her local processing power to do a quick pass on the footage to decode Chell's body language. The recognition software sped through the video, placing time-stamped markers and flags on major detected shifts in body language. Each emotion was designated a different colored tag so that GLaDOS could zoom out to review the timeline and get a good visual sense of the emotional landscape. She tweaked a few of the auto-assigned colors to make the labels more distinct from one another. And prettier.

Later on she would still have to go through this video herself and tweak and refine the results, since the software was bound to make a few mistakes, but it was as good of a start as any. The artificial intelligence of the software (though she hesitated to call it intelligent in any sense of the word) was only as good as the dataset it had been trained on, and it was not yet aware of the many quirks of Chell's body language. She would have to re-train it with this additional data. Machine learning, learning more from a machine. The concept made her laugh a little before she turned back to the work at hand.

"Hm." She squinted as she viewed the results on her HUD. "I'm getting conflicting readings," she said. She placed the data in her main workspace and then granted Caroline view-only access to the files. She was hoping Caroline could provide some insight into this intricate human stuff.

At first Caroline didn't interact with any of it, but instead chose to continue watching GLaDOS's actions inside of the workspace in silence. GLaDOS could almost feel the woman's presence as she watched. It was like she was reading the screen over GLaDOS's shoulder. Then, Caroline began to thumb through the flagged frames, flipping back and forth between a few in particular. She made a thoughtful, thinking noise.

GLaDOS highlighted a section toward the end of the recording, after the perceived danger from the turret had passed. "Here's where the contractions are showing up." She pulled it to the front of the workspace. "The fear readings have dissipated by this point, more or less. Or at least decreased a significant amount. But the body language decoder suggests embarrassment— which we already discussed— but also..." she trailed off, and then scoffed, "attraction." She gave a small laugh. Well that was wrong. That wasn't what Chell was feeling. Not in a million years. She'd have to fine-tune the software whenever she got a free moment.

She took that moment to adjust the parameters on the software and instructed it to complete a more granular pass on the emotion recognition. It would take longer and consume more resources, but she hoped it would self-correct on this obvious mistake.

So it had to be embarrassment, then. That's what Chell was feeling. Along with avoidance, and then agitation, and then whatever she was feeling now, wherever she was. Oh, right. Where was she? She took a moment to double-check on Chell's location, and found she was still in the modern enrichment center.

There were a few moments of silence. "Or," Caroline began, "perhaps embarrassment is a secondary emotion here. Maybe she was feeling embarrassed not because of what happened, but because of something else she was feeling."

When Caroline didn't continue and state what that obvious cause of the embarrassment might be, GLaDOS paused. She pursed her lips. Oh, no. No way. Nope. Not a chance. "Attraction, though? That's a bit of a logical leap."

Caroline's voice was calm. "I'm just looking at the data. Both emotions are listed."

"I don't know what she was feeling," she said. For all she knew, there wasn't a clear reason behind any of Chell's emotional conditions. Perhaps they just sprung up out of nowhere. Maybe they meant nothing at all and this had been a grand waste of time and resources.

"I thought you wanted to know."

GLaDOS didn't reply for a moment. "If it was that," she said (which it wasn't), "then it's a one time thing. An unreproducible emotional glitch. From the stress." GLaDOS didn't want to think about it any further than that. If this was what Chell actually was embarrassed about, then GLaDOS was embarrassed on her behalf. She made a face. "I wouldn't worry about it too much."

"Oh, I'm not worried. In fact, if it turned out to be true, that could be a wonderful though unexpected development," said Caroline. "I don't know why we didn't consider this angle before. If this continues, we could really be onto something here.

"But you are right— we shouldn't read into it too much, much less act upon this suspicion. We don't have enough data. Plus, it would be too much too soon. And besides, it would be seriously pushing your already-limited acting abilities."

GLaDOS frowned, but still felt a bit relieved.

"Still. We'll keep an eye on it."

GLaDOS made a vague noise of agreement. "I'm going to check on her now," she said, putting the video processing and analysis into a lower-priority processing slot and shifting her attention.

Chell looked up for the first time in several minutes and realized that she had no idea where she was walking. She halted in her steps. With as much of a casual attitude as she could muster, she leaned against a wall and took a few minutes to catch her breath. She may be having a hard time breathing at the moment, but at least she felt like she could finally think. However, she wasn't sure if she wanted to think. Stopping to think opened up the possibility of mulling over the events of the past hour, which she did not want to do.

Chell looked around the sparsely-furnished office area she was in, and then decided to plop down in a desk chair. She dragged her feet across the ground and rolled the chair over to a yellowed desktop computer, coaxed it to life, and then entered in the login information that had been so generously provided to her. Surely this computer would have something interesting on it. At the very least, she hoped she could find a map or something else that would help to narrow down her idea of where she was. Or maybe a game of solitaire. Or pinball. Or any other of those little games that came pre-installed on consumer computers.

It took a few moments before the computer let her in, and another few moments before things loaded enough for her to move around her cursor without everything freezing up. She began to search for a map at a leisurely pace.

Eventually she found one, but the two-dimensional maps were stacked on top of each other like a layer cake, and she couldn't get a good sense of where things were. She supposed that it would help if she knew where she actually was at the moment, because then she could work from there. She had no current point of reference. As she used the scroll wheel to flick through the layers of the map, a chat client flashed to life with a message from the network administrator.

Chell clicked hesitantly and viewed the message from GLaDOS. It had to be her.

SysAdmin: It looks like you've gotten a bit turned around.

Chell clicked out of the chat window and went back to the maps, trying to figure out if there was a way to rotate her view. If she could do that, perhaps she could orient herself better. Yes, she was turned around, but she wasn't going to tell that to GLaDOS. So she just ignored the message. If she really pressed the issue, Chell would say that she was just studying the map. Getting the lay of the land.

The window flashed again, infuriatingly.

SysAdmin: Is there a particular place I can direct you toward?

Chell ignored the message and went back to fiddling with the workstation. After a sizable stretch of time, she got another one. Chell didn't look at the message when it came in, but the flashing of the unread message bothered her until she opened it.

SysAdmin: What happened back there?

Chell flinched internally, feeling a bit of something rise inside of her. She felt her face get a little hot and turned around to make sure that if there were any security cameras in here, they wouldn't have a good view of her face. There weren't. Thankfully.

She mulled over the question. It was vague, but perhaps in a good way. Perhaps GLaDOS was asking about the situation in general, and not about...whatever had happened after that. The AI was certainly clueless enough about humans that maybe she hadn't noticed that anything had been amiss.

Chell decided to bite.

LocalUser: What do you mean?

SysAdmin: You froze.

Chell paused. She was pretty sure that she had exited the area quite quickly, actually. So GLaDOS must be referring to what had happened before that.

SysAdmin: You didn't even try to get away from that turret.

Speaking of the turret...

GLaDOS approached the deactivated turret which sat peacefully on its panel. After a moment, she found the system she was looking for and the panel sluggishly moved toward the catwalk, rose, and then tilted to dump the turret onto the platform.

GLaDOS picked up the smooth thing and examined it. From the outside, it certainly looked like an ordinary, factory-issue turret.

Huh. Turrets sure were larger up close than through security cameras. This unit appeared to be almost three feet tall, and would easily come up past her waist if she set it down properly. She tucked it under her arm, the three legs sticking out behind her like some sort of large claw, and headed back down the hallway to find a room with more space to work.

Back in an office, she set down the turret and cleared the clutter out of the immediate area. Then, she stood and stared at it with her hands on her hips. She didn't have the turret schematics in front of her, and she couldn't remember off the top of her head how to open up the direct access ports.

GLaDOS circled the turret and then crouched. She ran a hand over the side. The casing was smooth and white and had no obvious buttons to press. She was pretty sure the ports were at the rear, but how to get to them...

She pried at one of the metal seams for a moment, with no success.

"You don't know how to open a turret?" said Caroline.

"I've," GLaDOS said, "never had to handle one personally." I have a semi-autonomous monitoring system that takes care of these kinds of issues for me." If there was an issue with the turrets— like when the moron had connived with Chell and they had replaced the template turret— then she could deploy this system, and the system would report back to her with the results. She didn't have to detect and fix issues with turrets by hand. That would be too boring.

"It's good to have hands-on experience with your own hardware," said Caroline. "If you had taken a moment in your very busy life to learn about these weapons of yours, then you wouldn't be running into this problem." She sighed.

"So are you going to tell me how to open this thing or not?"

"Well, maybe if you actually asked me then I would tell you."

She said, "Alright, spill it. Tell me how to open it."

"Why don't you try that again. Politely, this time," said Caroline. She added, "It's good practice."

GLaDOS's eyes narrowed and she resisted the urge to say some very not nice things. She took a moment to collect herself and then said, "Very well. Could you please enlighten me on how to open up this turret."

If Caroline could have smiled, she would have done so briefly. "There, that wasn't so hard, was it?" she said. "Now, just press in the optical lens."

Was it really that easy? GLaDOS, with a small frown, pressed her thumbs onto the unlit red circle. The red disc pressed in and gave a satisfying click. A panel on the back of the turret popped open on a hinge.

Oh. Okay. It was a giant button. That was easier than she had anticipated. GLaDOS moved to look at the ports, and when she found the one she was looking for, she slipped a hand under the hem of her shirt and opened up a panel on the side of the android, a bit below where a human rib cage would be. She tugged and unspooled a cable, and then connected the end to the offline turret.

Then, she waited.

The turret didn't do anything.

Her systems were not acknowledging that anything was connected. It blinked and awaited the input.

GLaDOS frowned and adjusted the connection, making sure that it was secure. She sent a command to power on the turret, but nothing happened. She tried to manually power on the turret (taking care to stay out of its visual range, just in case), but nothing happened there either.

Hmm.

"My systems aren't acknowledging the connection, and the turret isn't powering on," said GLaDOS. "What is wrong with this thing?"

She looked again at the rear panel that she had opened and pried at the edges of an adjacent area. Another panel popped off of the side— this one didn't seem like it was supposed to be removed— and it gave her more of a side view into the internal components of the turret.

Black scorch marks marred the components, and now that she looked at it, GLaDOS could see where the burn marks had leaked out the edges and onto the exterior paneling too.

"That thing is so deep fried it belongs at the county fair," said Caroline, and GLaDOS agreed.

All right. So there was no chance to get this thing to spill its secrets. Unfortunate. And frustrating. GLaDOS gave a world-weary sigh and then unplugged herself. She wound the cord loosely around her hand into a tidy coil, and then tucked it back into the storage compartment. "I suppose we'll never know what went wrong," she said, and then frowned. "Why do you think it mentioned your name?"

"I have no idea," Caroline said. "Clearly it was defective."

"Clearly," GLaDOS agreed.

"I thought you had purged all of the bad turrets."

"Me too."

"You must have missed one."

In his brief tenure as the central core, the moron had made those horrible box-and-turret hybrids. Poor things. Perhaps he had also made a turret that spoke nonsense and didn't shoot, as some sort of ill-conceived psychological trick. She wasn't sure what the point of that would have been, but then again she hadn't seen the logic or strategy behind any of Wheatley's actions.

"Why did you have a turret stationed there in the first place?"

"I don't know. I didn't know it was there."

"What do you mean, you didn't know it was there?" said Caroline. "I can understand not realizing it was defective, but to not know it was standing sentry at all? Really?" She scoffed.

"I wasn't watching that," GLaDOS snapped.

"So you weren't paying attention," Caroline said, voice accusing. "That kind of thing is important, you know." Then, she sighed. "I would have kept track of that."

"Checking for turrets in a wide-open back area is something that I didn't consider, believe it or not. I had other things to think about."

"It is your job to control the facility. That includes knowing everything that is happening, which includes knowing where your equipment is and the state of that equipment at all times. You're in the modern Enrichment Center— you can access this information wirelessly, at any place and at any time. You have no excuse not to know it."

"You just don't know what it's like to run on such limited processing power!" GLaDOS snapped. She heard Caroline make some sort of disbelieving noise but continued. "I have to prioritize, and looking out for defective turrets did not make the list."

"Is it going to make the list now?" Her tone was icy.

GLaDOS did not respond. Caroline was not wrong, but GLaDOS was having a hard time admitting that she was right. If the ghost of a woman was right, it would mean that this information had slipped past GLaDOS, and that would place some of the blame on her. But this couldn't be her fault. Something had been wrong with the turret itself, and maybe that error had messed with the tracking and inventory system. Maybe there had been no possible way to predict this.

GLaDOS took a long final look at the fried turret and then turned back to the text-based communication client. A response had not yet come in, and it had been a while.

She really wanted to talk to Chell, but Chell wasn't going for her conversation openers and GLaDOS was having a hard time respecting that. Chell had already had plenty of time to stomp off and deal with whatever human emotions she had been experiencing. Why couldn't they get back to talking now? Location data suggested that Chell had not moved, so she had to still be the computer.

The AI was getting a little bit worried, but she would never admit that. This lack of explanation for the test subject's unusual behavior bothered her.

Chell's fingers hovered over the keyboard, but no words flowed out of her fingertips. No adequate response had come to mind. Yes, she had frozen. Yes, she should have reacted differently. What more was there to say?

LocalUser: So what was I supposed to do, with my lack of portal gun and lack of long-fall boots?

SysAdmin: Anything besides just standing there.

LocalUser: I'll keep that in mind. Don't worry about it though. It's no big deal.

SysAdmin: Yes, it was. What if that turret had been active?

LocalUser: It was active.

SysAdmin: You know what I mean.

LocalUser: Then I would have gotten shot.

SysAdmin: And you're not bothered by that possibility?

LocalUser: I didn't say that. And I've survived it before.

SysAdmin: Not on your own.

A pause.

SysAdmin: You're not taking your personal safety seriously.

LocalUser: You're worried about safety. In APERTURE.

GLaDOS frowned and showed the message to Caroline. "Why is that word in uppercase?"

"Indicator of emphasis. Commonly interpreted as raising one's voice or yelling."

Oh.

GLaDOS left the window open so that Caroline could continue to read.

SysAdmin: I would think that after getting shredded by a turret once and nearly shredded again that you would have more concern for personal safety.

LocalUser: Since when do you care?

Chell added to her message, in case GLaDOS didn't understand just how ridiculous she sounded.

LocalUser: Tests aren't safe.

SysAdmin: Of course. There has to be consequences for failure within tests. Otherwise there's no point.

LocalUser: And you think injury and death are appropriate consequences?

SysAdmin: It's worked so far.

LocalUser: Have you ever tried not doing that?

SysAdmin: Why would I? Then people wouldn't be working at their best.

LocalUser: People can do their best without the threat of death, you know. They might even do better without it. Maybe you'd actually get some results.

SysAdmin: But what about the motivation? They need to be performing at the best of their ability.

LocalUser: Athletes perform at their best all the time without having to worry about that kind of thing. You've heard of the Olympics.

SysAdmin: But this isn't just some brainless physical competition. Testing requires mental acuity as well.

LocalUser: Chess players don't get zapped with a cattle prod when they lose a match.

SysAdmin: Maybe they should. It would make it more exciting.

Chell stewed on that one for a moment. She started to type but then deleted what she had written when another message came in.

SysAdmin: The way you talk about it, it almost sounds like you don't like testing.

LocalUser: What?

SysAdmin: You're literate. Just look at my previous message, then read it again.

LocalUser: I wasn't asking you to repeat yourself.

LocalUser: I just can't believe you would ask me that.

SysAdmin: So you don't like testing, then? Just to be clear.

Chell chewed at her fingernail for a moment before composing herself long enough to reply. There were so many questions, so many exclamations that could be said here.

LocalUser: How could you EVER have possibly thought I liked testing.

SysAdmin: But you're good at it.

LocalUser: That doesn't mean I LIKE it.

SysAdmin: Well, I do.

LocalUser: Yeah. No kidding.

SysAdmin: How was I supposed to know you didn't? It's not like you told me.

Chell considered smacking her forehead against the desk. She really did. Face directly into the keyboard.

LocalUser: I thought it was obvious.

SysAdmin: How? I'm not a mind reader.

LocalUser: Nothing we went through clued you into the fact that I don't like it? None of my behavior? Nothing at all?

SysAdmin: I thought you just didn't like me.

LocalUser: What about in the beginning? Before I even knew you existed?

SysAdmin: Pissed off seemed to be your default state of being.

SysAdmin: You even seem pissed off in your test candidate application photograph.

SysAdmin: I think that's just your face, though.

SysAdmin: Unfortunate.

SysAdmin: Anyway, I don't see how that could be connected to testing.

SysAdmin: Like you said, you were angry before you even met me or began to test.

LocalUser: Uh, yes.

LocalUser: Of course I was pissed off

SysAdmin: From what?

LocalUser: Are you being serious right now?

SysAdmin: Yes.

LocalUser: Okay.

LocalUser: First, let me ask you a question.

LocalUser: What do you think I was mad about?

SysAdmin: I don't know.

SysAdmin: Anything. Everything.

SysAdmin: You're just an angry person.

LocalUser: I was mad because you were MAKING ME TEST.

SysAdmin: You were mad about doing the one thing you were supposed to do?

LocalUser: Yes

SysAdmin: That's stupid.

LocalUser: No, it's really not.

SysAdmin: It seems to me that you have forgotten that you VOLUNTEERED to be a test subject. You can't get mad about having to do the thing you signed up to do.

Chell stared at the screen, then leaned back. She blinked, then rubbed her eyes, and then blinked several more times.

LocalUser: That's not funny.

SysAdmin: That wasn't a joke.

LocalUser: You can't be serious right now.

SysAdmin: Why wouldn't I be?

SysAdmin: It's a valid statement.

SysAdmin: Why did you volunteer to be a test candidate if you had reservations about the program? If you didn't like testing?

SysAdmin: Were you really that desperate for money?

Another pause.

LocalUser: You really think I VOLUNTEERED?

SysAdmin: Of course you did.

SysAdmin: All test candidates are volunteers.

SysAdmin: It's imperative that people enter their contracts with the Enrichment Center of their own free will.

SysAdmin: Otherwise it wouldn't be ethical.

LocalUser: Ethical.

GLaDOS frowned slightly. Why had she echoed the word? This was basic information.

SysAdmin: Yes, ethical. I assume you're familiar with the concept?

SysAdmin: Just take every action you've taken in your sad life, and the reverse of those actions would be considered ethical.

Chell was still incredulous, but now she was starting to feel a bit upset, even a bit angry.

LocalUser: You really think people just volunteered.

SysAdmin: The Enrichment Center has always prided itself on its test subject recruitment.

LocalUser: Volunteers. For testing. The thing that kills people.

SysAdmin: It's not my fault those people died.

LocalUser: So you really don't think you hold any responsibility here.

SysAdmin: I facilitated the testing to the best of my ability.

LocalUser: They're deadly.

SysAdmin: Only if you fail.

LocalUser: And everyone fails, because no one is perfect.

LocalUser: We're all human. We make mistakes.

SysAdmin: They knew these risks when they signed up. It's well-documented.

LocalUser: You've got to be joking.

SysAdmin: I am not. Why would I joke about testing?

LocalUser: Those people didn't VOLUNTEER.

Chell had to take a moment to consciously release some of the tension in her body, or she felt like she was going to snap like a rubber band.

Meanwhile, Caroline jumped in. "That's wrong," she said. "Look, I was still around when her application was being processed. And unlike her, my memory is perfectly preserved. I can assure you that you are right and they all volunteered. That's why they're called volunteers."

SysAdmin: Nothing within your record indicates anything other than voluntary participation.

GLaDOS swept through Chell's test subject file again, just in case there was something small she had missed before— a label she had misread, some fine print she had skipped over— but she knew how unlikely that was.

LocalUser: I didn't volunteer.

GLaDOS had sent the message before she had even finished her thought.

SysAdmin: But that's illegal.

LocalUser: Yeah. No sh*t.

[SYSTEM WARNING: forbidden word censored. Two warnings remain before forced disconnection]

Caroline paused, making a thoughtful sound. "Hm. There was a brief period in the 1980s where Mr. Johnson implemented mandatory testing for all employees, but that proved to be incredibly unpopular. Termination of employment was always an option, though. No one was ever forced to test. Certainly not in the way she claims."

GLaDOS turned her attention back to the text-based messaging.

SysAdmin: You're sure about this?

LocalUser: Yes. I never would have signed up.

"Wait," said Caroline. "She doesn't remember? Ask her."

SysAdmin: You don't remember?

It took a little while for Chell's response to come in.

LocalUser: No.

LocalUser: Well, not all of it.

LocalUser: But I remember enough to know I would never want that.

SysAdmin: Then I don't know what happened.

"Oh, you know what? I think I know what's going on here," said Caroline. "Human memory— you have to remember it isn't like yours or mine. It can be altered retroactively, without the person even being aware of their own manipulations! Just look at eyewitness testimony in court. It barely passes as evidence, if at all." She paused. "What I think happened, personally, is that she had a bad experience with testing and let it color her old memories. She regretted signing up and didn't want to own up to that, so the older memory of signing up was manipulated to fit a more consistent internal narrative. One where she was indisputably a victim."

GLaDOS thought about that for a moment. "You think she's making this up?"

"Well, it's not necessarily that clean-cut. I'm sure it feels like a real memory to her. It's just wrong." When she didn't hear GLaDOS agreeing with her, she continued. "You know, it really is a miracle her brain functions at all, with all that brain damage. We know she has made some truly questionable decisions within the Enrichment Center, and who knows what additional damage she accumulated on the surface? It's safe to say that if she doesn't remember when or why she volunteered for test candidacy, we can't trust her judgement on it. There's just not enough evidence."

GLaDOS turned back to the messaging client.

SysAdmin: I need a minute.

This information— if it was true— would change everything. Or, at least her entire understanding about everything about her past with Chell.

"If she didn't come into this willingly— " GLaDOS said.

"She did."

"Fine," said GLaDOS. "If she at least thought she wasn't coming into this willingly—"

"You don't need to entertain this train of thought, you know."

GLaDOS sharply raised a flat hand within her visual field. Caroline fell silent. She continued. "If she thought that, and I was the one overseeing the tests, then— " A surge of visceral discomfort went through her. "Then she must have thought I was forcing her to test."

She found herself sitting on the floor with her head in her hands.

She was so tempted to do what Caroline had mentioned and stop thinking about this altogether, and that stopping would make the feeling go away and ease her discomfort. But she also knew that she was cursed with a perfect memory. This revelation would gnaw through her wires one by one until something snapped.

Different lines of logic strung themselves together in parallel, each branching off to exploring variations on this new detail. It modeled out how these differences could affect the context of their relationship, because that's what this was, potentially. An entirely different context.

This changed things.

Author's Note: Shoutout to Network Effect by Martha Wells (book 5 of The Murderbot Diaries) for giving me some wonderful ideas on depicting construct-to-robot communications. If you've read Network Effect then the influence is probably super obvious.