"I'm tellin' you, man," Henry slurred. "GLaDOS is the future!"
His coworker often said that this project was the challenge of their generation, the new frontier they were given to conquer. Other generations mapped the world or went to the moon, and they got to figure out how to create an artificial intelligence that - or should it be who? - didn't try to kill them all only milliseconds after being switched on.
I'd rather have gone to the moon...
Henry had successfully dragged Doug out to the bar to celebrate some milestone in the project which was highly classified, restricted information that anyone not involved didn't need to know, including him. Normally he chose to avoid unnecessary social interaction because of his condition. It was just easier that way. People rarely understood. He didn't expect them to. But his therapist insisted that a little time away from his own thoughts would be good for him.
"Yeah," he replied, sipping his beer. He wasn't sure if drinking while taking his medication was a good idea. Probably not. But it was becoming more and more difficult to care as the evening progressed.
"It'll have all the primary functions of a disc operating system, but with a human mind," his coworker continued proudly, as if he'd invented the AI himself. "She'll outlive us all, Doug. The facility will still be around long after we're gone." That's what he was afraid of. Aperture should die with them. Henry had unconsciously began referring to GLaDOS as a she rather than an it.
"But doesn't it bother you that she didn't want this?" Come on, there had to be something left in that man that still recognized the wrongness here. His own little voice in his head that he'd stopped listening to in order to get where he was now. Aperture's late CEO would have been proud.
After Cave Johnson died, the old science spheres were sealed off. It was just as well considering they had become death mazes for homeless people to run through in hopes of earning sixty dollars, a long way to fall from their glorious history of hosting war heroes and astronauts. Yet still the pre-recorded messages their boss had left them haunted those underground labs. Doug had heard it a thousand times before, until he could recite it by heart. Those words still froze his blood every time though.
If I die before you people can pour me into a computer, I want Caroline to run this place. Now she'll argue. She'll say she can't; she''s modest like that. But you make her! Hell, put her in my computer. I don't care.
And they had, because Cave Johnson willed it and he was God. Damn the consequences.
"Sacrifices are necessary," Henry said, his eyes seeming hard now. "You never understood that, Doug. Caroline did."
All in the name of science, Mr. Rattmann.
"She couldn't have known what that would mean."
"It doesn't matter," Henry insisted. "Can't you see that? This is the greatest technological achievement in human history, and I get to be part of it! Caroline should thank us. We're making her immortal. Artificial intelligence. It's brilliant. It will be almost like a person."
A human mind encased inside an all-powerful metal form. It sounded like a recipe for corruption. Doug did understand. He'd been present at all the meetings where scientists presented their ideas that would bring Cave Johnson's vision to life. But it lacked a human element. Robots were easy enough to build once you figured out how they worked; the GLaDOS initiative aimed to unify a person's very humanity with the strength of a machine.
"She is a person!" Doug snapped before he could stop himself. Shit, he needed his pills, or maybe more beer.
No, wait, that was a bad idea, wasn't it? Why did he think that was a good idea? Why couldn't he think straight?
Because you need your meds, Doug.
Henry was looking at him now, vaguely concerned or possibly curious. It didn't matter. He was suddenly too close. Doug knew he had to get away from this man but he didn't know how. He tried to move, but his legs refused to work properly. Fuck, how much had he drank tonight?
"Hey, man, you all right?" Oh sure, now he cared. He's not really your friend, the voice reminded him. You don't have any friends, remember?No, that couldn't be right. It was the pills. The pills weren't working because of the alcohol. That made sense, didn't it? It had to make sense...
But if Henry really was his friend, then why did he want to hurt him? Why did he want to shove him against a wall and make him listen? Doug wanted him to admit that GLaDOS was a person with thoughts and emotions, whose right to exist in whatever form She saw fit was just as valid as any human's. It wasn't right what they did. He wished he could show them somehow, but he would almost certainly be fired, and he needed this job.
"Doug, what's wrong with you?" The balding man was still trying to get his attention, but there were more interesting things to look at elsewhere which currently occupied his mind. Why didn't Henry find the colorful spiders climbing the walls interesting to watch? Their webs were so incredibly intricate...
Because they're not real, idiot.
"Wrong with...me?" he asked, confused. No, not just confused; he was angry, furious actually. How had he not noticed it before? How strange... "You...playing God. No right...to force...Her. She...never wanted...that." It was the most he could manage to say in his current state.
"Okay," Henry said, slowly. "I think it's time for you to go home and get some sleep. You've had enough." That was true; he'd had enough of this whole damn world...
)O(
He woke up the next morning on the floor of his apartment with no memory of how he got there. Apparently he'd fallen off the couch. Well, yeah, but he couldn't recall the entire journey from the bar last night to this moment either and that probably wasn't a good sign.
Doug's head felt like someone was stabbing something hot and spiky through his skull into the screwed up tissue of his brain and twisting it around repeatedly.
He wasn't stupid; he knew how the brain worked, and that his was chemically imbalanced and probably abnormal in a lot of other small ways that, when multiplied, equaled who he was.
He also knew it wasn't supposed to hurt like this.
Note to self: alcohol and anti-psychotics do not mix.
You already knew that, Doug, so what the hell were you thinking?
He couldn't remember.
You're losing your touch, the voice said somewhat harshly. You're losing your grip on reality.
But wasn't reality merely a story the mind told itself?
This was precisely why he preferred to avoid social situations.