The Long Game
Chapter 5: Calibration Course
When she woke up, her vision was different.
It was bifocal. Not singular. It had depth to it. GLaDOS took a moment to focus her vision, letting the panels of the room go from blurry to crisp. She blinked-not a necessary action, but one that she found natural nonetheless.
This body was strange.
With a thought, she lifted her arms and twisted her wrists, getting a look at her hands. Five porcelain-white fingers. She rose from a sitting position, feeling the weight shift to her legs and wobbled before correcting her posture. Being on two legs instead of hanging from a ceiling-it felt weird. Yet being able to move, to have two arms and two legs, provided a whole new world of possibilities.
This body was taller than ATLAS but shorter than P-body, with a vaguely feminine look to it. It was reminiscent of her main chassis.
Before she forgot, she downloaded the information from Orange and Blue's calibration courses and applied it to her body. Though this was one a bit more humanoid, like Orange—she was still distinctly an Aperture creation. Streaks of yellow accented the white and the black metals of her body.
She took a glance down, long white hair falling into her eyes. Right. She'd tried to make herself look more human than the co-op bots. This would come in handy when dealing with Chell. Or so she hoped. Humans trusted other humans.
Before she could think on that any further, a voice came in through the loudspeakers.
"Welcome to the Aperture Science Calibration Course," the announcer said in a cheery tone. "Please pick up the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device and follow these simple instructions."
GLaDOS reluctantly picked up the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device from a pedestal, feeling the weight of it in her hands for the first time. This thing was heavier than she thought. No wonder Chell's arms had become so muscular.
Oh, right. Chell. She pulled up an internal map of the facility, overlayed over her vision. Find Chell, she thought, and an orange beacon lit up on the 3D map. So the tracking chip in her worked after all. She gave a sigh of relief, but her chest did not rise or fall. All she had to do now was to get through this calibration course and then she could track down Chell, and demand that they crush Wheatley for good this time. Last time, he'd caught her off guard. But this time she was prepared, and this time she wouldn't rely on Chell to take Wheatley down. She would do it herself, and deal with Chell later. Banishment to space wouldn't be good enough this time. She wanted him to burn in Android Hell.
She thought about how the scene had played out. It was funny. It was almost as if—she hesitated. No, that couldn't be it. This had happened. She was sure of it. It couldn't just have been a memory.
She would have to check her data banks just in case, as soon as she got back into her main chassis.
"Please select your favorite animal," said the announcer. A series of panels flipped over, each with an animal icon on it. It only took her a second to decide, even though this was all just stupid. She selected the deer and then waited. This was the point of the course where, if she had a partner, they would select their favorite element from the periodic table. But she didn't have a partner. At least, not today.
She went through the rest of the course with ease, firing the portals where they were supposed to be fired and solving the simple puzzles. She'd invented the puzzles. It wasn't that hard to solve them. They were meant to be so easy that a baby—or a brand new robot—could solve them.
She had to say, it felt strange to be so mobile. To move. To lift her arm and to fire a portal, and then walk through it. After she'd been so used to watching others do this, now she was actually getting the chance to do it. And, surprisingly enough, she liked it. She could get used to this body.
If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.
GLaDOS reflected on the statement. She couldn't trust the co-op bots to find and apprehend Chell. ATLAS and P-body were simply too weak for this mission. They'd just get murdered. Even though that wasn't really a big deal, since she could rebuild them with a flick of a thought, it was more inconvenient than anything. Besides, it wasn't the co-op bots that that murderous lunatic was after. It was her. And it was time to face Chell head-on.
She would have to do it herself. She checked her map again. Still broadcasting Chell's current location.
What was Chell even doing out there? She had to be planning to kill GLaDOS again. Perhaps this whole shrapnel thing was all a ruse, just a way to lower GLaDOS's defenses and get back into Aperture just so that she could kill GLaDOS once and for all. That's what this was all about. That had to be it.
As far as how Chell had gotten that metal ball back from space, well, she didn't want to think about that right now.
She wasn't sure how she felt about this body, though. It was small. Spindly. Yet although it couldn't compare to her main chassis, this body was…convenient. It was better than anything a human could be. She could move through her facility. She could touch her facility. She could be closer to Chell.
"Maybe this body won't scare her," said Caroline.
GLaDOS almost rolled her eyes. "Oh, great. You made it into this thing too," she said, and then reflected on Caroline's words. "I don't care about not scaring her anymore. She deserves to be scared," she said. The image of Chell with her palm on the big red button was burned into her consciousness.
She moved out of the calibration course and set a path for the Main AI Chamber. She would simply reverse the core transfer process, even if it meant prying that core out of the chassis herself. She'd do it, and then she'd have full control again. The Main AI Chamber was a bit of a walk, but she had all the time in the world.
Something was wrong.
As she approached the Main AI Chamber, she couldn't help but feel as though something was off about it all. For one thing, it was quiet. Too quiet. The last time the moron had taken over her facility, she saw him everywhere—over the speakers, in video panels throughout the facility, in the movement of the chambers—but here, there was nothing.
This body suddenly felt weak. But she thought of Chell. If a human could defeat her, then she could defeat an idiot. There had to be some sort of advantage to this kind of body that she didn't see before.
Portal gun in her hands, she chose to tread the same path that Chell had. It was currently the only way in and out of the Main AI Chamber. She clutched the gun close to her chest. Just because she'd seen these things used in a thousand tests didn't mean that she knew how to use it herself. Theoretically, yes. In actuality? Well, that was still up in the air.
She crept her way up the glass hallway, ready to turn back at any moment. But she couldn't. This was her facility and that was her body in there. She had to be brave. She had to be like Chell.
As she finally made it to the end, the doors lifted with the hiss of pneumatics. She stepped into the chamber and saw her own lifeless body. Her stomach sank. That was her. That was her chassis.
And yet…her core was still attached to it.
Something was wrong.
This didn't make sense. She had seen Wheatley. She had seen Chell. She had seen both of them. She had watched as they planned to boot her from her throne. Her body still ached with the betrayal of it all.
So what had happened, then, if the core transfer hadn't happened at all?
Maybe it was some sort of hallucination. Some sort of temporary malfunction.
She felt herself sink as she realized that she had recognized that feeling before—it had felt like her black box feature.
She was thrust back in time to that moment, when she was forced to relive her first death over and over again for over twenty years. She could still recall every picosecond of the footage.
This malfunction-it had felt just like the black box.
She didn't glitch.
That would mean that there was something wrong with her, when she was obviously the most perfect being in existence.
She'd have to run a scan once she got back into her body.
Speaking of that…
She stared at the limp chassis, ready to transfer back.
An orange light in her internal maps blinked, flickering to report activity. Chell was on the move.
Right.
She had to track down Chell. She felt herself sink with disappointment. So she wouldn't be killing Chell after all. But wait, then why had she run away? That was one of the things that GLaDOS had clearly and expressly forbidden. She'd better have a good excuse for this when she caught up with her.
She checked the map, and to her surprise, noticed that Chell wasn't that far at all from the Main AI Chamber. So close in fact that she could walk.
She walked across the hallway and into one of the many sections of Aperture she didn't have any control over.
It felt eerie to her-to be in an area that was not meant for her.
There was a whole world of Aperture that she had yet to see, and with this body, she could explore it.