A/N: Here we go, first real Chapter. Obviously, we're starting off with –BZZZT-
Thought I'd warn you, there will be SPOILERS! Do not read if you haven't played Portal 2 yet.
Anyways, obviously we're starting with Caroline. We'll get to GLaDOS soon, promise. I hope I write her well, I'm not as good at writing wit as I'd like.
EDIT: Because everyone kept making a big deal out of it, I changed Caroline's hair to match the portrait in Portrait of a Lady. ((By the way, just saying, people are assuming it's Caroline, and while she's the most likely candidate, it's never confirmed who's actually in Portrait of a Lady other than Cave Johnson. Just saying.)) So, THERE, I FIXED IT, stop saying my story's ruined because of it.
Disclaimer: I don't own Portal. Or GLaDOS. Or Cave Johnson. You get the picture.
Chapter 1 : Last Will and Testament
She'll say she can't do it. She's modest like that. But you force her!
Those words had haunted my thoughts for approximately five months since the official recording was made and played over the intercom, shortly before the CEO of Aperture Science, Cave Johnson, was rushed to the Aperture Science Medical Preservation Center(also known as the Emergency Wing). He struggled along for a couple months until finally passing away from pulverized moon rock poisoning. He had been trying to develop an AI to save his mind to continue running Aperture effectively from the grave. Alas, it had not been completed in time.
That's where I come in. I'm essentially his second in command, Caroline, in charge of the GLaDOS project and, since Mr. Johnson died, my own doom. I was treated as the new CEO since he passed, and it didn't suit me at all. I didn't want to sit in an office and make business arrangements, I wanted to be coming up with tests and experiments. With the new demand that all employees become test subjects as well in order to stay hired, it was only doubling the work. I didn't like being in charge. I liked being left to my own devices, yes, but I didn't like having to run a whole science facility full of, in many cases, incompetent scientists.
The Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System had been completed earlier that week. We hadn't activated it yet because there were several tests to be run on it, and we couldn't even get the thing to activate. We didn't understand it, all the parts were functioning perfectly, all the wires connected where they needed to be, everything was perfect. The huge supercomputer just dangled in its chamber, as though it were a great sleeping beast. It was this I was puzzling over, leaning over countless blueprints and pages of coding, when there was a loud pounding on my office door. I groaned, stood from my chair in the most irritated fashion possible, swiped my dark hair out of my face, and answered the door. I was greeted by two men in lab coats, and two security guards.
"What is it? Is a test subject giving you trouble?" I asked, wondering why I would need to be bothered for this.
"No, ma'am," the first scientist stammered. "You see, it's just… We discovered what was wrong with the GLaDOS system."
"Oh?" They had captured my interest. "What would that be?" The other scientist answered for his partner, much more official and brisk.
"The system needs a mind, a sentient presence, to operate it," something about his stony gaze worried me.
"Well then, you've both got fingers, put them to good use and get to typing, I want it operational by morning," I snapped, ready to slam the door in their faces. A stern faced security guard caught it with his hand and held it open.
"Caroline," the more confident scientist continued. "We found a lost page of instruction in Mr. Johnson's desk, from the GLaDOS project. It tells us that the computer needs a human consciousness inside it. It's simply far too big to operate by commands alone. It needs to be semi sentient. The only way to do that is to put an actual human mind into it. Until then, it's just an empty shell. Mr. Johnson was very specific about who he wanted to power it." I narrowed my eyes.
"Get someone else," I snarled.
"The n-note we found said that is was made specifically for you, ma'am!" the younger scientist stammered. "That no one else should i-inhabit it. Mr. Johnson decreed that you lead the company from it, but are not to do so until taking it once it was completed." I pretended to rifle through some papers on a clip next to my door.
"Oh look, I found a memo I got earlier today," my voice dripped with sarcasm. "You're both horrible people that couldn't build anything right to save your life. That's what it says. Honest." Other than the nervous looking young one, none of the group was phased by my attempt to frighten them off. The security guards pressed forward.
"Ms. Caroline, you know the order. You heard it yourself. We're to use force if necessary," the stern scientist threatened. I glanced at the party once more, which told me all I needed to know. They weren't relenting. So, I did the only thing that made sense. I wouldn't win a fight, so I fled.
Being one of the senior members of Aperture, I was most acquainted with the halls, corridors, and backways, and I had the highest level of access one could have, I was allowed anywhere I wanted to go. I snatched my ID out of my pocket and flashed it to several doors as I ran, hearing the heavy footsteps of pursuit behind me. They weren't very far back. I couldn't so much as slow until I found a hiding place less I be doomed to a mechanical prison.
I was breathing heavy when a door finally refused to move for me. I slammed against it, not expecting it to remain closed when I flashed the ID. I looked around, and saw a keypad where the doorknob should be. My frame shaking from fatigue, I typed rapidly as I heard fast approaching footsteps behind me. The door denied me access; I suppose I was shaking so hard I input a wrong number. A heavy weight slammed into me from behind, pinning me against the door that was my demise.
"No!" I cried, struggling. But it was no use; the guards the scientists had brought were both twice my size. I continued to kick and struggle as I was dragged back through the halls of Aperture Science.
I was dragged into a sterile white room, on my right a wide window instead of a wall revealing the GLaDOS chamber. My prison. In the center was a table equipped with restraints for the arms, legs, waist, head, and chest. Along where the back would lay were what looked to be many plugs, except instead of prongs were sharp barbs. Wires littered the room, presumably to hook into my person to steal my consciousness to power the beast inside the adjacent room. I was sure they had no idea how hooked up I had to be and thus overdid it. Honestly, all they probably really needed was a direct connection into my brain, but this was probably an untested theory and they wanted to get it right first go.
I was pretty sure I was about to die.
I struggled and bit and scratched viciously at my captors as the guards and several of the larger scientists fought to put the restraints around me. As they tightened the large main restraints at the waist and chest, I cried out from the pain of uncountable barbs stabbing into my spine. After that, it was no problem to strap down my limbs and the one strap over my forehead; my nerves were no longer under my control, except for my optic nerves. My eyes darted back and forth across my range of vision. I strained them to the right, looking at the huge beast in the darkness of its room… Well, I suppose if I would be living in it, it would not be an it, but a she.
The scientists circled me, hooking all sorts of cords into my flesh, my body flinching automatically at the pain of it. I guess if I had to pick a way to die, it'd be something for science. I did sort of wish they'd run some tests, make some smaller versions, like little personality cores or something, before trying to transfer me into this huge supercomputer. I glanced at it-her-again. She loomed in the darkness like a sleeping lion, and were I on the other end of this experiment I would almost fear waking her. Now that I looked at her, she did have a bit of a feminine shape. If you were to flip her upside down anyways. She looked like a woman with her hands bound behind her, dangling from the ceiling by her legs.
My eyes flicked to my left. All manner of monitors and keyboards and disk drives littered the wall, and had at least ten scientist monitoring various readings they were getting from both me and the robot. The three other scientists, observers, took notes on their clipboards. I would be one of them were I not strapped to this table. I suddenly felt a rush of sympathy for the test subjects I had observed time and time again, as though simply watching rats in a maze.
"Are we ready?" asked the stern scientist that fetched me from my office. I knew somewhere there was a room full of Aperture employees watching eagerly, waiting for the results of this new test, hoping desperately for success. Murmurs of assent came from the employees at the monitors. I felt my stomach plummet, as though facing a huge drop. "Start the procedure." For the briefest moment, nothing happened. I glanced back at GLaDOS with something like fear.
Then I was hit with the most pain I've ever felt in my life. My back tried to arch off the table I was strapped to, but the restraints held firm. A horrible scream was wrenched from my throat after several moments of my throat constricting against the electricity. My nails clawed at the metal of the table, and I did my best to struggle free. Then something strange happened. It was like I was seeing out of two things at once. One vision was from the white room I was just in. The other was from inside the darkness of the GLaDOS chamber. More specifically, from the middle, where GLaDOS hung like a sleeping bat. But not for much longer. The robot body reacted to my pain, rearing up until its head almost touched the ceiling, the lights flickering on and off, and the PA system, which the supercomputer was directly connected to, broadcasting my screams, echoing down corridors and hallways surely to the deepest confines of Aperture Science. It began to scream as well, as if it were the one in pain, a strangely musical and melodious cry like a beautiful and terrible aria of sound.
I slowly started to lose my fight, my frantic movements slowing and my screaming fading to a moan and then slow, shallow breathing. Then even that stopped as darkness ate at the edges of my vision. The last thing I heard before I fully succumbed to the comforting blackness was panicked voices crying "We're losing her!"
