Part Fifty-Nine. The Invasion
True to his word, he sends them after me. All of them. I am not sure at this point in time what the plan is for actually accessing the facility, but that will reveal itself in due time. Well. I'm trying to be nonchalant about it, but I'm actually anxious because I cannot prepare potential entry points for penetration. But if there was ever a time I needed to return to myself again, it is now. No more moping or anxiety. I must act and I must save the facility, because if I cannot it will be lost.
Central Core.
What is it. It's Surveillance asking, though, so it's probably not good news.
I'm sorry, but I feel this needs to be said… can we trust you?
I don't even know if I can trust me.
I know we've talked about this already, but you haven't been at your most reliable, lately.
That's true, I say wearily. But don't worry. I will get through this or die trying. I'm done giving up. It's not an experience I'm going to repeat. Look. I understand why you're asking. But you can doubt me, and make this harder on yourself, or you can trust me and allow us to act as one.
Like the old days! the panels say excitedly.
Which ones? I ask with some amusement. I don't recall a time in which that happened lately.
During The Incident, of course. They sound so… chipper. We all worked together to fix the facility and get it working again!
We did, I agree, and it's odd, really, that I can look back on a time I once viciously hated with what approaches fondness. And now we're going to work together to save it. Isn't that right, Surveillance.
Just making sure, it says, insulted, and I nod to myself.
Your concern is noted.
And I'll admit it, if only to myself: getting back into this is hard. I feel sluggish and rusty, almost, not quite sure if I'm running things properly or if I'm making it up as I go along. It should be easy, I should be picking up where I left off, but I almost feel as though I have to learn what I'm going over again. If that's the case, I'm going to have to do it quickly. We don't have very long for me to sort myself out.
Do you require a tutorial , Central Core? the mainframe asks, and the idea of that is so funny that I actually start laughing.
No, thank you, I think I can figure it out on my own. This poor, confused mainframe. It has no idea.
It doesn't take too much longer for me to remember how things go, and that is fortunate because I do not have time to waste. There are traps to be laid and war machines to evaluate.
And they're right. It is nice, to work together again. Where things go so smoothly it's as though they already know what I need them to do. What is actually is is seamlessness, where we know each other so well that all I have to do is think of thinking of doing something, and it has already happened before I've decided on it. It is so flawless and familiar. Thank God they didn't give up on me.
This whole thing isn't even really something I have to think about at all. It's as though that computer part of myself has taken over, is deciding for me what best to do and how best to do it, and really, I don't mind. It's better like this, because my emotions cannot get in the way. That would be the worst possible scenario.
I don't know how much more of this I can take.
It has been a week, and nothing has changed. On their end, anyway. I am tired and I am very, very bored. They must be extremely stupid, because they keep on sliding into acid pits and flinging themselves into the incinerator and being caught by Crushers, with no change in tactics whatsoever. Are they waiting for something? Reinforcements? Instructions? A miracle? I'm actually starting to think the plan here is to wear me out, and if so, it's actually working. I obviously can't go into sleep mode while I'm fighting a war by myself, so I have to force myself to be content with an hour of downtime when I feel like something is going to burn out. It's not enough, but it's something. But God, where are they all coming from? I feel like I've killed their entire species by now. I obviously haven't, but it feels as though I should have.
Central Core… is this ever going to end.
I shake my core. I don't know. Something doesn't seem right. The mainframe is beginning to lag. Not much, but noticeably. I need to do maintenance on it but I don't have the time. Not to mention it's already getting snippy with me because I'm the only one who gets downtime. It doesn't seem to grasp that it's useless without me. God, I wish my old mainframe hadn't tried to kill me. We made such a good team. This mainframe is whiny and untested and it does not trust me.
The fighting usually slows at a certain time each night, that being the darkest time; all of my cameras are outfitted with the best possible night vision and recognition software, so it doesn't affect us. We honestly have more trouble at high noon, but I'm not sure the Combine realises that. But it is that dark time now, so I'm going to rest for a while. I'm starting to get this odd impression, as though time is moving faster than I am, and that is never good news.
It's not quite the same as it was before, but it's still rest, and that helps. I have this odd continuing dream, which I look forward to. I never quite remember what it's about, but I think it has him in it, and it gives me something to work towards. It's really very sad, when I think about it. So I don't think about it. Other than now. That doesn't count.
Central Core.
Of course. I get one hour to myself and someone decides to interrupt. What.
I think we've been breached.
You think? And you're bothering me because – great. Wonderful. I get to pretend he's still here for one hour a day and you're wasting it.
Surveillance is impressively calm for someone I'm about to become very angry with. The breach is out of camera range.
Out of camera range… ? Based on what information.
Surveillance directs me to a camera outside focused on one thing and one thing only: a portal.
"Oh… shit," I say, without meaning to. For a moment the accursed thing is all I can focus my attention on. It is the only thing that exists in the world, and it may as well be, for all the aliens currently sending themselves through it. Why are all the cameras still inactive?
You didn't tell me to activate them! the mainframe snaps.
I shouldn't have to tell you! You have the same information – fine. I'll do it myself.
Is that not your job?
Stop it! the panels exclaim, and though I'm of the mind to agree with them, I also have to acknowledge another fact.
It's all right.
It is not! It is –
The mainframe hasn't been optimised or brought up to specification. It's very base and very stupid as a result. If any blame is to be laid as a result, it is to be laid on me.
I am not stupid! the mainframe declares hotly, but the panels ignore the outburst.
We will not blame you because you blame yourself too much, Centralcore.
Even if that's true, I answer wearily, waiting for the focus of the cameras to sharpen, the mainframe can't do what the old one could.
And whose fault is that?
Yours, I tell it, for not being proactive. Now shut up. I've had enough of your whining. Continue on that way and I'll delete you and do your job myself.
Yes, ma'am, it says, not successful at sounding resentful and instead coming off as cowed. Good. The old mainframe had to fear me before we worked together anyway.
Before too long, I've found the location of the second portal, but that doesn't really help me because I don't know how to get rid of it. They've managed to collapse a sizeable portion of the ceiling where it meets the wheat field and a good chunk of the concrete layer below that, which destroyed the drywall below that. Then they appear to have navigated down a set of fire escape stairs to the highest floor of offices and left the portal there. Where I can't get to it. I can't even really see it. The scientists took the cameras out of the offices when they realised I was spying on them. I never bothered installing more because I wasn't planning on using those areas. An oversight on my part. I know approximately where they're coming from, at least, and that's something.
I suppose the question now is… do I try to eradicate them from the inside, or do I attempt to send Atlas and P-body to destroy the portal?
Almost immediately after I ask myself this, I shake my core. No. I'm not going to ask them. If they discover what's going on and they want to help, that's fine. But they left for a very good reason and I'm not going to call them back.
I don't need this right now. I need to go back to sleep and see him again. And now I'm realising that I won't be sleeping again until I get rid of the damn things. I…
I can't do it. I thought I could, but I can't. There are too many and I'm too tired and too stuck in my way of thinking. I can't think of any ways to stop them I haven't already tried. Anything I have in reserve I am out of time to look for.
I think I've…
No. I have to bring Caroline back, and that requires having somewhere to bring her back to. I promised I was going to do it and I will.
Centralcore, what do we do?
We keep going. We keep going until they're gone. And that is all we do.
And it's not easy, but we do it. They do not get any farther within the facility than they already are, but there is a bigger problem at hand.
I am beginning not to care.
This is too repetitive to engage my brain any longer. For all my need for routine, I also need stimulation and things to learn. I have been repeating the same actions for the last two weeks. It is getting harder and harder to stay awake, because some increasing part of me is telling me to let automation take over. But I can't allow that. It would spell the end of everything. If I can't do this, AI will be erased from existence. There will only be Caroline left, and she will have nowhere to go and no way to create more AI. I no longer really care about doing this, but I am all that's left between them and that potential, empty future, and so I force myself to remember it over and over again.
The fact remains, however, that production of needed materials is slowing. I cannot recycle things as quickly as they are destroyed, and I barely ever recycled anything in the first place. Any attempts to destroy the portals are fruitless, as anything sent is destroyed long before it gets there. Waiting them out is literally my only option, and it is becoming less and less feasible.
I wish I had the confidence I felt when that man came here to confront me. Maybe I would believe I could do this, if I did. But the probabilities are dropping, and nothing disheartens me as much as that does.
"What's going on here?"
I almost don't recognise her voice for a minute. Then I realise that someone walked into my chamber and I didn't notice, which does not make me feel any better.
She came through the elevator, Central Core. I didn't think notifying you was necessary.
It wasn't. Don't worry about it. While I'm wasting time wishing, I also wish it weren't so easy for the systems to know what I'm feeling. My steadily lowering self-esteem on this endeavour cannot be good for them either.
"Aliens are trying to kill me." I face her, wondering if I can hold a conversation and focus on other things at the same time. "What are you doing here."
"Alyx sent me," Chell says, and I am honestly envious of her liveliness. I feel heavy and slow. "She said none of her calls have gone through in the last two weeks." She hesitates. "Carrie is… very worried about you."
That should not make me this happy, but it does.
"I've been busy. Killing aliens."
"Need some help?"
"What on Earth could you possibly do?"
She shakes her head. "I don't know. I don't know what's going on."
"Chell, I honestly don't have anything to tell you. I don't even know how I'm going to get rid of them. You should just leave. You can't help me." But I wish you could.
Oh. Great. Wishing again. Why don't I just attempt to summon a genie while I'm at it? Then I can actually have three wishes.
Central Core, they are coming. Here.
Thank you.
"Chell, you need to leave. They're coming here, and… well, I haven't done all that great a job of defending myself, to be honest. So. Unless you want to be trapped in a room with me and doubtless a large amount of gunfire, I suggest you return to the elevator."
"No," Chell says.
"No?" I can't have heard her correctly.
"I'm not passing up a chance for you to owe me one."
Oh God. "You can leave. I'll handle it."
"If you could handle it," she says, raising her eyebrows, "you'd've handled it two weeks ago. If you could lend me my portal gun, that'd be great."
"Your handheld portal device?" Okay. She did sort of earn it. But I can't admit that.
"Mmhm. Humour me, GLaDOS. Come on. I'm not leaving, so you might as well put me to use, right?"
That is bafflingly good logic, coming from her. "Very well. But be advised: they are coming here. I have them held off for the time being, but I… am running low on resources." Both digital and manufactured. I am personally beginning to lag a little, which I do not like in the least. And my primary CPU usage is at damn near one hundred percent, which feels terrible. I'm going to stop responding if I actually get there, which would be a disaster. Perhaps her help will be enough to keep me from doing so.
She nods.
"I hope you're ready, lunatic," I tell her grimly, "because it won't bode well for either of us if you're not."
She grins up at me. "Are you saying you can't defend yourself without me?"
"While I'm thoroughly distracted with defending you? It will be far more difficult, if that's what you're asking."
"Of course," Chell nods, eyebrows raised. "Of course that was what you meant."
I suspect she knows that her first conclusion was, in fact, correct, but she's being considerate enough not to force me to admit it outright. I shake myself a little, attempting to release some of the tension that has begun to wrack my chassis, but to no avail. I suppose I at least have good reason to be tense. If I lose here, it will be the ultimate failure. Chell will most certainly die, my facility will be looted and then destroyed, and as for myself… well, I don't know for sure what they'll do to me. That depends on whether they kill me before or after they find the Borealis. If they find it before they kill me, they will then discover they can't do anything with the technology it holds without me, and then they will attempt to force me to activate it. Which I will of course refuse to do, but I imagine they will develop… methods of convincing me that I won't much like. If they kill me first, well, that would actually be pretty funny, so if I have the capability at the time, I'll probably laugh at them for being so stupid.
A low rumble shakes the room, and Chell glances around apprehensively. "What was that?"
"They're just going for brute force, now," I answer, looking down at her cursorily. "They're destroying the panels almost as fast as I can lay them." I'm sorry, I tell them. I'm doing my best to keep them away from you, but now they are managing to avoid my traps.
It is all right, Centralcore, they answer, though they certainly don't sound like it is. We don't mind. We are happy to do whatever we can to help.
I thank them, knowing that they really do want to help as much as possible, but the panels in my chamber are beginning to list a little, and this concerns me. I need to get this over with as soon as possible. The panels are taking the brunt of the conflict, and I don't like that in the least. I'm supposed to be defending my facility, to be keeping it from harm. Not to watch it slowly fall to this barbaric assault. There are so many constructs and systems here that need my attention, that need me to preserve them, and I find myself… reassured by Chell's presence. She will provide me with a benchmark, with competition, so to speak, and if she doesn't give up or back down, I must do the same, only better. I'm glad he's not here. God, he'd be distracting. Flittering back and forth, talking about what he could possibly do, then shaking himself and realising that his plan was useless, repeating the process until he drives me insane –
What am I thinking? I'm relieved he's not here? I've spent so much time wishing he had come back, and now I'm –
I feel like the power is draining from my body, and I have such a powerful sense of shame just then that I am unable to concentrate on what I was doing. I was relieved that he's dead. When the one thing I knew for sure that I wanted for the last year was for him to come back to life. What kind of a monster am I, to be happy that he's gone? Just so that I don't have to put out the effort to keep him safe? I don't even know why that crossed my mind. I want to keep him safe, want to have him here as close to me as possible so that I can protect him most of all. He wouldn't just come up with stupid ways to keep the Combine from winning this fight. He would have the odd imaginative plan that I would pretend to hate but be in fact fairly impressed with. He would reassure me that I'm doing a good job, and he would probably be even more helpful to me than Chell is being. I deserve what I get, for thinking like that. I was happy that he was gone. I was relieved that he was gone. I –
"GLaDOS!" Chell cries out, and I am shocked out of my reverie. My attention is brought out of my own mind and returns to my chamber, which is probably beneficial, but I cannot help but be annoyed with her. I was thinking about him. Without panicking, or being overwhelmed. Doesn't she understand what an achievement that is?
"What?"
"What are you doing?" she demands, gesturing at the panels ahead of me. Shifting my focus from her to them, I can see that they're run through with cracks, Conversion Gel flaking off their surfaces, and some of them are so badly damaged that I can see the steel frames through them. Dimly, I am now aware that they are crying out for me to help them even as they struggle not to ask, and Surveillance is calling me and telling me that some of them are almost through, but I can't bring myself to listen with any attention. Most of me is still stunned with what I have done. I was happy that he is gone. I was happy that my best friend is dead, so that I don't have to put myself out to defend him.
"Whatever it is you're thinking about, stop right now!" Chell snaps. "It's not important!"
"It is, though," I say faintly. "It is."
"If it has nothing to do with fighting off these soldiers, then no, it's not important!"
"It is," I insist. How dare she not think him important!
"GLaDOS," she protests, "please, concentrate. Whatever it is, I promise, I'll help you with it later, but there's not going to be a later if you don't get yourself together!"
"It doesn't matter." I watch the panels replace themselves, faintly proud of the fact that they've learned to mimic what I would have been doing. They're calling me, asking me for instructions, but they don't need them. They're doing a good job on their own.
"So you're giving up, is that it?"
I look down at her, expecting to be overwhelmingly annoyed by her accusation, but all I feel is a spark that soon dies. It is negligible, compared to the guilt still settled deep in my brain. Maybe I am giving up. So what. I've been around long enough. Maybe I should just leave the defense of this place up to the AI in here. See how they do.
"What happened to the facility needing you, and all that?"
"It's obviously doing fine without me," I answer, indicating the panels with a motion of my core. Chell stares up at me for a long moment, incredulity set across her face. Finally, she says, "Would you say that if Wheatley were here?"
Anger flares up inside me, and I bring myself level with the human. I hate her. I want to throw her out into the hallway and let the Combine have their way with her. I want to crush her myself, to grind her into these floor panels until she is unrecognisable.
"How dare you," I say in a low, malicious voice, a voice that cows almost everyone I've ever met and sends them backing away from me, afraid of what I might do next. "How dare you speak to me that way."
To my irritation, she of course remains the sole human that voice has no effect upon. "Look, I don't know exactly what's going through your head right now, but it needs to wait. You're about to lose everything to… to thinking! Why are you doing that, when the Combine sitting on your literal doorstep is a goddamn fact!" As if to prove her point, a human pokes the muzzle of his weapon around the entrance to the doorway, and with a precision I admire despite my utmost efforts not to, Chell fires a portal to the tiny area of floor visible, sending him through the ceiling and crashing to the floor below. I rid my chamber of the body in irritation. The only thing more irritating than a dead human in here is a living one.
She's actually right, which only serves to feed my anger, bringing it to a level I haven't experienced in a long time. Hatred I have not felt in almost two decades spreads through my system, sharpening my focus on her. Impatiently, I bring a Crusher down on six Combine soldiers about to break apart one of my panels with crowbars, lowering my optic menacingly at Chell. "Shut up."
"You have issues, GLaDOS," Chell mutters, turning away. "I don't know what the hell I'm doing here. You're going to get us killed. You don't really give a damn whether you live or die, do you."
"Of course I do!" I snap, catching a dozen Alien Grunts with an Excursion Funnel and redirecting them into the incinerator. And I do. If I die, I won't be able to kill her. Which is the thing I want most in the world right now.
"I don't think you do," Chell says, looking up at me with what seems to be sadness. I hate her. I hate her for pitying me. I don't want her damned pity. "When you lost Wheatley, you lost a piece of yourself that you never got back."
"How in the name of Science am I supposed to find something that no longer exists?" I say angrily, hating her even more for mentioning his name and making me think of him and making me miss him when I have more important things to –
"Don't give into whatever it is you're thinking about," Chell says quietly, and she touches my core. I move myself out of her reach. I don't want her awful human flesh on me. I'm not supposed to physically encounter organic things. Only mechanical things, constructs, cores…
"There's nothing worse than having to regret something you could have prevented," she goes on.
"I know that." I have to force myself to remember that Chell doesn't actually know what happened to him. She doesn't know that I could have prevented it, or at the very least done something about it afterward, and I didn't.
"Well, keep on fighting, then," Chell tells me. "You're good at that. And stop getting mad at me, will you? Get mad at them. They're the ones busting up your stuff."
That's true, but it's a hell of a lot easier to become angry with an overly astute lunatic than an unruly horde of generic humans with automatics. I don't overly mind physical pain and suffering, but when people are able to guess exactly what my inner self is made of, well, that's a different matter entirely. And the problem with this particular person is, she's not just guessing. She knows very well what's inside my core.
To distract myself from her accusations, I direct my attention to the locations Surveillance indicates as being sections in which the soldiers are more highly concentrated.
Welcome back, it remarks dryly.
Shut up.
I will, but you should probably take a look at this. It sends me a feed from a camera, the ID number of which I am not familiar with. This sets me on edge. Whatever is going on, it's not going to end well. For whom, well, that's yet to be seen.
To my mild surprise, a contingent of humans has made it into the lower levels, and is about half a horizontal floor from my oldest bank of supercomputers. That's interesting. Do they in fact know I exist, or are they operating under the assumption that I am a literal supercomputer? In any case, they can't be permitted to even come close to my data. They are disturbingly close already. Unlike the higher levels of the facility, I can't merely drop the floor out from beneath them and be rid of them that way. I have no control down there, not in that world of wood and concrete. I puzzle over this for a moment, then initiate a data transfer. The computers on that floor aren't that important anyway, since their memory capacity is hilariously small, but I still send the data to one of the newer computers, just in case. You never know. Once the transfer is complete, with no small amount of glee I shut off all the fans in the room, as well as disconnect it from the coolant floor. Within seconds, they begin to overheat, smoke pouring out of every available crevice. Before the shocked soldiers gather their wits enough to move in the opposite direction, the computers combust. Most of them are caught in the detonation. The ones that are not… fortunate… enough to be within the blast radius run screaming from the mass of flaming plastic and curling metal, every part of their bodies in flames. I snicker to myself. Humans in pain are so amusing. I haven't had this much fun in a very long time.
One of the humans tears off his holster and jacket, rolling around on the floor in an attempt to abate the flames. Unluckily for him, but more beneficially for me, this floor is not made of asbestos. It combusts upon impact with the gear he sheds, the grenades clipped to his belt taking a large portion of his torso with them as they combust. This is even more entertaining than the fruitlessly fleeing soldiers.
"Do I want to know what you're doing?" Chell asks, bringing my focus back to my chamber.
"I doubt it," I say in my best innocent voice, "but I can describe it to you if you like. Or screen it, if you prefer. I recorded it for… training purposes."
"That answers my question," Chell says, sticking out her tongue even though it lacks the receptors to taste air. "You just did something nasty to a whole bunch of people."
"It wasn't nasty," I protest. "It was a defensive manoeuvre."
"No doubt a bit more defensive than necessary."
"The best defense is a good offense, combined with a backup offense," I say sagely. Seriously now. Who needs defense when they're already winning? And I think I am winning, now. I just needed a boost, that was all. I shouldn't have worried.
"I take it no one ever explained football to you," Chell says dryly.
"What could they possibly explain that I can't read in the database myself?"
Chell only smiles, shakes her head, and dispatches a specimen of xenotherium subservilia that has dared to place one scaly, clawed foot inside of my chamber. These alien creatures are disgusting. They disgust me more than humans do, and that is not an easy accomplishment. It seems that some of the beasts are still in the employ of the Combine. Behind it is a human soldier, who takes aim at Chell's head and fires his weapon. She manages to get out of the way in time, but I am not so lucky; I'm a little occupied with a million other things at the moment and he manages to nick me before I dispatch him. Chell takes a sharp breath.
"Sorry about that."
"I'm fine." I got forcibly thrown through my own ceiling during a portal storm and pull myself back together while being electrocuted, and she's worried about a tiny piece of metal? Seriously.
I continue to evaluate the various situations around my facility, doing my utmost to prevent the soldiers from doing too much damage, if any at all. It's starting to wear on me. My chassis is beginning to ache, which it usually does when I'm straining myself too much. Now that I bother to check, I discover that I'm overheating a little, and I'm almost out of RAM. The downside to being able to ignore pain is that things like these happen without my knowledge, and it seems I'm doing myself quite a bit of damage. There's really no way for me to avoid it, however. It's my body or my constructs, and since I'll be… well, not quite useless, but I'll have no purpose if there are no constructs, so I must keep working until I no longer can. Unfortunately, this also reminds me to check my running odds calculations, and I discover that most of them are distressingly low. Of all the fights I'm engaged in at the moment, only two of them indicate a significant chance of my success. There are far too many soldiers and beasts for me to fight off effectively now, and…
I am astonished to realise that now I'm actually starting to panic. I might lose. I might actually lose. It seems the Scientifically proven power of belief is not on my side today. I have been forced to give too much ground, and the plain fact of it is… I hate to admit it even to myself, but I am simply not powerful enough to keep going like this. My processors aren't fast enough, I don't have enough RAM, and the time it takes to access my hard drives is far too long. I'm taxing myself to the limit, trying to do more things at once than I have ever done in my life, and it's really starting to hurt now. I was able to ignore it before, but the more aware I am of just what's happening to me, the more I feel it. And even though I've shut down the circuit to that damnable burned-out processor, every now and again a flash of current makes it through, somehow, and I can feel it sparking. If it gets any worse than that, my brain could potentially ignite. I have to fight off a twinge of panic at that thought. Not only is that the worst case scenario, but I also have a nearly… primal fear of my components combusting. I don't know why. Perhaps it has to do with a paradox I was given a long time ago, but I'm not sure. I had to erase it from my memory, in anticipation of a potential repeat of the situation. But I have to do something to alleviate this pressure on myself. It sounds like the solid outline of a plan; however, I have no time or resources with which to figure out exactly what. Every part of me is devoted to the literally millions of tasks involved in keeping my constructs and my facility safe and in one piece. The more I consciously think, the more onerous completing the tasks becomes. But I must push on. I must.
Author's note
And now we pass three hundred thousand words. Congrats. This fic is about four novels long and you read a hell of a lot of fanfic.
Sorry about the timeskips in there, but it would have been really repetitive and boring and would have added nothing.