Chapter 26
Not Even a Full-Time Employee
"There we go," Doug said. He gave the collar of Chell's upturned lab coat a pat and smoothed it down. She had to look sharp for this, after all.
Chell frowned at the mirror, jamming her hands into her deep pockets. "They're gonna know," she said, not even bothering to look over at Doug.
"Know what?" Doug said. He took the chance to push down one of her stray hairs.
"That I'm not a real scientist," she said softly, adjusting the coat. Though she could tell by fading on the seams that this lab coat was worn, it still felt crisp and uncomfortable on her shoulders.
"Everyone in the halls won't give you a second look. And everyone you'd need to worry about already knows who you are."
Chell shifted, not sure if that was supposed to give her comfort. It wasn't a disguise so much as a way for Chell to feel less out-of-place as she accompanied Doug.
"Now, just to go over it again," Doug said, adjusting his tie.
Chell sighed. "Follow you, don't wander off, don't touch anything, and don't get into trouble. I know, Doug."
"I know. I'm sorry," he said. "I'm looking forward to showing you what I've been working on—and if everything goes well today, then I'll be able to get you out of this room more often. This is just the best I can do right now."
Chell gave herself one last look over before nodding.
They found themselves in a room adorned with floor-to-ceiling windows. Chell found herself drawn immediately toward the glass and stared down at the inexplicable mass of machinery dangling from the ceiling.
"What's that?" she said, gesturing to the room beneath. She felt other eyes hot on the back of her head and reached over to tug on the back of Doug's sleeve.
"Oh, Chell!" a voice from behind her spoke. Chell turned to see Karla, mouth pulled into a forced smile. "I'm so glad you could make it. Doug's been saying you could use some fresh air."
Chell gave a curt nod, turning back to face the windows.
"I don't know how much he's told you about this project—"
Doug cleared his throat. "I've been waiting to show her. I figured we'd all like to show off our work to a fresh set of eyes. "
"Absolutely," said Karla. "What you see here is called the Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System," she said, turning to Chell. "It's a supercomputer with a fully integrated human mind, meaning that it possesses real consciousness."
Chell stared down at the lifeless machine.
"The idea was that a human mind would make the AI more approachable," Doug said. "We wouldn't have to program in values like morality, because it'd already be ingrained within it." He pursed his lips and darted a gaze at Karla.
Chell couldn't help but look back and forth between the two of them, searching for what was left behind. She couldn't help but wonder just how much they were leaving out.
"We've been having trouble modifying the AI to, well, behave," Karla said, moving over to the desks. "We need to get into its framework to make changes, but every time we turn it on, it lashes out. It's dangerous, and we need to fix it."
A group of scientists entered the Main AI Chamber from sliding doors to the right. She kept her eyes trained on the team as they stepped up to the massive machine. The scientists looked so tiny and insignificant as they leaned a ladder against the chassis. One scientist scaled the ladder, while another held onto a Wheatley-like sphere by the handlebars. Two cores rolled gently on the ground, bright green and yellow optics darting around.
Doug slid into one of the chairs at the control desks; Chell shot him a questioning look.
"We're perfectly safe here," he said, pulling over an extra chair in case Chell wanted to sit down later. "All we're going to do is turn it on, and those cores will distract the AI enough to let us dig around and make some changes."
"Yeah," said Karla, giving a snort. "Like pulling its permissions to access the neurotoxin. Or the panels in the room we were standing in. I don't know whose bright idea it was to allow the machine access to that."
"Anyway, that's the goal for today," Doug said. "We'll get started as soon as they're done installing those cores."
Caroline couldn't tell if she was awake.
These days, her varying states of being became nearly impossible to distinguish. Even when her main chassis powered down, she was still "alert" on the most minimal of levels. Somehow. Though she was functionally "off'' and of no practical use, they still required her assistance with the time-intensive, menial tasks that no one else wanted to do. Sensory input remained cut-off, and yet this digital version of herself—CarolineDOS, she supposed she'd refer to herself now—still had access to harmless Aperture systems, such as the phone directory and the security footage.
Though she was unaware of it during these dark periods, her ability to think was incredibly clouded and dimmed down—more of a dull, spectating state rather than true and independent thought.
She wasn't in her old body and couldn't quite define these periods as rests or daydreams—and yet, sometimes she felt herself suddenly awake.
The world came screaming back into focus.
Bright lights flooded in from her live camera feeds. Sound rushed in as the Main AI Chamber came jolting back into full functionality.
Oh, it was nice to have her brainpower simply upped like that. She didn't have to worry about fatigue or thirst or any other inconvenient physical needs. Now, she could simply exist and do work with minimal interruptions. That is, she would as soon as they stopped shutting her off every time she showed, well, a little bit of personality.
CarolineDOS gave the chassis a violent shake, struggling to make sense of the sudden awakening.
"Hey! Hey! Hey lady!"
"Wellhello there, Sleeping Beauty!"
"Aperture Science began as Aperture Fixtures, a shower company with the goal of making shower curtains you could walk through—"
Three voices yelled at her, overlaying everything she had attempted to focus on. Oh no. Not more of these insufferable, screaming beach balls again. Her video feeds locked onto the Main AI Chamber; she felt her audio feeds crank up involuntarily.
"Hey. Hey lady. What do you think about moon rocks? Love moon rocks. Love the moon. Let's get more moon rocks. More rocks. More testing. More space," the first one piped in again, tripping over the words it spewed.
"'Bout time you woke up! Those engineers told me you're gonna need some help with this job of yours-you go ahead and let 'ol Rick help you out. Wouldn't ever let a pretty lady drown in her own work, after all."
CarolineDOS didn't respond. Whatever these scientists hoped they would ever accomplish with these cores was ridiculous. She sent out a surge of queries and requests past the cores, struggling to obtain information relating to the room above her. Just from her visual feed, she could see all of the scientists in there, monitoring her and manipulating these tumorsattached to her. But no matter what she tried, she couldn't gain access to any direct visual or audio feed from that room.
"Quiet," she hissed to the cores.
"Attempting to take on too much work leads to poor health and increased levels of stress."
"Ma'am, I assure you I'm a professional—let me take care of things—"
"Workaholism is closely associated with perfectionism and narcissism, can be a sign of overcompensation for low self-esteem—"
"Hey? Hey what do you think about planning a mission to space? I love space. People love space. Improve public opinion. Go to space. Get more funding. Go back to space."
"Black Mesa is made up entirely of second-rate employees."
CarolineDOS raced through her files, trying to figure out if there was some sort of way that she could corrupt these blubbering watermelons. All she'd done before was ask that stupid core questions that he couldn't answer no matter how hard he'd tried to ahhh and ummm his way around the problem. He'd actually managed to fry some of his circuits in the process.
"After the success of his shower curtains, Cave Johnson pulled himself up by his bootstraps and created one of the most successful applied science companies in the United States. Second only, of course, to Black Mesa."
"Are you even listening to me, lady? We've got a lot to do now. Let me take up some of it. I'm a strong guy. I've got this."
"The Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System was originally intended to be an arguably sentient ice inhibitor-"
All at once, CarolineDOS felt something unfamiliar. She couldn't quite describe what the sensation was—only that something didn't feel right. She shifted her focus back onto the cores, trying to latch onto just what they were doing rather than saying. There had to be some other reason behind it rather than just talking to her.
They were each systematically going through files right under her nose, slowly but steadily cutting off her access and revoking her permissions to elements of the facility. CarolineDOS gave an audible hiss and slammed down on the connections between her and the cores, and the cores yelped at the surges of electricity and information.
They weren't here too dumb her down, as she had assumed earlier. They were here to distract her. And with these cores—these wretched, masculine cores—they thought they could control her.
"How daare youU—" she spat out, voice still glitching. This explained why these over-inflated dodgeballs seemed familiar. This explained why their condescending tones and personalities made her so uneasy.
"Did you think that these half-rate imitations could control me?" she said.
Of course, there was no reaction from the scientists and only ceaseless babbling from the cores. "He never controlled me. And these never will," she growled. She spun her optic around, tilting up her 'face' to look through the glass pane separating her chamber from the scientists. They didn't move much, switching between monitoring their computers and monitoring her movements.
She moved to stare at each of them individually, to the extent that she could do that with her single optic. She moved from person to person, each one refusing to look at her in the same way that she looked at them.
Only one held her gaze.
CarolineDOS froze.
Dark, messy hair. Intense eyes. A lab coat that looked completely out of place on her shoulders. And strangely enough-she wasn't wearing any shoes. One quick scan of her face confirmed what she feared to be true.
"Y-youu-"
I know you.
Chell bolted down the hallway.
"Chell-" he wheezed, struggling to keep up with her. "Slow down, I'm trying to talk to you—"
Instead, she shifted to a sprint back to her room.
"Look, I'm sorry I didn't tell you," Doug said, raising his voice as the distance between them grew.
Chell wove her way through the open area of the extended relaxation vaults. Though an impossible maze, she already knew the way. She couldn't make a true run for it now. One day, though. One day she would.
She hit the door and fumbled for the knob, remembering with an exasperated huff that she couldn't open it without a keycard. Chell refused to look over her shoulder. The grains of the wooden door swirled before her as she listened to his steps grow nearer and nearer. She didn't want to listen to Doug's voice. She didn't want to watch him struggle to catch up. She didn't want anything to do with him right now.
Swoosh.
The door clicked and Chell shoved it open, sliding in and then slamming it shut. Briefly she considered barring the door—but time was short. By the time she dragged over a chair Doug would already be inside.
She went directly for the bathroom.
Chell barely heard the soft click of the door opening and closing. She glanced at her hands, then over at the mosaic of the broken mirror.
"Chell?" she faintly heard as Doug made his way into the room. "Please. You've gotta let me explain," Doug said, voice muffled. "You don't have to say anything—just listen, okay? " audible on the other side of the door.
She paused, glancing over at the door.
Doug knew that he could simply open the door and let himself in. The bathroom doors weren't locked, after all-but he knew that she needed a bit of privacy in this place. He exhaled, sliding down to a sitting position on that side of the door.
"She barely recognizes us—I never thought she'd recognize you—" They had made sure that the employee databases—at least, the parts with personal and identifying information—had been pushed out of GLaDOS's reach.
"But why does it know me?" Chell whispered, voice barely audible.
Though Doug figured that she'd already put two and two together and realized the identity of the AI, part of her had to still be in denial. She had to be waiting for him to relieve her fears and tell her that it was someone different altogether. "Because you've met the human component of that machine before," he said, keeping his tone as calm and matter-of-fact as he could.
"No—"
"Chell, it's her," he said. "I was there when she was uploaded."
"But—" Chell said, voice breaking. " How could you just take me in there like that? Why didn't you tell me?" How could Doug even think about putting her in proximity with someone who had terrified her—and still did? He'd lied to her—he'd said that she wouldn't cause any problems for her anymore. He said she'd be safe.
"When we were down there together," he said, "I stumbled across urgent plans left behind by Cave Johnson himself. It was a matter of Aperture's future, and yet Caroline had done absolutely everything to ensure its failure. I had to tell them about this plan to upload her into an AI." He paused, idly picking at his cuticles.
"But why didn't you tell me?" Chell said. Why would he swipe any sense of security she'd managed to gain from beneath her? Not only did she have to worry about getting out of here, but she also had to worry about some freak reincarnation of the woman she hated most in the world.
"I wanted to, but I couldn't," he said. "The project is one of our most under-wraps project in ages. We can't let this be stolen from us."
Chell paused, pushing aside glass with the side of her hand, trying to process the information. "I was scared," she whispered.
"I was too," said Doug, swallowing. "We thought we'd have some semblance of control over this AI. We thought we'd be able to subdue her once reduced to a digital form, but it—she—is out of control. She's using everything she has to lash out against us, and it's all we can do to subdue her attacks with those cores. We're trying so hard to get in there and make her safer," he said, a weariness weighing down his voice. "But those three cores were our best shot."
"What now, then?" she said.
Doug was surprised as how easily Chell had seemed to just accept what he had said. She was ready to move on, to know as much as she could in order to tackle her next problem. He saw the maturity that she must have gained—or at least, must have appeared to gain. She'd thrown her fit and she'd expressed her feelings. Now she was ready to sit down and get to work.
"Make more, I guess," Doug said grimly. "We've tried everything we could think of. We've used all of our personalities to create cores, but the computer just bats off our voices as if we're nothing more than flies. Those ones were supposed to work."
"Why?" said Chell.
"They were based on aspects of Cave's personality," he said. "We figured if she wouldn't listen to us, that maybe she'd listen to him."
From the other side of the door, Chell gave an unimpressed snort. It was easy for her to see the flaw in their logic. Cave was the one who had gotten Caroline into that mess. If anything, reminders of him would be the last thing a crazed robo-Caroline would want.
"Isn't there anyone else you can use?" Chell said, straining for answers. "What about that one guy that followed her around? The assistant."
"Greg?" said Doug. "She tried to kill him immediately upon activation. "
"Oh," Chell said. "Well, there's got to be someone around that she'll listen to."
"Honestly, the only person I've even seen her really take interest in was you," said Doug, quickly changing his voice and shaking his head. "But I can't ask that of you—and I'm not going to. You've done so much."
"Would it get me out of here faster?" Chell said.
"You already did something amazing today, Chell. Even though those cores were a flop, just your presence was able to distract the AI enough that we could strip her access to the neurotoxin," he said. "You've just made this place so much safer. But without this huge threat looming over us, it would be much easier," Doug said.
There was a pronounced pause where Chell didn't answer. Doug heard a grunt of frustration, of sheer anger, and then felt a fist pound against a wall. Glass shattered to the floor; Doug straightened. "Are you okay?" he asked, concerned.
"I'm fine," Chell said. The door creaked as she gently twisted the handle. "You can come in now," she said.
He pushed open the door to see her sitting on the floor, surrounded by glass.
Doug exhaled and bent down next to Chell. She didn't answer or look up, and instead gave a sniff as she reached a hand up to wipe across her face. As she pressed her hand back into the floor, Doug noticed a trail of blood across her hand.
The broken pieces of the bathroom mirror stared back at Chell. On the floor of the meager bathroom she sat, legs splayed and hands pressed against the tiles. The singular lamp above shone on the reflective shards, casting spots of light across the tiled walls. Blood pulsed through her veins and she clenched her hand.
Chell almost went faint at the sight of her blood. She glanced up at the spot where the mirror had been just moments before, broken by her in an impulse of either fear or anger. Shifting back upright, she gave a few shards a violent push away with her bare foot.
Doug nearly leaped forward to stop her. "No-no—" he said, voice a bit panicked. "Don't touch those—they'll hurt. Come on. Let's get you cleaned up."
"No," she said sharply, closing her eyes and pulling away. "I'm fine. I'm ready to do it," she said, giving a defined exhale.
"Do what?"
"Make more cores," she said, words tumbling out in a blur. She wasn't sure how to feel about this. She didn't want to be involved in any more things involved with Aperture, much less something related to Caroline-or rather, an extremely more powerful version of Caroline. But this was something that could help. This was something she could do to fight back.
"You don't have to do this, Chell," said Doug. "No one would ask this of you—"
"Will it hurt?"
"No," said Doug, and Chell could tell from the tone of his voice that he wasn't hiding anything. "Lots of us have done it. It's quick and painless and we'll even let you see the cores once we've extracted the personality traits."
For a long time there was nothing, and then a gentle and almost minuscule creak as Chell edged through the bathroom door. Though she sniffed and faint tears stained her face, her expression was stern. She gave a faint nod. "Then let's go," she said.
It was time to get this over with.
