AN: Vitalani: Well... whew! Finally! I finally managed to do this chapter! I must say, by far, this was the hardest chaper in this entire story to write. Honestly. I've never had so much trouble with a chapter before. Well, I had a genuinely excellent beta and co-author on this one, at least! :D A lot of content, prompting and encouragement came from exr, so if you spare a minute to review, think of him too! ^_^
Wow, well I'm tired and I have an enormous assignment due for my HTML teacher. I'll let exr take over this AN... zzz...
exr: For me, the whole thing started in the second week of January this year as beta-reader. After three weeks, I was involved in creating the story, giving ideas, text snippets and advice on technical issues. Seeing the story evolve, discussing the plot line, and watch Vitalani make a several pages chapter out of some ideas, is awesome. Although this might look like a minor update, behind the scenes this was a lot of work. The amount of text sent around the world, via E-Mail or chat, is at least 20 times as much as the text which was finally posted. For this chapter alone, we discussed five different variants of its' plot line, had six interim-versions and chatted a lot to sort out some ideas and flesh out others. I hope all readers have as much joy with this story as I have had while helping to get it done. And if you appreciate what you read, please leave a comment in the reviews. It helps to know that people are reading this, and like it.
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With the last command executed, there was a sensation not unlike the forced shutdowns she used to endure at the hands of her creators. Taking control of the first android body had been easier. Handling the Mark2 was consuming, almost suffocating. GLaDOS' vision flickered and then turned black, prompting a wave of panic that made her whimper and start pestering the transfer protocols to be allowed back into her chassis. Then, very suddenly her consciousness was bombarded with new information. Her subroutines then started to adapt themselves to the sheer amount of sensory feeds from the android, calibrating their filters properly, and her perception became stable. The panic began to ebb. The android's sensory feeds were now her primary sensory feeds.
The artificial body remained on standby, while diagnostic reports flew through its' processors at near-blinding speed, causing the connection to lag and also a mild wave of dizziness. It did not fade until -a whole minute later- the diagnostic sweep was finished and the flow of information slowed to a manageable rate. Her attention shifted to the top-priority reports, GLaDOS personally scanned them for small flaws or inconsistencies that might have been overlooked by the lesser programs, nitpicking every miniscule detail to ensure everything was perfect.
Also, she had to confess, she was procrastinating. With the data from the android's senses came disturbing information that made her wish she'd skipped the addition of certain features. An acrid stench of burnt oil permeated the annexed room where the android was resting in its' support framework, reinforcing the disturbing images of spilled fluids and wreckage strewn about the main chamber. That wasn't helping the simmering nausea at all. Yet, while she continued to avoid the issue of getting to work, Chell's stern face faded into view amongst the consuming blackness once more, her hard grey eyes fixed on GLaDOS' own. The human's mouth was set in a thin line -procrastinating was frowned upon and GLaDOS should already be well aware of her opinion.
"I know." The AI muttered sullenly, her new face forming a pout as she gave in to the simple logic. She opened her eyes, exchanging the welcome darkness for the undesirable sight of wrecked metal shielding jammed against the protective glass screen that separated this small room from the main chamber. Power spread throughout the android body with an almost inaudible hum, her hands twitched and GLaDOS drew a deep breath of cool air into her heat-sink lungs, once more tasting sickly-sweet fumes on the air. She shunted the reminder aside, looking around the smaller room as she stood up, if only to avoid the reality of her destroyed chassis for a few minutes longer.
No debris had penetrated the glass wall. It was the same material used for the bulletproof screens in Test Chambers, and had held up well against the onslaught of unconventional projectiles. A few large cracks ran broadly across it, quite obviously the point of entry for the scorched-oil smell, but the room was otherwise impeccable. The shelf protruding from the wall to GLaDOS' immediate left remained in place as well, as did the selection of accessories laid upon it, and the large reel of cabling that connected her to the android was still mounted in a wall cavity behind a protective shield of its' own. Completely untouched.
New diagnostic reports began to surface as GLaDOS moved towards the bench, detailing vital information about all of her moving parts as they were put to work for the first time. She examined each and every one critically. Joints, ligaments, musculature, all were in fine working order, and the nanobot subsystem assigned the sole task of maintaining her mechaflesh 'skin' also reported everything as normal, to which she responded with a scathing demand to make sure things stayed that way. The micro-program retreated to a dormant state, avoiding her attention as determinedly as she had been trying to avoid facing up to the creaking, stinking Core Access and Maintenance Chamber.
Haltingly -still looking for reasons not to enter the main chamber- GLaDOS dressed herself in the waiting garments on the bench. A black leotard with the Aperture logo stamped in large, white print over her left hip, a Test Subject Jumpsuit over the top because she had no intention of getting dirty, and also a pair of Long Fall Boots. Lastly, a specially-designed holster was strapped neatly around GLaDOS' waist and over her right shoulder in a lap-sash configuration. Her ASHPD was secured into it, the enclosed gripstock situated just level with her neck and the elongated prongs that pointed to either side reaching down, as though to encircle her waist.
Perhaps if Chell hadn't of wanted to leave so badly, she might have got to make use of this innovative holster. GLaDOS smirked at that thought. It helped to lift her despairing mood a fraction, and she allowed herself a moment to imagine having Chell back for just one more Testing Track... maybe even just one Chamber. A long one. But just one...
Memories of Test Chambers past were dashed out of mind when Chell's scowling face abruptly flashed into view once more, making GLaDOS physically jump in fright. She opened her eyes again -when had they closed? Wait, did she care?- and glowered sulkily at the human, reaching out at the same time for the button that would open the protective glass wall. A scraping noise reached her ears, making GLaDOS wince as the transparent screen slid to the right.
It jammed. She jabbed the button twice more despite being well aware of the futility in the action. Predictably, nothing useful happened. The opening was exactly large enough to have stuck her arm through.
"Of course." GLaDOS bit out, reaching over her right shoulder for her ASHPD. It clicked free, giving a tell-tale whine as the trigger was pulled and a blue portal shot from between the prongs. The orb of energy flew through the small gap, smacked into the far wall of the main chamber and formed a calmly-swirling cerulean oval. After sending an orange one into the wall behind her, where it immediately opened the quantum tunnel, she secured the Device once more and made her way carefully to the passage and tentatively stepped through.
First impressions of herself were not favorable. Smoke wisped in several places from her chassis, while the paint showed dark welts, giving away the locations of the enclosed cooling pipes very precisely. Part of the overdrive program seemed designed to withdraw her whole chassis into the cooling mechanism, locking it in several meters height out of her reach. The heat sink rings above had stopped turning completely and were in a very sorry state, tangled up with wires and all sorts of mangled mechanical junk pulled from the ceiling above them. More shielding than she'd expected was missing. It looked vaguely like someone had haphazardly run a giant potato peeler over the curved surfaces.
"Yes, that was definitely an appropriate metaphor." GLaDOS hissed as a shiver raced through her, squeezing her eyes shut in the effort to put the thought out of mind. She tried picturing Chell instead, deliberately recalling all the finer details. Scuffs on her well-worn Long Fall Boots, the faint scar just below her left eye, a souvenir from their joint venture in the old Aperture Science facility. Chell's haphazardly-tied ponytail, and the pattern of callouses on her hands that matched up with the ASHPD when she held it ready.
Warily, GLaDOS opened her eyes to look around the eerie, quiet chamber once more. She turned her gaze up to the chandelier chassis high above. It creaked ominously. Slowly, though, GLaDOS worked her way towards it and then, once she was standing in the puddle of slick fluid beneath it, she stared upwards, trying to examine her Core's stained faceplate. The grimy liquids marring its' surfaces... they didn't look like anything she knew should have been within the construct's inner workings.
The machine above groaned quietly, threateningly, while GLaDOS knelt and dipped her fingertips in the puddle she was standing in. The fluid that clung to her synthetic skin when she pulled away was still warm, even though it had been there for several minutes already.
"Water, coolant, grease lubricant, transmission fluid..." She muttered aloud, examining the gritty goo. "Urgh. I blew a gasket, at least. Of all the things here, I should have been built as infallible!"
Annoyed, she straightened up and closed her eyes, accessing panel-control protocols. Hydraulic systems in the room hummed loudly, causing the floor to rise up into a spiral ramp that reached up to her frozen chassis, which she paced slowly along after resuming full control of the android. The closer she got, the worse it looked. With the thick connection cable reeling itself out behind her from the smaller room -and mindful of what had happened to her cabling last time it had been run through a portal- GLaDOS came level with her Core and immediately put her hands to the faceplate, feeling under the edges for the sturdy clips that held it in place. They opened with a little effort, but then the faceplate came away.
Or, it should have. Despite a hard jerk the cover stuck, but a deep groan escaped the chassis's fixing, echoed through the structure as the sole response to the forceful movement. The faceplate metal was swollen with heat and she had to pry it off, but lost her grip when it suddenly relinquished it's hold, and with a loud clanging the heavy piece of metal sprang from GLaDOS' hand and clattered down to the floor. GLaDOS frowned at it before turning her attention back to her Core, trying to ignore the ongoing creaks and moans of overstrained equipment from above.
With the inner mechanics exposed, the damage looked even worse. The Core seemed naked and vulnerable somehow, just seeing it like that gave her the urge to grab the faceplate and shove it back on. She resisted. Unsettling as it was, this was necessary.
GLaDOS' fingertips eased in under the faceplate mounting, trailed over greased mechanics and brushed a few wires, then she found the coolant overflow valve and twisted it slightly. A jet of watery, greenish-brown liquid shot from the new opening, splattering her boots when it hit the floor panel.
"Well, that's the headache taken care of."
The valve replaced, GLaDOS withdrew her hand, trying to decide on the next course of action. Where else could there be blockages?
Retreating from the chassis, she walked down her impromptu ramp a few steps as a precaution, before she raised more panels to reach the chunkier upper-body portion of her chassis. Once the new panels had steadied themselves around the chassis, which was still stretched out straight above her Core, GLaDOS climbed up the ramp again, walked over to her own body and started looking for more blocked coolant valves.
"Two down."
GLaDOS' lips formed a self-satisfied smirk when she found a rubber cap and eased it off. In the past, she'd wondered why on Earth humans continually talked aloud to themselves when completing a Test Chamber, but currently the sound of her voice was helping to reaffirm her self-confidence. She was the greatest collection of knowledge and logical processing capability ever to exist, she could solve this little dilemma!
The release mechanism for the coolant jackets was stiff, and the chassis gave a squeak of complaint when she added a little more force to the small, resistant lever. It gave suddenly, squirting greasy muck everywhere that looked like mud.
"That's... That's the right location... That's not coolant..."
Curious, GLaDOS caught some on her fingertips and held them close to see better, ignoring the chassis swaying lightly beside her. The gunk was light-brown, not unlike chocolate milk, but it was slick and discolored her artificial skin easily. It was raw oil, not coolant.
Something touched her shoulder and GLaDOS looked up, distracted. A dangling cable, swinging gently from side to side. Slowly, GLaDOS' eyes followed it upwards, to the thrown shielding it was tangled in, just in time to see a broad piece slip loose. It slid a few inches, got caught in a tangle of cables that reminded her of a chaotic cobweb, came almost to a halt, but then the metal started to twist around the cables and slowly forced its way down.
At least five subroutines started to bombard her with frantic alarms, requesting immediate counter-action. Out of three proposals, GlaDOS rapidly picked out an evasive maneuver, acknowledged overcharging the android's musculature and approved the secondary warnings that double-checked her decision, as well as scrambling her auxiliary processor to try and calculate where the shielding would come down.
After a bare few microseconds the android body complied to her orders and went into a flurry of now automated self-preservation attempts. The rush of information seemed to filter through ridiculously slowly after that -GLaDOS actually registered very few of the actions, only managed to grasp the larger details. Her shoulders twisted, the right foot bore her entire weight as the body turned away from her chassis with inhuman speed. The android leaned down into a crouch and she could feel the charged leg muscles preparing for the jump, before GLaDOS was flung from the makeshift ramp, out of the hazard area. Body control was then reestablished as the preprocessed action ended.
But with a strangled yelp of surprise she was yanked backwards by her left arm, barely outside the danger zone, she glimpsed a single still image of the hanging cable caught around her wrist. GLaDOS was flicked on the end of it like a marionette, her legs swinging out and almost turning her completely upside down in the air. She gaped at the payload of unsteady wreckage above, watched it in a rising panic as it tumbled from its' perch. At the same moment, the cable broke with an ear-splitting bang, snapped by the debris on its way down. Her arm came free and GLaDOS' heavy, mechanical body gained speed again, pulled down by gravity without any further ado.
Falling a dozen meters to the level floor below, GLaDOS finally managed a sound -she shrieked in fright as the lot of it crashed down on her and thrashed under the rain of debris, which collided with everything in its' way -her chassis, her Core, the ramp, before seemingly making a concerted effort to bury the android. The chassis itself gave a plaintitive groan, dropping free of the burned-out servos under the assault. It smashed on the ramp and jerked to a halt, draped precariously on the raised panels. GLaDOS' vision jittered, turned to corrupted digital nonsense, went black and then returned.
From her Core.
"No, no, not good!" She exclaimed. Her Core lay on the edge of the ramp, its right side on the floor, all servos immobile. The facility uplink was dead. Neither the security cameras nor the central Aperture archive were accessible. In the edge of her sight, barely visible from her perspective, the android lay prone beneath a torn piece of metal that had sheared through the connective cabling and forced her sensory input to revert back to the chassis. "Ah, where's the pathway... radio uplink... wireless... a-and it's still untested... Oh, Science, please work..."
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AN: Vitalani: *peeks over your shoulder* the review button's just there... *points* :P go on, you know you wanna ;)