AN: Okay, some of you might be a bit disturbed by this chapter. Just be ready for anything.

Doug led Valentine close to GLaDOS' chamber. They crawled through a few vents to save time—which Valentine had to admit was actually kind of fun. When they made it to the hallway just before the walkway to her chamber, Doug stopped. He leaned against the wall and took a few deep breaths.

"Are you okay?" Valentine asked.

"Yeah," Doug said, but obviously not okay. "I'm just a little nervous."

"Doug…You're going to try to confront her directly, aren't you?"

He looked up from the filthy floor at her. "How did you know?"

"I don't think you would be this nervous if you were just going to scope the place out," Valentine said.

"Well, yeah," Doug said, looking down again. "I want to try to talk to GLaDOS."

"Do you think that's a good idea?"

"No. Absolutely not. But I'm hoping that maybe I can trick GLaDOS into giving me some kind of clue as to where Nora could be."

"I bet I could trick her," Valentine said with a sly grin. "My mom always says I was a manipulative kid."

Doug gave her a fearful look. "No, Valentine, please stay out here," he said. "I don't want anything to happen to you."

"Well, I don't want anything to happen to you!" Valentine countered defiantly. "Let me go with you!"

"No, please," Doug said desperately. "Just wait here, okay? There's a very strong possibility that I won't be able to reach the core's humanity so you need to be ready to run."

"How will I know if things go wrong?"

"Trust me. You'll know."

"What about you? Will you be able to get out safely?"

Doug hesitated with his response because he knew she wouldn't like it. "There's a chance that I might need to hide from her," he said. "Which I've pretty much mastered at this point. However, I'm not sure if I will be able to make it outside with you."

"Doug, please don't leave me alone," Valentine begged. "I'm too scared. I don't think I can get out fast enough."

Doug silenced her with a gentle kiss on the lips. "Everything will be alright," he said. "I promise." Then he turned around and headed down the corridor, his mind swimming from kissing her.

He turned right and faced a long walkway with glass walls that looked out into an empty space with sludge covering the floor. This was it. No chickening out. If anyone could find Nora, it was GLaDOS. His footsteps were deafening in the silence around him and he almost took comfort in this familiarity. It didn't really help pump up his courage, though, for he knew that GLaDOS would be able to hear him coming. His knees started to shake as his fight-or-flight instinct kicked in. If he couldn't do this, though, he may never have a chance at finding Nora.

The large door lifted as he came closer.

"Substitute for mainframe ready for plug-in."

Steel cables and wires flew out of the chamber at him. They stabbed into the back of his neck and dug themselves underneath his skin. He screamed like he never had before at the excruciating agony. More cables fought their way into his shoulder blades like mechanical wings, and he could now feel his blood gushing down his back. He was pulled deeper into the chamber as the wires worked their way to the base of his skull. They wrapped themselves around the top of his spine and down the inside of his arms to get a better hold of him. A current of electricity traveled into his skull, and he could feel a vast, almost infinite library of data being poured into his brain.

Then he realized what was happening.

"No!" he screamed, attempting to rip himself from the wires. "God, no! Please! Not this! Anything but this! I don't want this! I'm not a fucking core, you stupid mainframe! No! Don't!" He started sobbing with desperation. "Please don't do this! I'm human! I'm not a good substitute for a core!"

"In the unlikely event that there are no personality cores available for the mainframe," the usual robotic voice recited, "a human intelligence substitute may be forcefully connected to the system."

"Doug!" Valentine cried out as she entered the chamber to see him writhing in pain.

"Valentine, go!" Doug cried. "Run! Get out of here while you can!"

"W-W-What's happening?!" Valentine asked, her voice quivering.

One last charge of electricity ran through his body before it was toned down to just a tingling sensation. Doug dropped to his hands and knees as the process was completed. He bowed his head low to the ground and continued to sob. His head was pounding with the overwhelming amount of information that now felt stuffed into his brain. Right above him was the chassis of the system where the wires hung down before burrowing into his body. He could feel the system already healing his wounds with all of its available resources.

"Human intelligence transfer complete. Welcome to the Aperture Science Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System mainframe."

"Doug?" Valentine asked cautiously. "A-Are you okay?"

"No!" Doug yelled. The chamber trembled with his anger. "I'm not okay! I've been directly connected to my greatest fear for the past fifteen years! I'm hooked up to this crazy supercomputer that an insane man designed to become immortal! I've become what GLaDOS was! I'm barely human now!"

"Where is GLaDOS?" Valentine asked.

Before Doug could answer, a sort of memory played through his mind. It was like he was seeing through her eye. He could see GLaDOS toying with the bodies of subjects in stasis. The last one was a small young woman with fair skin and fair hair. It was Nora's human body. And he could feel her presence in the mainframe.

"Oh god," Doug muttered. "She was here. Nora was attached to the mainframe with GLaDOS and…..Caroline…."

The memory continued, showing a young man jump down from the ceiling and attack Nora's body with a large wrench. Nora's rage filled every fiber of him through the memory. He didn't know she could ever feel this kind of anger. She tried to squeeze the young man to death with a claw, but he was able to wiggle free. He took the wrench and attempted to pry off GLaDOS' head. Doug could actually feel a wringing sensation on the back of his neck. He groaned as it almost became unbearable with the combination of the stinging pain from the wires and cables before the memory ended.

"Doug?" Valentine asked cautiously.

"A man….A young man seemed to have pried off her….her head," Doug whimpered. He suddenly sat up and began laughing. "Her head! He accomplished what I was too cowardly to! And now I've become what she was! Do you think someone will come along and try to take off my head, too?" He continued to laugh maniacally.

"Doug, stop," Valentine said, cringing. "Don't say stuff like that. It's not funny."

"I'm a monster, Valentine!" Doug half-yelled, half-laughed. Tears started rolling down his cheeks again. "I'm not trying to be funny! I'm actually hoping a little that that happens before I end up killing someone I love!"

"Shut up!" Valentine snapped angrily. "Don't say that! Anyone would have to go through me before they could try to kill you! Can't you find Nora now? Don't you have access to the entire facility now?"

"Not the whole place," Doug said with an edge to his voice. The laughing stopped as irritation took ahold of him. "There are still areas that I can't reach. And besides…" He put his hand up to his throbbing head and held it in frustration. A shiver crawled down his spine.

"What?" Valentine asked. "What is it?"

"I…I can already feel it," Doug growled. "The Itch. It's a craving—an absolute need—to test."

"Test what?"

"Humans." Doug said this with such a self-loathing that it made Valentine flinch.

"Doug…." She cautiously walked toward him.

"Stay away from me!" he cried out. "I might hurt you!"

"Y-You won't hurt me."

"You don't know that!" Doug yelled at her. "You don't know what Aperture's system will make me do! This Itch will only get worse and I won't feel better until I get results! You need to run! Get out of h—"

Valentine silenced him with a sharp slap across the face. Doug's heart throbbed more than his whole body did from this and he gave Valentine a look of pain. She seemed angry as she kneeled down in front of him.

"I told you that I'm not leaving you here," she said in a hard tone. She gripped his face with one hand. "I love you, stupid. If I need to, I'll bring legions of humans down here for you to test if it would just make you happy."

Doug stared at her in disbelief. "Don't you remember anything that I told you about Wheatley's time in the system?" he asked. "Don't you remember how I described his abuse toward Nora?"

"There's a difference between him and you," Valentine said. "He succumbed to the mainframe's power over him because he was weak and ignorant. You're smart, resourceful, brave, et cetera. You're strong enough to fight the system. It won't control you like it did Wheatley."

"You…really think that?" Doug asked.

"Of course I do," Valentine said.

She took him in her arms and held him while he sobbed loudly into her shoulder. His life felt over now. He might as well have died right then. The option of death lingered in his mind and it scared the hell out of him.

"You should do it," a voice in his mind said. "Just kill yourself now before you hurt anyone."

Doug suddenly stopped crying.

"You know, you were right," he said, not taking his face out of her shoulder. "There are key differences between Wheatley's situation and mine. He wasn't goddamn insane."

"Doug—"

"Do you really think I should be in charge of the facility when I'm like this?!" he asked, pushing her away as he stood up. "This place is going to collapse in on itself from my crazy delusions!"

He stopped as his mind started to clear up from all of the paranoid thoughts that rushed through his head. It made him feel a little better until he detected a slight rhythmic buzzing that came from a tube in the back of his neck.

"No!" he shouted, looking up at the chassis since he didn't know how to directly address the system. "Don't pump chemicals into my brain! Don't try to fix me! I don't like the idea of you trying to fix me!"

"Doug, you're starting to scare me a little," Valentine said. She was obviously on the verge of tears again.

"Valentine, you should go," Doug tried to say calmly. "I just—I need some time. This is really hard for me right now. I just need you to be away from me right now so that I know you're safe."

"Doug—"

"Please, Valentine."

She looked at him, his eyes wide with panic while tears still streamed down his face. She wanted to stay to comfort him but she respected his request.

"I'll just….go walk around," she said. Her voice was heavy with emotion. "You can just tell me if you want me to come back."

"I'm sorry, Val," Doug said, his voice breaking. "I love you. I love you so much and I don't want to hurt you."

"I know," she said. "I love you, too."

Valentine left the chamber and started to walk back down the glass walkway. She gave up three-fourths of the way down and curled up into a ball against one of the windows. She sobbed into her arms as pain washed over her. It was an internal pain that couldn't be soothed.

Back in the chamber, Doug could hear her crying in the walkway. He clenched his hair in his hands as he squeezed his eyes tightly shut.

"God, this has to be a hallucination," he mumbled. "Please let this just be another paranoid delusion. This can't be real."

The wires and tubes sticking out of his back, though, reminded him otherwise.