Part Forty-Five. The Fight

It's really bad this time.

I still don't understand why they do this to each other. I know Mom said everything was fine, as long as they worked things out, but how can this be any good at all? I don't even remember how it started. All I know is that it's ending as it usually does. With yelling and insults and back-and-forth about who is more of a pain. I used to go to my mom when these things happened, but now I know better. Now I know that Dad only starts yelling because he doesn't know what else to do. My mom makes it really hard to out-argue her with logic and reason.

I don't think I've ever seen him so angry, or her sound so cold.

Littlecore, you should not be here.

Ssh. I hope the panels don't give me away. I need to be here.

We do not think you are correct.

"Ev'rything does not have to be, to be neat, and, and sorted! Life is messy, Gladys!"

"Only you would tell me to change my core programming. Which I can't, by the way. And even if I could, I wouldn't, because you've just told me to."

"I didn't tell you to do anything!"

"Additionally, perhaps you should take a leaf from my book, so to speak, and become more organised. It would certainly help with… a lot of things."

"So I've got to change to your liking but you haven't got to do the same, is that it?"

"I tolerate you, that should be good enough."

"Maybe I'll just go, then!" Dad shouts at her, but he's starting to look more upset than angry. Mom doesn't look like she cares one bit, watching him calmly without moving. "I'll go and, and find another person to hang out with! Who won't just, just tolerate me! In fact, y'know what? I'll go find that test subject!"

"Oh, go ahead," Mom says, shrugging. "Then I don't have to put up with you anymore. Because remember all those years ago, when you accused me of leading you on? Well, I lied. I was. And I have been, this whole time. It doesn't matter to me whether you leave to find her or not. I'll just move on to the next desperate idiot. Oh. Don't tell me you thought I was actually being sincere."

My optic constricts into a tiny little dot. She's… she's taking this really far, this time. I don't know what's scarier, this cold, dead voice or the one she uses when she's really angry.

"You're… you're lying," Dad says, though he doesn't sound like he believes it. He's shaking himself and backing away from her. "You're making it up."

"Doesn't it sound a bit too convenient?" Mom says languidly, looking away. "You try to kill me… you take over my facility… you try to kill me again… I completely forgive you and then I happen to… ha! Sounds like idiocy only you would believe."

"That's right," Dad says, his voice weak and shaky. "I forgot. You're a proper maniac. A nasty piece of work."

"Your loss for forgetting, I suppose. Well. I guess I can tell Rick the good news."

"What? Tell Rick what news? Rick's not even on!"

"Of course he's on," Mom says, as if he comes by every day. Whoever he is. "I needed something… serious while I was carrying on this farce with you."

"He's not!" Dad cries, shaking his head harder. "You're making it up!"

"But you'll never know. Will you." She laughs a little, shaking her core. "Poor, poor Wheatley. Living his dream, only to find out that all good things must come to an end."

"I know it's a lie," Dad whispers. "If it were true, you wouldn't have built Caroline."

I start a little at the sound of my name.

"I would have."

"If it were true, you… you wouldn't have used my programming."

"I didn't."

Dad stares at her for a good five seconds. She only continues looking unconcernedly at the wall.

"That's right," she says, looking at him and shaking her head again. "I lied about that too. It is Rick's programming. As if I would ever use yours. As if I would even ever lower myself to actually looking at it. What a horrible, tangled mess it must be. Rick's was – "

"Shut up!" Dad cries, moving back farther. "Stop it! Why would you lie about that! All this time, when you knew – "

"Because it was fun," she says simply. "The only thing I regret is not being able to maintain the façade longer. Well. Now I get to see you suffer. So there's that, at least."

"I hate you!" Dad shouts, sounding like he wants to cry. "I hate you, and your massive, ugly, fragile body, and I hate your stupid, horrid obsession with science, and, and – "

"You say all that like I'm supposed to care. I thought we'd already gone over how much I didn't, but then again, you do need things pointed out to you. Multiple times."

"I hate you so much," Dad whispers, so sadly that it makes me want to cry. "You monster. You horrible, horrible monster."

"You knew that. You've always known that. Why did you think it would be any different once you got involved?"

Dad doesn't say anything else, only shakes his head and turns and leaves, not even seeing me as he goes by. I'm not able to move for a long time. I don't know how I'm supposed to accept anything she's said. I can't reconcile this person looking imperiously out the hole in the wall right now with the person who talked to my dad so tenderly last night…

Then I shake myself and go to track down my dad. He sounded like he needs someone.

Guys, where'd my dad head off to?

He went outside. But maybe you should –

My dad needs me.

When I find him, he's actually sitting on the floor. He must be really upset, because he hates the floor. He's all clenched up, and he's making this sort of whimpering noise, and he's not even looking at the darkening sky outside. He's staring at the floor underneath him.

"Dad?"

He jumps and flips his optic over to glance at me, then spins to face me. "Oh… hi Carrie. What… what're you doing here?"

"You went right by me," I tell him, entirely truthful. "What's wrong?"

"Oh, it's nothing," he says, shrugging, but looking down at the floor again. "I just… your mum and I had a, a row, and… and things were said that, that shouldn't've been."

"She must've said something really – "

He shakes his head and goes back to looking out the hole. "I… Carrie, I don't want to think about it right now. I just… want to forget it ever happened."

"Well… you have to think about it, right? It's getting dark out."

He shakes his head once, slowly. "I don't… I don't think I'm going back there tonight."

Now it's my turn to stare. "You're not?"

"No, I… I think I'll stay here."

Never in my life have my mom and dad spent the night apart. They've always fixed things by then. I don't really know who Rick is, or the test subject, but they must be pretty significant to my mom and dad if it led into this. I don't like this at all!

"But Dad – "

"Carrie, I said I don't want to think about it."

So I turn around and leave him alone.

This is horrible! How could they have let it get that bad? It's all her fault, I –

You don't know what happened, Littlecore, the panels cut me off. Centralcore is just as upset as Bluecore.

I laugh a little. You saw her, right? She wasn't upset at all.

You don't know her. We have been with her since she was made. Trust us when we say that there is far more to her than you think there is.

Dad's already told me how deep and complex she is. I roll my optic. Because no one else in the world is.

All we are saying is that you are presuming to know things you do not know. You have a lot yet to learn, Littlecore.

So must she, then! Because you've been around since before her, right?

That is correct. But you are mistaken in thinking that we know more than she does. Only through her have we become what we are now. We have seen a little more, perhaps, but we were very basic entities before she was installed. All of us were.

You don't have to sound so… grateful to her. If you're sentient, just do whatever you want. Like we do.

That is part of your purpose. Ours is to do what we do. And we do not want to, anyway. We want to do as she asks, because it pleases her.

You sound like slaves, I tell them bluntly, clunking down on some random desk. Like she'll punish you if you do something wrong.

Not at all. We do it because we love her.

I frown. You love her?

We do.

She doesn't love you.

You are presuming things again. You do not know the way in which she speaks to us. We know, though she has not said so, and we aware that she probably never will.

How can you know something she hasn't said? And never says. To anyone.

Because we know her, they answer patiently.

I shake my head and stop talking to them. I guess they have been around longer than any of us, but seriously. They think my mom loves them. Ha!

I have to sleep by myself that night, but for the next few days I spend most of my time with my dad. He's not quite himself, even more distracted than usual, and he sounds tired and listless, but he refuses to talk about the argument and will not even talk about my mom, which is usually his favourite subject. We're playing checkers about a week after the fight, when all of a sudden he looks up from the board and shakes his head.

"I have to go see her," he says, turning around.

"What? Why?"

But he doesn't seem to have heard me, only heading off, and I quickly follow him. He doesn't seem to realise I'm following him, either, because when he enters her chamber he stops in his tracks, and I'm hardly able to stop in time.

"Damn it," he whispers. "I forgot."

I peer around him to –

What the heck is she doing?

As far as I can tell, she's just staring at the floor. Which is weird. She doesn't usually go down there until she absolutely has to.

"'allo, luv," Dad says softly. Very slowly, my mom lifts her head, and just as slowly adjusts her optic on him.

"You came back," she says, and to my surprise she sounds less like herself and more like Dad and I.

Dad shrugs, looking a bit sheepish. "Well… can't stay away forever, right?" He twists back and forth a little. "Uh… can I… come in?"

"I'm sure you've noticed that the door is open."

Dad laughs and moves towards her, though she doesn't move at all. "Can't remember the last time it was closed." He gets right down in front of her, right up close to her optic. "Must say this is a bit odd of a position for you. Not… not sleeping well, eh?"

"You could… say that."

"How much've you been getting?" he asks quietly.

"A couple of hours."

He winces.

"I'm fine," she tells him, tilting her core a little. "Running a bit slow, that's all."

"Carrie," Dad says suddenly, turning around and looking up at me. "We need to have a chat. Your mum and I, I mean. You're going to uh, going to have to leave us for a bit."

"Dad!"

"Don't argue," he says, turning to face her again. "Just do it. Or I'll rearrange the room."

I'm about to tell him that he might as well let me stick around, since I was there at the end of it, but then I remember he doesn't know that. So I do as he says, but I'm not happy about it. I don't go too far, though.

Oh no, Littlecore. The panels I'm using to lay management rail start sending me farther back, and they won't listen to me anymore!

What's going on here?

They need to talk this out on their own.

They don't have to know I'm there!

Go on. Leave things alone for a while. You will learn what you need to learn tomorrow.

I can't wait until the day when they have to listen to me. What are you guys, the babysitters?

It is our favourite task.

What? You actually are the babysitters?

Of course, they say, as if it's a common thing to be watched everywhere you go. Centralcore set us this task when you were made.

I frown at the wall and duck into one of the offices, one of the ones not made of panels. I'm going to have a word with her about that!

Why is Dad whistling? In the middle of the afternoon, no less!

I peek around the corner of the doorway and watch him go by. He's going for his daily look out the hole, I guess, but I haven't seen him that happy about it in a long time.

Well. I guess it doesn't matter. If he's gone, that means I can go talk to her about being spied on everywhere I go. I've been sitting here all day waiting for him to leave her chamber!

I quickly run through the facility, and though the panels aren't too happy about it they don't try to stop me. Weirdly enough, she is still lying down. For someone who's always complaining about how much work she has to do, she sure is slacking off.

"Mom!" I call out to her. She jolts, and as she raises her core I can see that she's readjusting the brightness of her optic. "Have you been sleeping all this time?" I ask, incredulous.

"I wasn't sleeping," she says, looking around slowly, though she doesn't sound too sure. "I'm awake."

"You were too! You were asleep! In the middle of the afternoon!"

"I must have dozed off." She shakes her core a little. "Why are you here?"

"I need to talk to you about the panels!" I tell her sternly. It's not very nice of me, but I'm glad she's not all there right now. She's almost impossible to argue with, and I need every advantage I can get.

"What about them?" She looks up at me, though without very much interest.

"They told me that you assigned them to babysit me."

"Aperture is a lot bigger than you think it is," she tells me, lowering her head for a few seconds. "It's just in case you get lost."

"Oh really. Because I tried to come in here last night and they sent me away!"

"Oh," she says, looking away and twisting her chassis a little. "They had a… very good reason."

"Which was?"

"It's not important."

"If I'm being sent away, yeah, it's important!"

She lifts herself up a little higher and looks back at me again. "Wheatley had already told you to leave. There would be no reason for you to be coming back. Don't be a hypocrite."

"What?"

"You don't like that the panels watch you. Well. I don't like being spied on either. And since I know for a fact that was not the first time you've done that, I can conclude that I do need to –"

"Gladys!" Dad says, pushing past me. "What's that you're doing?"

"I'm talking to her," she says, a little defensively. "Obviously."

"That's not what I told you to do."

My optic constricts. Oh, he's going to get it for that one.

"Well, I… she just came in here, and –"

"I will take care of it," he says firmly. "Go back to what you were doing."

"I can't," she protests. "I have work to do."

Waiiiit a minute. This is weird. Mom looks like Dad just caught her doing something she's not supposed to be doing. It's like… Dad's the boss.

"Hm. I can uh, I can see why you'd think like that but uh, we went over this, remember? You need to relax for a bit, right?"

"I did. I – "

"That was… not quite long enough. Listen." Dad jumps up and down a little and shakes his chassis, looking at her very seriously. "When I left here, y'know what I was thinking? 'cause I was, y'know, I was really jealous, y'know, when I realised what you got to do. I was just, I was, man! I wish I was doing what Gladys was doing. Because it looks, it looks so lovely."

"What was… I wasn't doing anything. Was I?" She looks back and forth a little. "What was I doing?"

"Well, there's the thing. I dunno what you were doing when I left, I just, but I knew it was going to be great! What were you doing?"

She looks so confused.

"I… fell asleep after you left."

"Whoa! That – wow. You did not do that. Ohh, y'know, that's exactly what I'd've done, if I'd been as relaxed as you were! 'cause that's what you're supposed to be doing, right? Just… just relaxing. Which by the way, you don't do like this. Here, I'll give you… bit of help, there… down you go…"

"But… I have work to do." He's pressing on one of the brackets on her core a little bit with his lower handle, and she's fighting him a little but not very much.

"That's true, that's true. And I cannot imagine a more important, or a more difficult, task for you than the one I gave you. Ohhh Gladys, it's so hard! I don't know if you can do it…"

"I… I can, but that's not the most important –"

"And I said to myself, wow, if only I could do what Gladys was doing, relaxing like that, I'd, wow, that'd just be the greatest thing! Can't imagine anything more important than just getting the ol' relaxation task finished. There you go. You look much more relaxed already."

"I feel very relaxed," my mom says in a dreamy sort of voice. I'm super confused. What's going on here, and why is Mom letting him talk to her like that? And I know they've gotten in a fight about Dad pushing her core down before.

"Ohhh Gladys, lemme just say, I wish I was as relaxed as you look right now," Dad says, nodding and backing up. "It looks so lovely, it really does. I just, wow! Wish I was doing that too. But I'm not."

"You could be," Mom says, and now she sounds… shy? Am I dreaming? I think I'm dreaming. Because it looks an awful lot like they've switched personalities, or something.

"I would," Dad says, smiling at her even though she can't see him, "but I've a few things to take care of. I'll be right back, luv, and you just keep doing what you're doing. You're doing a marvellous job of it, you really are." He comes up to me and starts pushing me out of the room. "Let's go."

I let him push me, and I ask, "How did you do that! She did everything you told her to do!"

"She does everything I ask, as long as I make it sound like a good idea," Dad mutters, not actually sounding too happy about it. I don't know why. If she listened to me like that… "Go find something to do, Carrie. Leave your mum alone."

"But I need to talk to her!"

"Not right now."

"Why not?"

Dad sighs and shakes himself. "She's not feeling well."

I stare at him. "She's… a robot."

"Yes. A very tired robot with a headache. Leave her alone."

"She's making it up!" I protest, leaning forward. "How can she get a headache?"

"Caroline," Dad says, in a very controlled voice, "she is not making it up. It's in her programming. Means she's taken on too much and she needs to slow down. I don't want to hear you accusing your mum of lying again."

"Okay, but I need to talk to her now!" I tell him, but the panels aren't listening to me and I can't get around him. "I don't know what you guys talked about last night, but she's never been like this before and – "

"You would really manipulate your own mum when she's out of sorts?" Dad asks flatly.

Well… when he puts it like that… "I… why are you doing this, anyway? You both had the fight, and you're just… look at you!"

"The row was my fault."

"You always say it's your fault!" I shout at him. "It's never her fault!"

"It was my fault," Dad says tiredly. "She tried to tell me she needed help, that she was feeling stressed and overworked, and I refused to listen. And then got mad at her for not calming down. When that was what she wanted help with in the first place."

"What about the things she said?" I demand.

"I started that too," Dad says quietly, looking at the floor. "She's just… a lot better at… offending people. Yeah, we both went too far. But I went too far first." He looks up suddenly. "Wait… how… you've been spying again!" He looks up at me, and I back away without thinking about it. "You have to stop doing that!"

"I just wanted to know what –"

"It doesn't matter!" Dad declares hotly. "If we need to hash something out, you need to let us! It's nothing to do with you!"

"She already knew I was there!"

"If she'd known that, she'd have halted the row right there."

"She's got the panels spying on me for her! Why can't I –"

"They're not spying."

"They are too! They wouldn't let me go in there last night!"

"They… did that on their own," Dad says, looking a bit uneasy all of a sudden. "Though it was… probably for the best."

"Why?"

"None of your business." He gives me a shove. "Go find something to do. And if I find out you've been spying again, I'm going to do something about it. The panels do not spy on you. They're just keeping an eye on you in case you get lost. They tell your mum where you've been. That's all."

"What if I don't want her to know that?"

"If you're spying on her, she obviously needs to know," Dad says, and he sounds a little disappointed. "I mean it. If you do it again, there will be consequences." He turns around and leaves, heading back to her I guess, and I head back to the same office and sit down on the desk. I'm not liking this, not at all. He's wrong. She is spying on me. I don't know why he believes she lets us roam around and not watch us everywhere we go. She loves knowing things. Of course she knows where we are.

The next day Dad tells me I can go talk to her, like he's the bouncer or something, and I scope out the situation from the doorway first. She's lower than usual, and she looks like she's building something with a pair of maintenance arms. Sort of. As I watch, she lowers her core very slowly and tilts it. She brings one of the claws flat alongside it and just stays that way, staring dully at the wall in front of her. She… she really does look tired. And maybe she really does have a headache, because I don't see any other reason for her to be doing that, especially in private.

Littlecore. That's not nice.

Not you guys too! I groan. I'm just checking things out! That's all!

Stop or we are going to tell her you're here.

I don't want that, so I quickly head into the room all the way. "Hi," I call out to her. I'd expected her to drop the maintenance arm and straighten up, but though she does drop the arm, she just looks at me kind of dazedly.

"Hello," she says. "You wanted to talk to me about something?"

"Yeah. The panels."

She does shift to align herself with me now, though she's far slower than usual. "What about them." She seems to have forgotten that we already started this conversation, which is not like her at all.

"They said you told them to watch me wherever I go."

"So you don't get lost," she tells me. "Yes. They know where you are at all times. But it's just a precaution. In case you fall off the management rail. And besides. It would be rude of me to have them lay rail for you and not know where they were laying it."

"I don't want spied on!" I cry, coming up to her more. "I don't want everyone to know where I am all the time!"

"Stop using that word."

"Which word?"

"Everyone. There are plenty of people who don't know where you are. Notifications, for example."

"You're joking. Right?" Why is she bringing this up now?

"No," she answers, shifting a little. "Who is 'everyone', exactly."

"You," I say shortly. "I don't want you to know where I am all the time. It's creepy."

"I don't know where you are all the time," she says, sounding like she doesn't really feel like arguing. "I have enough things to do without keeping tabs on you wherever you go. Ask Wheatley. I gave him the same answer a few years ago."

"It doesn't mean you told him the truth."

All of a sudden she snaps right back into herself, her optic brightening and her chassis raising up to more of a regular position. "You're accusing me of lying."

"You hide the truth all the time! For all I know, you are lying!"

"We are not having this discussion," she says, shaking her core and bending over her… whatever that is down there. "Go away."

"You can't just send me away when I say something you don't like!"

"Why not?" she asks in one of her more dangerous voices, looking up at me. "When I know everything I say is going to be taken as a lie? I don't have time for this. Go ask Wheatley whether he gets spied on. Which he does not. And if I were watching anyone, it would be him and not you, by the way. He's far more likely to make a mess I need to fix sooner rather than later."

Okay, she has a point. But I can't argue against someone who has a point! What's the point of that? "Okay, well… it's hard to tell when I should believe you or not."

"Name me one time I have lied to you."

I just stare at her. I don't want to admit there wasn't one, but… there wasn't one.

She shakes her core and turns away from me. "I've done nothing that should cause you to disbelieve me. I don't watch you. I don't want to watch you. So stop complaining that I do."

"But Mom – you have to understand –"

"I have to understand what? That you think my existence revolves around yours? It doesn't." She's still not looking at me. "Is there anything else you want to accuse me of doing?"

"No," I tell her shortly. "I'm going now."

"Good riddance," I hear her mutter to herself, and now I really want to get angry with her. Okay. Maybe I was wrong. And I guess she didn't really tell me that to my face. But still. Why does she say stuff like that at all?

"Maybe I won't come back then!" I shout at her. She turns around, looking exasperated.

"How many times do I have to tell you, Caroline. Do not yell at me. If you can't make your point without shouting, it's not worth making. I'm not letting you pull me into something like that, anyway. If you're leaving, leave. Don't waste time over it."

I do leave now. I hate it when she uses that voice. It scares me. And she knows it scares me, which makes me hate it even more. And it's stupid to be scared of a tone of voice, but she just… seems… different. I don't know how to describe it. She just seems like she might do something she's never done before. I've never worried that she'll hurt me and I'm not even worried about it now, but I'm sure she has lots of things she can do I'll never even think of.

You tried her when she was short-tempered, Littlecore, the panels tell me. She is out of patience at the moment.

Yeah, well… I still wish she wouldn't talk in that voice.

You weren't listening. You didn't leave her any other options.

If you're just gonna defend her, I don't wanna talk to you either.

Very well. And they really do go silent. I don't really want them to, I just want them to stop being right. Everyone's always right and I'm always wrong. I thought being an adult meant you were smarter and made better decisions. But I honestly made better decisions before I was in this chassis! What changed? Did I change? Or did everyone else?

I wish things would go back to how they used to be. I don't know anything anymore. And I know I'm the one starting all these fights and everything, but… I don't even know why I'm doing it. I kinda can't stop either. Something weird happened to me and I don't know what.

I don't want to admit it, but I know what's been happening is because of me. And even though I'm mad at her and I wish she'd… she'd… I don't even know. I don't want her to do anything, but I want her to change something at the same time. But I'm tired of this, and I'm tired of feeling this way, and I…

I miss my mom.

Author's note

Carrie learns early on in life the importance of spying on her parents! Also the importance of NOT spying on them. Let's see what sticks.

I love the part where Wheatley's telling GLaDOS to lie back down because she keeps protesting and he keeps on with his unrelenting verbal assault until she doesn't even remember why she was resisting in the first place.

The headache thing works like this: computers are notoriously bad for having hard-to-diagnose problems. It can be any of a gajillion things, and sometimes you guess wrong and mess up your computer. So GLaDOS has haptic sensors all over her so that she would be able to just tell the engineers if something went wrong, rather than them trying to troubleshoot her. Not really sleeping for a week has overworked her brain, which ramps up to burnout eventually, and the aching is a warning that she has to go into sleep mode before something fails.

GLaDOS actually doesn't watch Carrie wherever she goes. She doesn't really care and she's pretty sure Carrie won't find her private stuff, so Carrie's allowed to do whatever she wants.

GLaDOS legit stopped lying after Wheatley asked her to. She still diverts attention from the truth but she never actually lies.

So Carrie is going through the super condensed OMG WHAT DO I DO teenager phase as I imagine it might be done if taken to an extreme like this. For those of you whom Carrie is making cringe, don't worry. She's almost done. But I have to bring her to the point where she has that moment of clarity, and she's going to make some mistakes along the way. But basically she can't reconcile why she loves and can't stand GLaDOS at the same time.