Chapter 4: Reverie

While Chell rested, they talked.

"You don't understand how this works," said Caroline. "This—I've seen it before. And it's not good. You're going to have your work cut out for you."

"How so?" said GLaDOS. If this was because of a matter of ignorance, that could be easily fixed. She was the most massive collection of human knowledge that had ever existed. If she went looking for information, she would find it.

"Your test subject is exhibiting symptoms of PTSD," said Caroline. "And, honestly, so are you."

"That's ridiculous," said GLaDOS.

"You're both hurting right now," said Caroline. "She isn't going to be able to heal unless you show her some vulnerability."

"I'm not like her," said GLaDOS indignantly. She wasn't hurting. She was perfectly fine.

"Fine," said Caroline. "But time does not heal all wounds. You're going to have to show her that you're willing to pull your weight in this new relationship. You have to be worthy of her trust."

Time does not heal all wounds.

The words hung heavy in the air.

GLaDOS thought about saying something, but instead Caroline spoke.

"So is she everything that you expected?" said Caroline.

GLaDOS swayed back and forth in her chassis. "I already regret giving her the device," she said.

"What, you're not excited to hear from your favorite test subject?" said Caroline.

"Absolutely not," she said. "She's now even more annoying than she used to be," said GLaDOS. "But no matter. She can't test while holding that device."

"Have you talked to her about testing?"

"No," said GLaDOS. She figured that Chell knew what she was getting into when she came back to Aperture—but then again, it couldn't hurt to formally discuss the terms of her stay.

"Talk to her."

The next time she woke up, the door from her relaxation vault was unlocked. Chell picked up the tablet from her bedside and tucked it under her arm. She shuffled to the door, wringing the sleep out of her eyes and pushed it open, peering out to the left and to the right down a catwalk that disappeared into the misty blue blur of the facility.

She took a few hesitant steps out the door, and then heard the announcer's voice ring out.

"The Enrichment Center requests your presence in the Main AI Chamber," he said cheerfully. "Please turn right."

Chell obliged, taking a right and walking for a long ways. She could almost see the large cylinder branded Aperture Laboratories.

The route was a familiar one, dotted with landmarks. The same glass hallway. The same office doors. The same two wheeled chairs looking out at the chasm underneath the Main AI Chamber. Even though she knew that way, the Announcer still read off instructions to Chell as she made her way through the modern part of the facility.

It felt so weird—and so long and tedious—to make this journey by foot. It would have been so much simpler to just portal her way there, but GLaDOS didn't trust Chell yet with a portal gun.

She was glad for the chance to stretch her legs, though. She'd been cooped up in that long-term relaxation vault for a few days now, with GLaDOS not letting her out in fear of her ripping out her stitches again.

Chell took a deep breath before walking down the long glass hallway to the Main AI Chamber.

The figure of GLaDOS loomed large over Chell.

She needed to be strong. She couldn't show any weakness. Part of her admitted that she'd already shown weakness by letting GLaDOS operate on her-though that was more of a fortunate accident. She hadn't had much of a say in that, and she still resented that GLaDOS had made alterations to her body without her permission. Sure, it was for her own good, but it still felt wrong.

She rubbed idly at the back of her neck, wondering just where in her that chip had been planted.

"We need to talk," said GLaDOS lowly. "We haven't had a chance yet to discuss the terms of your stay."

Chell nodded, planting her feet into the ground. She took a deep breath and felt at the edges of the tablet in her arms. She pulled it up, looking at GLaDOS expectantly. So? What were the terms?

"You can't expect to just show up, with your malnutrition and your bullet wounds, expect me to patch you up, and waltz back out again," said GLaDOS. "I fixed you. You owe me."

Chell gave a slow, singular nod.

"You're going to stay here, and you're going to test. Every day. You will not try to kill me and you will not run away."

Chell made a simple gesture with her hand. GLaDOS's systems flagged it as the American Sign Language symbol: "No".

"No?" she said, taken aback. "What do you mean, 'no'?"

Chell shrugged her shoulders and repeated the sign. No. Then, she made a motion with her hands before remembering the tablet. She stopped, flipping through the couple of installed apps until she found a notepad. She used her fingers to type a quick message. After a moment, she walked toward GLaDOS and held up the tablet. Her hands trembled slightly.

GLaDOS narrowed her optic.

"Breaks from testing?" she said, almost incredulous. She took a moment to mull it over. "Well, I suppose that even humans can't be expected to test 24-7. You will get a federally regulated 8 hours of resting time a day."

Chell narrowed her gaze in return.

"Fine, ten hours."

Perhaps GLaDOS could manage that. Maybe testing a human for 24-7 until a point of exhaustion and then reviving them with adrenaline wasn't the most sustainable method for testing. Then again, she had never had a long-term tester before. She let a little bit of that excitement creep into her thoughts. She'd never had a tester do sustained and extended testing before. They had all died before they could get that far. This would be good science.

Chell scribbled one more thing on the list, almost as an afterthought.

No adrenal vapor.

"What?" said GLaDOS. "I've never, ever, had a human test without adrenal vapor."

Chell just shook her head. She wasn't going to do it. She couldn't do it. She underlined it. Twice.

"Fine," said GLaDOS. "Here's your portal gun. Now that you're healed, testing will begin right away." A platform rose from the floor with a sleek white Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device. GLaDOS took a long look at the ASHPD.

But as Chell started to write something down, something shifted in GLaDOS. The computer twisted to the side, almost violently. She rocked back and forth, first slowly but picking up in speed.

"I hate you so much," GLaDOS hissed.

Chell was gone.

Just like that—in the middle of a conversation-Chell was gone.

And then, she wasn't. She flickered in and out of existence for a moment, and then-she was back. And she was with the moron, too. How had she gotten him back from space?

But GLaDOS couldn't think. The scene played out in front of her like a bad memory.

"I hate you so much," GLaDOS hissed.

Chell stopped in her tracks. What was this? She grabbed the portal device, clutching it to her chest. She glanced around the room.

"Core transfer? Oh, you are kidding me."

This didn't make sense. Chell wasn't here to do a core transfer—she knew better than that. GLaDOS was the most qualified one to run Aperture Laboratories. She knew that now. Chell looked around the chamber, but no core receptacle or stalemate resolution button rose. That was strange. GLaDOS looked around the chamber, staring off into space and not looking directly at Chell anymore. Chell stared for a long moment before it came to her—GLaDOS was stuck in the past.

After all GLaDOS had done for Chell—this was how Chell repaid her? GLaDOS had taken her in when she was nearly dead. She'd nursed her back to health, carefully. She'd done so much for the woman, and for what? Just to be betrayed the second she got better? No, this wasn't going to fly. Not today. Before she could think, though, the announcer's voice rang through her head and announced a core transfer.

"Core transfer? Oh, you are kidding me," GLaDOS growled. The words tumbled out of her speakers, almost as if by their own accord. The receptacle to hold Wheatley rose from the ground, and Chell deposited the robot into it without a second thought.

In the annex beside her chamber, a button popped up. The stalemate resolution button. GLaDOS shuddered.

"Don't press that button. You don't know what you're doing."

A pause, where Wheatley most likely had spoken.

"Don't. Do it."

A long pause. Chell winced as the events played through her own mind. She hadn't known back then what she knew now. Chell watched, internally dreading the scream that she knew was about to come. Some things from Aperture stuck with her no matter what, one of those things being GLaDOS's scream during the core transfer.

Before she could scream, though, there was a great lunge of the chassis, and then GLaDOS's body went limp.

GLaDOS sunk with dread. She had to stop Chell from getting to that button. She flicked a few panels up as Chell approached, watching her as she paused, taking stock of the situation, and then started shooting portals. Luckily GLaDOS had a square of panels surrounding the stalemate resolution button, so keeping her out would be fairly easily. She just had to keep up with Chell. Soon Chell would realize her mistakes and would stop this nonsense.

"Don't. Do it."

GLaDOS felt panic rise up inside of her.

She had no choice. She had to do it. Before she was trapped in a tiny potato again. She couldn't take that. She pulled up the schematics to her back-up body—a gangly, primitive thing that she'd constructed after the co-op bots in the case that she was ever ousted from her main body again. She'd kept in in safekeeping, saving it for a true moment of need. She had hoped she'd never have to use it, ever.

With a few quick thoughts, she started the process to copy over her consciousness into the mobile chassis. The core transfer process that Chell had initiated would error out if the central core suddenly disappeared—this might make it easier for Wheatley to take over the facility, but she wouldn't let Chell get her this time. No, this time, she was coming for Chell.

INITIATING CHASSIS TRANSFER…

Before she can even think, Chell's feet moved for her and she sprinted out of the Main AI Chamber and down the long glass hallway.

She went straight across the hallway and into the first office she could find. She knew that this was not the way back to her relaxation vault. She knew that she was not safe there. Not really. She needed to get off of the grid, and fast.

She entered the maze of office cubicles, wondering why GLaDOS hasn't put cameras in every area of the facility before remembering that GLaDOS didn't really have any control over the human areas of Aperture—just the test chambers. And her relaxation vault, apparently. She ran until she was out of breath, and looked around the room that she was in. She was in a sea of cubicles—there wasn't much for cover here, so she leaned down and sat under a desk, briefly feeling like a little kid again. When she tried to think more about when she was actually a kid, she found that she struggled to remember. Probably a side-effect of such long-term suspension. In fact, she barely remembered her life before Aperture. She knew that she had had one. She just didn't know what she had done. Maybe it would come back to her.

She took a few steadying breaths, wrestling with the adrenaline coursing through her system.

GLaDOS was having a flashback. That had to be it—she was acting without thinking, repeating the past while being stuck in it.