Part II

Chapter 23 - Releasing on Time

Pick it up, pick it all up

And start again.

("Medicine" by Daughter)


Spring 200-

Skreeak.

The two men gave the desk a final shove, pushing the desk into an unclaimed office. "Looks like this is the last of it," grunted Doug's co-worker.

The scientist nodded, brushing his hands on his pant legs. With the clock ticking down until GLaDOS's activation, their mess in the main AI Chamber needed to be relocated by the end of the afternoon.

Naturally, the team had waited until today to do it. Priorities.

Desks and chairs and computers and papers littered the room, pushed and shoved and stacked in inefficient fashions—papers set on desk chairs, desks shoved together at odd angles with little triangles of open space scattered throughout.

Doug fell into step alongside the other man, noting how much progress had been made in these past few years. Besides individually making a few friends here in Aperture, his team had made huge amounts of progress in the field of artificial intelligence.

The work itself had been tedious. Not impossible, though.

Once the data from Caroline's brain had uploaded, it was simply a matter of untangling data and reconstructing her mind. Wheatley's creation had taught them a lot about constructing an artificial intelligence, but GLaDOS would be easier—her personality wouldn't be created from scratch.

Yet programming the framework for the facility's central core left several questions. Should the AI be able to express itself directly? And if so, how? It could potentially communicate in several ways—visually, verbally, or even just through text-based messages. And should this computer control only the testing tracks? The vitrified areas?

They settled on granting her facility-wide access, figuring that if something went wrong in, say, the research labs or the administrative areas, they could always revoke access. Easier to pull things away later rather than trying to figure it out now.

Doug wrung his hands, glancing up at the clock. The activation itself would be fairly low key—as proud of the AI as they were, the team didn't want to look like complete idiots in front of the company on the off chance the supercomputer didn't work correctly.

Still, Greg was headed down to officiate it. Though not as ambitious as Cave nor as terrifying as Caroline, somehow that man had ended up running Aperture. No one particularly approved of his self-promotion, but no one vehemently opposed it, either. His upbeat and announcer-like voice was a nice change.

Around twenty people filed into the room, clutching clipboards. Some climbed onto the platform to crane their necks up at the lifeless AI above them, while others examined the Emergency Intelligence Incinerator.

Getting across the room required a bit of a hike—and in theory, using the incinerator required two people: one at the button, and one at the incinerator. But all it took was a few commands, a few 'tests' of the system-wide software behind GLaDOS, to switch up the panels nearby into portal-friendly surfaces.

Plus, when Doug joined the team he'd brought one of his prototype portal guns with him, making travel to the incinerator and back a breeze. Really, that thing was made for laziness rather than functionality. Several times they'd used it as a glorified wastebasket.

Lunch leftovers, scrapped documents, failed experiences—they all burned so nicely.

Laughter behind him pulled away Doug's attention. He turned, watching both Greg and Henry move toward the room's center and then pulled away to take his place near the room's entrance. On the off chance this activation turned into something straight out of a horrific sci-fi novel, he would call in to request that the AI be immediately shut down.

The now-leader of Aperture cleared his throat. "Hello everyone," he said, giving a nervous and echoing laugh. "It's good to be finally be here." The man caught himself leaning forward as if to speak into a microphone—unnecessary with such a small and intently listening audience. "After going through so many teams of people, I don't think either Caroline or I ever thought we'd make it this far. And yet here we are," he said, exuding that same confidence Aperture used to give off once upon a time.

Scattered applause burst through the room. People grinned as they clapped each other on the back, and for that moment everyone in that room seemed genuinely happy.

"Without your help, we never would've been able to release on time," he said, giving a self-assured smile before continuing. As the excited murmurs quieted, Greg shuffled over to GLaDOS's activation switch—a simple button on a pedestal. "We've done the impossible—and now, all we have left is this final test. "

With one press, the artificial intelligence would gain control over the entire facility.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System."

The red button gave a satisfying two-part click-click.

Shockwaves of power sparked through the facility, pumping through each cable until every inch of the Enrichment Center slipped into GLaDOS's control. Lights dimmed. A sharp buzzing noise spiked in volume, then disappeared altogether.

The room plunged into silence. Deep rumbling shook the ground beneath them. A faint bug-zapper-like sound emanated from the lights as they flickered back, this time even brighter than before.


For a long time, she slept.

It wasn't a restful sleep—just a dreamless state. But even thinking was an exhausting, draining task. And so Caroline let her mind drift into a passive, coma-like existence.

Marginally better than being dead, she supposed.

She knew she wasn't dead.

Well, technically she was—she'd been dead since the moment the upload finished and her body gave out beneath her. The scientists had simply crossed their fingers, hoping that they'd eventually be able to reconstruct her mind, her mannerisms, and even her personality out of the oceans of data flooding through Aperture's computer systems.

She didn't feel the same.

Though she knew she was still Caroline, she didn't feel like herself.

Instead, she felt more like a re-creation or a poor caricature by someone who barely knew her. Her memories were all mashed together into one confusing and nonlinear mess. Blocks of her life were missing altogether; other salvaged life experiences appeared blurred and garbled when she attempted to directly access them.

If she had possessed enough power or control over her new body—or even her own brain—Caroline would've taken time to discern the individual memories and then re-order them chronologically.

For the most part, she just left that mess alone. Too much work to fix. Plus, remembering just brought her more pain—every glance at the past was another reminder of all that she'd lost.

She didn't exist in a physical place any more—just a collection of places, on hard drives and networks scattered throughout Aperture. Her body was dead, but Caroline was not. She was both alive and dead, simply waiting for someone to open the box.


Power surged through the facility like a crack of lightning, stretching out into each and every vein of wiring. This energy flowed directly back to her, coursing through her systems and immediately dissipating her mental fog.

Information rushed to her like sunlight to a dark room, pouring into every crack and blinding her with the sheer amounts of data. She wanted to raise her hands to her face and block it out, to press at her temples and close her eyes and cut off the world.

Her mental fog immediately dissipated. And for the first time in years, Caroline could think.

Before, the Aperture employees constantly messed with individual parts of her. Altering her coding felt a lot like an operation—except she had one doctor fixing a broken leg, while another preformed brain surgery. And more often than not a host of others messed with more topical things, feeling more like messing with her teeth or adjusting her hair.

Slowly but surely they had patched her up into 'Caroline'.

And now, she felt whole again. But she still wasn't human.

The realization gave her a pitched and detached feeling, as if she was floating above a city. She didn't have the same sort of physical body any longer. To be honest, she wasn't even sure how to move.

With no legs or arms or head, she couldn't shift her eyes or wiggle her fingers or glare at someone across the room, or even just blink or breathe. Moving was no longer a natural reflex—she had to specifically demand her new body to move.

Stretching out her neck barely yielded any results; trying to stick out her arms just caused the robot to pitch forward. Caroline 'blinked'; the command translated into a slight refocusing of her yellow optic. The ground beneath her shifted, first fuzzy and then crisp. Panels tiled across her range of vision. These she liked—with them, she could control just about everything that went on in this particular room.

Eventually she managed to shift her head up. A few groups of people lingered around the room, surprisingly quiet and focused as they analyzed the robot's every move. All they needed was some sort of affirmation that this robot they'd spent years building was indeed sentient.

Caroline scanned their faces for recognition. A few matched up with her scrambled memories—at one point, she had personally known some of these people. Instead of delving into that, though, she simply pulled up the official files on each employee in the room.

Something pulsed deep in her mind—no, systems—as she trained her gaze on one man in particular. Though his face had grown more mature than she remembered, the dark red hair made her former assistant unmistakable.

Memories surfaced in uneven clumps. Those relating to the end of her life (well, human life) slipped into the forefront. She knew this man had been there. He'd been there and he'd seen the position she was in, and he had done absolutely nothing to help her.

Caroline tossed his file into the recesses of her mind—she couldn't focus with that picture of him right in her face. Her human base made focusing on more than one task difficult. She could still multitask, but not at a speed anywhere close to a truly artificial intelligence.

She didn't want to think about Greg any more. In fact, she didn't want to think about him ever again.

Caroline fumbled around, digging up the visually sparse panel control system. To her it looked like a blue-and-red grid—some panels activated, others broken. Still, she plucked at a particular panel—just the one she needed.

Caroline struggled to turn the massive robot's head to face him. She wanted him to know that she didn't intend to hurt him—well, perhaps some day. But not now. She just needed to speak to him, to simply show him how mad she was.

She tried to open her mouth to say something—but she didn't know how to break out of her own mind with no mouth to open. Scientists and employees scattered like insects; Caroline sifted through her digitized brain until she found something relating to speech.

Words came out, garbled and unintelligible and barely discernible. Speakers crackled. She couldn't express her anger toward him with words. So, she did the next best thing—she made her anger indisputably clear in another way.

A panel snapped to life, slamming full-on into her former assistant and pinning him against the chamber wall.

Panic flared across the room—at any moment, the supercomputer could easily squish the current head of Aperture like a troublesome bug. Half of the people scoured the room for some sort of emergency shutdown switch. The other half had flocked to Greg, attempting to pull the panel from his chest.

"SHUT IT DOWN."

The man winced, wheezing and prying at the corner of the panel. Something—he didn't know what—had cracked upon impact, but the adrenalin prevented him from knowing it if was a wrist or a rib or something more painful. But the panel now had him pressed tightly, just enough to be painful but not too harmful.

Doug scrambled for the red emergency phone, hands trembling as he dialed the extension. "Y-yes, this is the Main AI Chamber," he said, swallowing. "No—nothing got thrown down the incinerator—no, I promise it's important this time. Please just listen—What? No, you can't speak to the project head first—" Doug broke off. He clutched the phone to his ear. "He's the one—"

"Just press the goddamned button," Greg shouted, loud enough that the person on the other end of the phone jolted upright and into action. "Shut it down NOW!"

The computer stiffened, jerking and twisting. Another corrupted string of words blasted from the speakers of the supercomputer, sharp and garbled and unsettling as it grew lifeless.

he room whined and flickered; the panels fell slack.


Greg swore softly as the panel holding him slid back into the ground. He staggered forward, leaning against a desk. "What happened?" He swallowed, clutching at his chest. His fingers explored the front of his chest, jerking back as he touched a bruised and potentially cracked rib. Nothing seemed broken, but he still couldn't catch his breath.

The people around him murmured, still keeping the limp robot in their peripheral vision.

"By all accounts, it shouldn't have reacted that way—"

"—no idea what happened."

He rubbed at his eyes, exhaling.

"Clearly we underestimated it," he said. "With all of those memories, that computer remembers exactly what we did to Caroline and it is not happy. If we don't want it to kill us all, we're going to have to remove those memories."

"It only targeted you," Karla said, pointing at his chest.

"Then make it forget about just me."

"I can't do that." Her brow furrowed, and she gave a frustrated huff. "Even if we accessed the individual memories and isolated the ones involving you, it would be an extremely delicate process. You're everywhere in Aperture—it's not as easy as just redacting a name and pretending you never existed. You were at Caroline's side for years. "

"Unless you want me to end up dead, you're going to have to."

"You're asking me to do brain surgery with a plastic knife," she said, not missing a beat.

Greg ran a hand through his hair. "Then just get rid of them all. Wipe the memories."

"No," Karla said. She gave a snort, folding her arms and shaking her head. "We've spent years untangling those memories and making them into an integral part of the system. It won't have a personality without those—delete them, and we're risking a total collapse."

"I don't care," he said, wincing and cradling his side. "I could've died.That machine's going to kill someone unless we take away its motivation to kill us all."

The scientist raised her eyebrows, leaning back against the railing as she stared at him. She didn't care if he was the current head of Aperture—she wasn't about to throw away years worth of work on a project with a history of huge setbacks. "Then you're going to have to figure something else out. I'm not wiping the computer."

On the other side of the room, Doug tapped the back of the phone with still-slick hands.

"Wait," Henry said, piping in. "Then just hide them. Slip the memories deep into some archive underneath layers and layers of security. Make it impossible for the computer to access them without human help, or perhaps the help of some catastrophic event. A core transfer, or an apocalypse—some situation where the memories wouldn't need to be repressed. That way the computer would have that same personality base."

Karla frowned, still deep in thought. "Yes—" she said "—but without allowing direct access to memories, we're going to risk creating an entirely different personality—a completely different entity, really. It won't just be another digital version of Caroline."

"Good," said Greg, hissing. "Anything would be better than that."

"Still, we're going to need a distraction for the next time we wake it up. Hiding those memories is going to take time." She sank into a chair, leaning her head back to stare up at the lifeless robot.

"You mean like Doug's bright, ugly sweater?" Henry said, giving a slight smile.

Doug's expression shifted into an unamused glare. "Hey—"

Karla twisted in her chair, still staring up at the AI. Silence fell upon the room; a few of the guests to the activation made their way toward the exit. They'd seen enough—and since Greg seemed to be in relatively stable condition, they figured they could leave.

"Hold on," Henry said. "What about Wheatley?"

"So you think my 'bot is finally going to be useful, then?" she said, lips curling in a faint smile.

Doug nodded. "That could work. Dumb him down even more, and it'd be even better."

"Here—and if you want, I'll try to boost his conversational skills and make his logical flaws even worse. That AI will drive itself crazy trying to correct Wheatley—it won't even have the brainpower to pay attention to us." Karla gave a confident laugh—a laugh of a self-assured genius.

"It's perfect," said Doug.

Greg nodded, grimacing with each breath. "Still, assign each employee a number. And Karla—pull their names from the system. The computer will replace the blanks with something like 'employee name here,'" he said, air quoting the words.

"Got it," she said.

"I'm heading back up to my office—medical wing—some place better than here," he said, resolving to not come back down until the AI became undoubtedly safer. "But you guys get working. We've done enough work, but we still haven't done enough. We don't want to risk anything—even a stray employee name—digging back up those memories. Now back to work, everyone."


And deep beneath the Main AI Chamber, a long-forgotten relaxation pod stirred to life.


A/N: I'm going to try and keep the next few chapters shorter so that I can get them out faster. Also, the year for this section is kept indefinite because there's actually no canon date for GLaDOS's activation/the Black Mesa Incident. It's just sometime between 2000 and 2009.

Again, thank all of you guys for your patience! I really appreciate people occasionally checking in to make sure I'm still working on this fic. I most definitely am, and I love it, and I love to share it all with my fellow Portal fans.