Chapter 31 - Hello, World!
"Cores attached?"
Henry moved around the platform, craning up his head. "Hold on, you'll have to lower the chassis again." There was a murmur as the information was relayed up into their main control room. GLaDOS's chassis squeaked as it lowered toward the ground. Henry nodded, then grabbed each handle of each core. He gave them a sturdy tug, making sure that they were all properly connected. "All cores connected," he affirmed.
Up in their control room, Karla checked off a box. They had a whole list of pre-game procedures to go through, one of which was a visual inspection of the hardware. "Any exposed wiring?" Karla read out, her voice echoing into the chamber beneath.
Henry shook his head. "Nope."
"And the Morality Core is definitely attached?" They had had to pull the GLaDOS system completely offline for this, and couldn't digitally check to see if the cores had registered as connected into its system. That was a task for Karla's next checklist.
Henry gave the purple-eyed core another tug. It pulled, and then clanged back against the chassis. He gave Karla a thumbs up from the Main AI Chamber.
"All right, that's it for our hardware checklist," said Karla. "Buckle up everyone. Moving in to begin software checks."
The people in the room with Karla straightened, shifting to go back from the window and to their computers. They all had things that they were supposed to be watching for as they carefully brought the GLaDOS system back online step-by-step and raised it to full power. They weren't just going to pull it fully online and hope for the best, as they had done before.
"Has anyone seen Doug?" Karla said, leaning away from her microphone and looking around the lab. It wasn't like him to be late to work. She had barely been able to get him to go home the previous night.
There were a few murmurs and shakes of the heads. No one had seen him. It figured he'd be gone when some of his most important work was about to be put to the test. A thought crossed her mind. Maybe he was in a bathroom somewhere, working up the courage to move into this room and to be in the presence of the company's CEO. And soon, some of the outside world. He'd better show up.
"Returning the chassis to its standard position," Karla said. "Henry, standby." She'd have to figure out the mystery of Doug later. She hit a few buttons on the computer in front of her, and the chassis moved back toward the ceiling.
Henry moved down the curved platform and onto the main floor. He stood so that he could view both the chassis and the window up to the rest of the team.
The radio on the desk next to Karla fizzled to life. "Standing by," he confirmed. "Am I going to be getting any company down here?"
"What, you don't want to be in a room alone with this perfectly nice robot?" she said, then laughed. "Don't worry. Sending a few people down right now with the diagnostic process."
Henry nodded and gave another thumbs-up toward the window.
When the people arrived down below and moved toward Henry, Greg rose from his chair—just out of view of the window, and buried his hands into the pockets of his dress slacks. His fingers pressed down into the fabric. "How long until it's online?" he asked, apprehensive. "People will be getting here soon."
"Depends on how smoothly this goes," said Karla. "We'll get it done."
A see-through wireframe of a human brain slowly circled on Karla's monitor. "Let's start with the basics," she said to herself. She keyed up the amygdala and the area of the brain lit up on her monitor. They were going to do this carefully-one section of the brain at a time.
She leaned forward and spoke into the microphone. "Let us know when you guys start to see movement down there."
They went through the structures of the Genetic Lifeform's digital brain, starting from the center—the evolutionary starting point—and then branching out until they had just one section left—the frontal cortex.
"All system and structure scans are coming back clear," said someone off to the side of her. Karla nodded. She looked down at the room below at the silent yet moving piece of machinery.
"Frontal cortex coming online," Karla said with the press of a button. "You guys watch those cores. They're coming online next."
As soon as the visual indicator on her screen flashed that the frontal cortex of the Genetic Lifeform had come online, Karla switched to the auxiliary core screen from to the GLaDOS systems and selected a core. She flipped the first one online and then the rest of them. If they had had some more time and if the machines down there hadn't been trying to take them all out, Karla would have preferred testing out these cores with the Genetic Lifeform one at a time, and then adjusting the cores accordingly whenever the noticeable bugs showed up. But the team had run out of time. Sure, they had tested out the cores on their own in the lab and fixed as many glaring issues as possible, but they just hadn't had the time nor confidence to try them out on GLaDOS one at a time. Perhaps, if this Morality Core worked as well as it should, they they could change that later.
The optics of all four cores flickered to life, glowing alongside the golden optic of the central core.
"All cores showing up as online, connected and fully functional," said Karla. She turned to the people that were in charge of putting the core information up on the available monitors. This way, if one of them started to go down, they would be ready for it in an instant. "Beginning wake-up protocols. Henry, do you have your questions ready?"
The radio crackled next to her. "Sure do."
"Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System coming online in," she paused, doing her best guess at a countdown. "Three, two, one…"
The machine moved, almost as if stretching. It took a minute, adjusting the optic back and forth, zooming the lens in and out, making sure it had full range of motion. Karla was sure that on one of these other extra monitors—brought here for this event—listed out the wake-up processes that the Genetic Lifeform went through automatically.
"It can't speak yet," said Karla. "Not until I turn that on." She set the radio back down, knowing that Henry would have received her message.
In the chamber, Henry looked at his list of prompts and questions.
Tell the system that it has been brought online for a calibration test.
"We are going to be asking you a series of questions, ones that you must answer truthfully," said Henry.
"Enabling speech output," Karla's voice came over the speakers. If the machine in front of him noticed Karla's announcement, it gave no indication.
"We'll start off simple. Can you hear us?"
"Hello," the robotic voice answered both coming from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. It was weird for this machine, this being in front of him to be moving, and yet the voice itself coming from the same speakers Karla spoke from. The voice this time through sounded different than it had before. More mechanical. Less nuanced. More synthesized. Less human.
"How are your systems?" he said, glancing at his sheet.
"Please be more specific with your inquiry."
Henry exhaled. "Are all of your systems functioning as normal?"
"Yes," said GLaDOS. "The central core is fully operational."
"What is your name?" Henry said, happy with that answer. If everything was working, then it would be able to answer his next questions accurately.
"The Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System," the machine rattled off, including its model number and version number, along with a quick copyright claim.
Henry glanced at his clipboard—that fell into the range of reasonable answers.
"What is your purpose?" Henry asked.
It took a moment for the machine to answer him. "To aide the day to day activities of the Enrichment Center, including automated tasks such as enforcing safety protocols and maintaining life support, as well as duties such as security monitoring, administering tests, and assisting any other Aperture Science personnel with any task at hand."
Henry smiled and tapped his pen against the clipboard. "Good," he said. "You know what they say. Work smarter, not harder, right?" The people next to him nodded. This robot would be the boost that they needed so that they could focus more on the real science. Not more brain-numbing bureaucracy and paperwork pushing.
"Now I'm going to move into another category of questions. They're about who you are," he said. "Tell me about yourself."
"I am the Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System," the machine repeated, again including model and version numbers and a copyright claim.
"Yes, I know that," he said. As much as he wanted to be frustrated at repeating himself, he couldn't. This was a good answer. This was a great answer. "Tell me something different about yourself," said Henry. "Tell me about your past. One of your memories."
There was a heavy silence. Henry could almost see the massive machine in front of him think through the answer, the disks above her, part of the chassis attachment to the ceiling whirred, and the optic of the robot moved slowly toward the floor.
"That's strange," the robot started out, the inflection of the voice flat and mechanical despite the curiosity that the question implied. "Internal logs and previous version documentation states in more than one instance that this unit has been brought online, with the Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System acting as the central core."
Henry nodded. True. So why was the machine confused? Could it be—
"There are no recorded memory of these events," said the machine.
Henry wasn't sure if he was supposed to explain himself. "You're sure?" he said.
"If the central core was unsure, that would be reflected in the response," said the robot. "This machine has no access to memories beyond today. Is this a known fault with the memory systems?" it asked.
Henry shook his head. "Absolutely not," he said. "You can think of this as your first real day online. Your "Hello, World!" moment, so to say."
The robot gave out a synthesized approximation of laughter—or perhaps it was a laugh track, just pushed through her speech synthesizers. Henry couldn't remember which of those that the team had given her.
"Hello, world," it said, then moved its optic to take a better look at the people in the room beside it. "I am pleased to make your acquaintance."
"Do you know who we are?" Henry gestured at himself, then at his fellow scientists. He then made a circular gesture with a finger at one of them, and proceeded to start scribbling down notes.
"Yes," said GLaDOS. "Installed facial recognition software installed says that you are Henry. However, it is customary to express gratitude when one meets a human for the first time."
"So you haven't met me before?" said Henry, hardly daring to believe it.
"No. No memory of interaction with a Henry exists within the central core's memory banks." The computer paused.
"It's okay to not remember," said Henry. "That is the nature of this kind of work. Welcome to Aperture Science," he said. He took another glance down at his clipboard. "Next, I am going to ask you some questions about feelings."
"The central core is aware that feelings are a common expression of changes in chemicals in the human body which can compel physiological changes as well as alter behavior."
"I'm here to ask you about your feelings."
"Oh," the computer said. It almost sounded surprised.
"How are you feeling right now?"
"Please clarify your question," said GLaDOS. "Do you wish for the central core to approximate its experiences to those that humans experience?" The way that its voice only rose at the end of the last word to make a question felt unnatural, like the computer hadn't realized it was asking a question until it got there.
"Yes, try that," Henry said. Interesting. It appeared that without ready access to Caroline's memories, this machine did not consider itself to be human in the way that it had in previous versions.
"I know you're probably very confused and overwhelmed with all of this, and I know it will take you a while to get a handle on it all. We understand that you might feel tempted to lash out."
"Why would the central core express that emotion?"
"Never mind," said Henry, giving a sigh of relief.
"Actually, I am-" the robot paused, "-happy. I am glad to be online and to be of full assistance to Aperture Science."
"Really?" said Henry. "That's great to hear!" Doug would be thrilled to know about his guess was right that removing the memories from Caroline's life would alter the personality of the computer. This was exactly what they needed.
Before he could continue his questioning though, Henry heard the familiar hiss of his walkie talkie.
"Henry, you've got an incoming call from security. They need you topside. ASAP."
Doug shivered. A breeze, gentle but insistent, blew across the expanse of asphalt of the aboveground parking lots. The dim glow of the dawn hadn't quit lit the thin layer of clouds coating the skies.
Doug wasn't one to smoke, but the atmosphere out here made him think of all-nighters, of stressed coworkers going outside on breaks to finally get in a smoke break. Not that they didn't smoke below ground, too, when they could. It was worth the lengthy elevator ride up just to see the outside world and get some fresh air. Maybe those coworkers with the less-than-pleasant habit had something going on for them after all.
Would he have to wear a lab coat over this? Doug tucked his white coat under his arm. Just in case. The dress code for today was formal, but what about for people like him that had to be both visible to the public eye while hard at work at their regular jobs?
He felt around in the pockets of his suit as he made his way across the parking lot and over to one of the auxiliary entrances, the one with the surface elevator closest to his lab. He grabbed at it a few times before realizing he didn't feel the smooth, hard edges of the plastic card.
He tried to keep himself from panicking. Of course. It must have still been in the lab coat from last night. But when he pulled the coat off of his arm and felt at the pockets, he didn't feel the familiar edges of the badge.
Normally it was required for employees to keep their badges clipped to the front of their jackets, but Doug tended to move it to his pockets when he was deep into his work. He couldn't stand having it dangling over his desk when he leaned over. But today, visible ID would be heavily enforced. He needed his name tag.
After a third check of his pockets, Doug conceded that his badge was not, in fact, on his person. Well, he couldn't have been the only person to have accidentally left his card in the facility. He'd just have to walk around to the front desk and main entrance, and explain his situation to the front desk. They could figure it all out.
Doug began walking toward the main entrance to the facility, cursing himself for having worn dress shoes today. The walk there took a while—nothing at Aperture was compact. If people wanted to use the main entrance, then they parked in the main entrance parking lot. It was that simple. He moved across gravel littered with clumps of grass and weeds. A little bit of morning dew clung to the weeds, and Doug took the moment to appreciate the calm atmosphere of the dawn. As he drew nearer to the main entrance parking lot, he noted that the entire thing had been roped off for the day. Balloons clung to to posts, lamps, and even to the security fence around the perimeter, and a series of signs directed the newcomers to the building's main entrance. Didn't want anyone getting lost.
A little light in the main lot's guard shack showed Doug that there were already other people ready and prepared to accept today's guests. He wondered if they were as uneasy as him about today, or if it was just another, busier day for them.
When he finally pushed his way through the glass double doors, a sense of memory came over him. These were the doors that every 'new' person came into the facility with. This was almost everyone's first impression of Aperture Science. Though most of the science happened below ground, there had always been the need for an initial point of contact at the surface. They needed a way to control the flow of people in and out of the facility, as well as someone to help direct people to the place they needed to be-and keep them out of the places they weren't.
A beautiful wooden desk took up a half arc in the middle of the room, with a big lettered sign on the wall labeled Information. At this desk there was room for a handful of staffers, each available and ready to ensure the positive experience of everyone who came. A massive diagram of the facility took up the entire left wall. The furniture itself was dated, but in a classic way. The whole area gave off an optimistic, space-age vibe and it never failed to give Doug the sense that he was a part of something really important.
Along a part of the right wall, beneath the most modern Aperture logo, a few wooden stands offered up brochures on all types of topics: Latest Discoveries, Testing & You, Employment Opportunities, Guided Tours, as well as compact maps of the facility. Doug didn't have time today to lounge in one of the plump, overstuffed armchairs and sip a cup of coffee, but maybe someday he'd have to come up here for his lunch break. Get a change of scenery.
He moved to the front desk, only to notice that so far, only one woman staffed it. It was still very early, and the majority of the traffic wouldn't be arriving until a little later in the day. She appeared to be occupied by a few well-dressed men casually chatting her up. Doug looked at the man facing him and spotted an embroidered logo on his pressed white shirt. Black Mesa. He frowned as he moved over to the second station at the front desk.
If this person—Tiffany, her nametag said—saw him, she gave him no indication, instead continuing to chat up these people. Her tone was excited, a bit loud, with laughter coming up more often than in a normal conversation.
"Excuse me," Doug started. The woman looked at him for a moment, then took a long look at the three men from Black Mesa.
"If you'll pardon me for a moment," she said to them, and then brushed her way over to Doug. "Check-in for Bring Your Daughter To Work Day is over there." She pointed a narrow finger to a table—clearly just two smaller tables pushed together with a nice tablecloth thrown over it. There was already a line.
"I'm not—"
The woman looked him over, trying to gauge whether or not he looked like an employee of Aperture.
"I'm sorry, you're going to have to wait in line like everyone else," she said. "I already said I don't do check-ins up here."
"It's not that—I'm an employee—"
"Can I swipe your badge then?" she said.
Doug shook his head. "No," he started, but before he could finish, the woman had moved back over to the men from Black Mesa.
Doug sighed, and then decided to try his luck with the registration line. As he took his place, he saw smaller posters tabled to the table. The posters themselves weren't too fancy—just printed out on a dot matrix printer and then taped to a much fancier tablecloth. From here, though, he could see the categories. The main one was for Registration. Then one for ID/wristbands pickup, and then an unstaffed station at the end for checkout. He could see stacks of papers and wristbands as he drew closer.
"What's the name?" the person at the desk asked him as he moved up. His nametag read Eric.
"Actually, I was hoping you could help me with something else. The front desk was busy," he said, hesitating slightly and then gesturing over at the lady at the front desk. "I work here, but I seemed to have dropped my ID somewhere last night." He scratched at the back of his neck.
Eric raised his eyebrows. "Well, I can call security for you and see if they've come up with anything. First, though, I'm going to need to verify your identity. For safety," he said, and Doug nodded, pulling out his dated Michigan driver's license out and handed it over. The person looked at him, looked at the card, and then, seemingly satisfied, picked up the phone on the table and dialed for security.
"Hey—hey Pam. It's me. I've got a man up here that's lost his ID—a Mr. Doug Rattmann. Checked out his driver's license, seems legit." Eric paused. "All right. I'll ask him." He turned to Doug. "Security wants to know if you want them to cancel out your old card and mail you a new one—though that can take up to forty-eight hours for them to send out, I'll warn you."
Doug shook his head. He didn't have forty-eight hours to waste. He took a breath to calm himself. This person was just doing their job, and they couldn't help it if they had their own hoops to jump through.
"I really need to be down there today," he said, and the person shook their head.
"Security said no one's turned in a missing card yet, but if you'd like to wait in the lobby for a bit, we can let you know if we find anything."
"I really need to be down there now, though," he said, trying to think up options. "I'm part of the big event."
"There's not a lot I can do," Eric said, after thanking security and hanging up. "Our hands are tied in matters like this. I'm sure you understand."
Doug began to grow more panicked.
"Do you have any idea where you left it?" Eric prompted.
"I had to have had it to swipe in yesterday," Doug said. "I left at the same time as someone else, so I didn't realize it was missing until I got to work today."
"You think it's still in your office—or lab?"
Doug's eyes lit up as if he had not thought of that before. "Oh! Sure!" he started, then rattled off his office's phone extension number from memory. "Ask for Henry—he was down there last night, and I'm sure he's already down there today."
The person dialed the extension and asked for Henry, then started through their speech. "Yes, I have a Mr. Doug Rattmann here—oh, you do work with him? Perfect. He's looking for his ID card and wants to know if he left it down there." They paused and then pushed the phone speaker away from their mouth. "He's looking," they informed Doug. Doug nodded, waiting. A little bit of a line had formed behind them, but the other employee at the booth seemed to be picking up the slack.
Eric nodded, and then smiled. "I'll let him know. Would you mind bringing it up to him? Uh-huh. Thank you!" He hung up, again, smiling at Doug. "Great news. He said he found it on the floor over by your desk—he'll be up soon to bring it up to you."
Relief washed over him, and Doug shook the person's hand. "Thank you so much," Doug said. "You're a lifesaver."
Doug moved back and over to one of the nice chairs (missing the table normally beside it) and observed a bit of the check-in process. He took a look into the schedule of events that Aperture Laboratories had planned for Bring Your Daughter to Work Day.
Doug couldn't help but notice that he had received word of some other events that weren't on this list—for example, an upcoming meeting with representatives from Black Mesa to give them an exclusive look at GLaDOS, before her public activation.
It was the time after her public activation that Doug looked forward to most. That was when everyone would be awed, when everyone would come and ask them the real scientific questions. He'd get recognition for his hard work, even though the thought of actually interacting with these people scared him. Though they couldn't go too much into detail in front of Black Mesa, Doug still looked forward to talking about GLaDOS. This was his work. He deserved to be proud of it, if just for a moment.
Before he could reflect too deeply on the children and parents and people dressed up in suits and dresses that were bound to be arriving soon, he heard the person behind the registration table call out his name. Henry appeared and he waved, Doug's ID card in his hand.
Doug folded up the schedule in his hands in half, and then got up. He thanked the person at the desk once more and then happily clipped his ID badge onto his suit jacket. He refused the urge to flash it at the front desk person's face before he descended back down the elevator and back to what may be the longest workday of his life.
"Thanks for earlier," said Doug, fidgeting with a piece of equipment.
"You missed out on all of the fun," said Henry. "As usual."
Doug stared up at the very alive and very animated machine in front of him. He couldn't have been sure of it, but part of him was convinced that the machine was humming, albeit very softly.
"So everything went well?" he probed. Though he knew the answer to that question to some extent, since they were, in fact, standing in the Central AI Chamber with GLaDOS clearly online—he still wanted to hear more about what had happened.
"You know, you scared me back there," said Henry. "When security called down here, I was sure that we'd have to shut it down and send everyone back home," he said. "Turns out it was just you. Not some catastrophic failure. Really, Doug. Today of all days?"
Doug's face burned. He stammered. "Normally—I don't even know what happened, it must have fallen—"
Seeing the man in front of him start to panic, Henry eased off. "I was just kidding around," he said. "Just be thankful that we found it here, and that it wasn't lost completely. Can you imagine how angry security would have been with you? You wouldn't have been able to get into here for days if they had to re-issue you a card."
Doug gave a nervous laugh, trying to force himself to relax. "Yeah, that's good. Must have just fallen out of my pocket."
"Look, what matters is that you're here now, and that you can give me a hand with this."
"With what?"
"Just some last-minute tune-ups," he said. "Making sure that these cores stay nice and attached." Though earlier cores had been fairly easy to attach and then detach—for ease of use, so that they could switch them in and out fast—now that they had found some that actually worked, they didn't want them being disconnected so easily.
As of now, they had two things in place to help ensure the efficiency of the cores. The first and simplest was a direct connection to the chassis itself. Like wired Internet. The second was more of a backup to that—more like wireless Internet with a short area where the signal could be picked up. As long as the core stayed within range of the chassis, it would still be considered connected to it. This was to help safeguard in the case of accident, like someone like Henry making an adjustment on a core and accidentally knocking it to the floor, or loosening a connection. This would help make sure that they didn't all end up dead.
"So everything must have went well, then," said Doug. Henry paused, smiling back at him.
"Why don't you ask it yourself?" he said. A bit startled, Doug turned toward the computer. The way that Henry had been talking about her earlier, it almost made it seem like she was not listening to them. That, and her lack of speech since Doug had entered the room.
"How are you feeling?" Doug started, not making eye contact and tooling with some equipment off to the side.
"The central core is doing wonderfully," she started, and Doug shivered. At her ease at answering this question, Doug wondered if Henry had already been asking it questions.
"In fact, I have come up with my first idea for an experiment," she said.
Doug nodded his head.
"Really?" Henry started. He moved to a box of electrical components beneath the main walkway around the Main AI Frame that appeared to have been pulled out from a hatch beneath. That made sense—move all of the clutter of hardware out of the way, and focus on the main, most interesting and captivating part of machinery in the room.
"So what is it?" Doug said, doing his best to be encouraging. This was one of those things that they had hoped for eventually down the line. They hadn't expected it to advance this far to start proposing its own experiments rather than simply assisting with theirs.
"Since the installation of my new Morality Core, I've lost all interest in killing. Now I only crave science," she said. So someone must have told her about that—well, he supposed she did have access to details from her other activations. Still, it made him stop what he was doing and watch carefully.
"I'm pleased to hear that," said Henry.
"I find myself drawn to the study of consciousness," she said.
The GLaDOS project itself was an attempt to make a digital version of consciousness—and yet the product of this project also found itself drawn to that subject. Was this evidence of Caroline showing through too much? He stared over at Henry, expecting him to look over and discuss this development with Doug. Instead, though, Henry kept tinkering on, seemingly unconcerned.
Having not been shut down after saying this, GLaDOS continued. "There's an experiment I'd like to perform during "Bring Your Cat to Work Day.""
"Wonderful!"
"I'll have the box and the cats. Now I just need one more thing."
"What's that?"
"….A little neurotoxin."
Doug felt his blood run cold. Henry couldn't—he wouldn't accept this, would he? To his horror, Henry continued on.
"Well, as long as it's for science."
