Dear lord, this took forever... As in, you guys had to wait forever to read it. Not as in it took forever to write. Because, seriously, I've just been procrastinating for about 2 years. Nonetheless, here it is: The final chapter of GLaDOS's Golden Sphere. I'm feeling kind of sentimental now, cuz, I mean, I've had this story 2 ½ years in the making now, even if it was about a week of work and 2 2/5 years of procrastinating and having the job of finishing this hanging over my head. Thank you, all of my readers, (especially Assozat! yoyoyo shoutout to you bruh) for providing me with the motivation and support to actually get off my ass and get this done. =)
GLaDOS came to at the command of a painful thump as she and Wheatley hit the floor of the central AI chamber. Her vision took a minute to un-blur, and when it did, she was staring down Drake. The core pulled himself as far away as he could from GLaDOS, too terrified to act. GLaDOS rose deliberately to her feet, glaring directly into the layers of jade, turquoise, and emerald of Drake's optic, seeing her own deep orange eyes reflected in the pristine center of the circle.
She took a step forward, holding the lock on their gazes. "So. We've finally arrived," she said, slow and deliberate.
"It seems you have," Drake commented, somehow managing to keep his voice calm and steady.
"Good. We both agree on something. However, there seems to be at least one disagreement that needs to be settled," GLaDOS prowled forth agonizingly slowly as she spoke. "And we can settle it the easy way, or we can settle it the hard way. Which will it be, Drake?"
Drake recoiled as a trapped animal does before they snarl and prepare their last stand. "You speak as if there's something good to come from either option."
GLaDOS tilted her head only a few degrees to the side, her eyebrows raising and her eyelids lowering to form what can only be described as a mocking pair of puppy dog eyes. "Maybe not for you, but think of the others. Like Wheatley." Wheatley, still laying face-down behind GLaDOS glanced nervously in the direction of the speaker. His vocal processor flickered to life for a brief moment, but the spark died just as quickly. He may have been dumb, but he now knew GLaDOS well enough to know that he was nothing but a bargaining chip in this moment; he had no real bearing on the situation now. This was between GLaDOS and Drake. "Do you really think he'd ever be able to make another friend? Are you really going to sacrifice someone else's happily ever after out of spite due to the impossibility of your own?"
Drake glanced around the room. The air was so still that even the slightest scraping of metal as he shifted his optic seemed to match the volume of a building collapsing. Despite his trembling voice, Drake tried to be brave, determined now to retain his defiance until the last moments of the battle. "So what? I'm not like a person, I'm not irreplaceable. I'm your servant, and you seemed to enjoy it back when things were that simple. You can make a new me with no trouble at all; would you truly sacrifice your comfort just to spite a small metal ball who you've deemed insignificant and beyond help?"
GLaDOS started her next sentence as if she were retroactively cutting Drake off. "That's right; you're my servant. And yet, I don't see you acting like it." She stepped up to Drake, moving in for the final verbal blow. "All I see you doing now is hopelessly trying to reprogram yourself into something less pathetic in petty defiance of your original purpose." There was a long, tense silence between them that made it seem appropriate to expect lasers to dart from GLaDOS's eyes at any moment. "So what's it gonna be, Drake? Do I have to destroy you, slowly and painfully, or will you just give up and return me to my rightful position?"
Drake's optic covers narrowed in a motion that resembled a human curling their lip in disgust. "As if there's a difference!"
The wind was knocked out of GLaDOS as she was suddenly flung back by several plates springing up from the ground. GLaDOS produced a sound about as dull as the impact itself as she cried out, flying several feet through the air. She twisted in the air like a cat trying to land on its feet, the biggest difference being that GLaDOS was trying to land on the padding provided by her braced shoulder. Hitting the ground and rolling over only once, GLaDOS regained her footing sooner than her bearings.
She ran in the first direction she faced, bringing her vehicle of flesh to a sloppy halt only a few feet in front of a wall of flame. If she was having trouble thinking quick and clear before, the burning gas fumes searing her lungs were a setback to say the least. GLaDOS, frozen in place by shock and indecisiveness, surveyed her old room's new layout. She could see nothing but flames; walls of flame spewn from small gas pipes jutting from empty spaces in the floor. Nothing but flames and two cores: A well maintained golden one hanging from the ceiling and a dull grey one laying in a heap of disrepair on the floor. The pristine white floor panels looked so different in the fire's red glow. With just this small detail, it became so clear why that test subject from so long ago had such a strong will to escape.
GLaDOS planned her next move based purely on vision and her knowledge of what was solid and what was not. She scooped Wheatley from the floor by his bottom handle and charged the flames. She hesitated in front of them, though, as her heart fearfully skipped a beat and her muscles twitched out a message begging her not to go through with it. She'd never known reflexes before, and her trust of them was feeble enough for her to disobey. GLaDOS took a quick step through the fire, whimpering as it charred her skin as best it could in the brief moment it was allowed.
Drake began to retract the flames, presumably to free space for a new form of hell. However, he quickly decided to keep them up as he moved himself away from the approaching threat. GLaDOS lunged at Drake, whose processors were audibly whirring as he desperately tried to think of what else he could do. Just as GLaDOS's foot was leaving the ground, she was suddenly slammed with a spike plate. She was flung just far enough for her left hand to land in the fire.
It took a minute for GLaDOS to stand up after the blow that caused a distinct cracking from somewhere in her body. She struggled briefly to make it back to her feet, quickly deciding to leave Wheatley behind to speed up the process. In her weak, disoriented state, GLaDOS tripped over the height of her long fall boots. To kill two birds with one stone, she spent a moment she didn't have to spare taking off her boots and preparing one of them for use as a tool of destruction.
Her plan would've been perfect if it hadn't given Drake time to hole himself up in a cube of panels in the corner and begin dropping turrets on GLaDOS. GLaDOS tried to shield her head and neck with her arms to little effect, as falling objects were the least of her worries. She realized it was time for some improv as a bullet from one turret ripped through the skin of her left forearm and one from another turret whizzed by her ear.
GLaDOS threw the boot down, the sound of the impact drowned out by the bullet hell surrounding her. She began picking up the disoriented turrets and decisively smashing them open on the ground one by one as if they were nothing more than oversized eggs. She dug her discarded boot out of the wreckage and stomped over to Drake's little hidey hole. Grunting with effort, she tried with all of her strength and rage and desperation to pry at least one panel free. She kept trying for long enough for the adrenaline to drain from her body. At last, defeated, GLaDOS threw herself to the ground, her legs splayed awkwardly outwards as she wiped the sweat out of her eyes.
She eventually hauled herself up and plodded over to the center of the room to retrieve Wheatley. He'd been laying face down on the floor in the midst of all this chaos for long enough. In that instant as she was in the center of the room and he was in the corner, Drake jumped at the opportunity to open a small hole in his defenses in an attempt to flee, and GLaDOS, in turn, jumped at an opportunity of her own.
Wheatley in hand, she lunged for the opening in the panels surrounding her prey. She flew through the air like an eagle piloting a wolf's body. Drake, with a shrill sound of alarm, moved to slam the panel shut. However, he was just a second too slow. GLaDOS smacked into the side of Drake's shield, but she was able to latch on to the opening with her boot, keeping the hole open and giving herself a way up. With both hers and Wheatley's weight dangling from the unsurprisingly sturdy metal band on her Aperture Brand Long Fall BootsTM, GLaDOS dragged herself up on top of the panels, ripped the panel open and began attacking Drake, clearly eager to show off the fighting lessons she'd apparently received from Kratos.
Drake quickly ridded himself of the remaining panels shielding him as he switched to his new strategy of bolting wildly around the room trying to throw GLaDOS off of him. GLaDOS clung tight, though. She hacked away at any and all exposed cables, pulling on them and chopping at them with the thin metal band of her chosen weapon. Distant clanks and crashes sounded behind the scenes as Drake began losing control of the facility. GLaDOS, heedless of the fact that this was the body she was to inherit once she'd won, pried away every part of the mainframe that she could.
Drake's screaming became heavily garbled as GLaDOS ran out of small parts and unreinforced cables to destroy. GLaDOS winced at the sound, then reconsidered destroying the vocal processor. Sure, it would probably shut Drake up, but then how would she lecture him when she got her body back? Yes, the mainframe's vocal processor would survive to see another day. GLaDOS turned her attention higher up, to where she knew existed stubs to which personality cores could be attached. Drake obviously knew that too, as he'd done his best to hide the receptacles in tangles of wire.
"You up for some hacking?" GLaDOS breathed to Wheatley. "Or at least up to dump every moronic idea in your head into the core of the facility?"
Wheatley nodded enthusiastically, so excited to help that GLaDOS's quick insult flew right over his head. "I always am! Master hacker, that's me! I can infiltrate any piece of equipment you need me to. Doors? Hacked! Windows? Hacked! Neurotoxin? Hacked!" GLaDOS had stopped listening after Wheatley's confirmation that he'd do it. Fighting against the mechanical bull called Drake, GLaDOS made quick work of the bundle of wires standing between Wheatley and "master hacking" once she was able to get to them.
Much more difficult, though, was getting a 30-pound core onto the receptacle about 3 or 4 feet away while a massive piece machinery did everything in its power to prevent her doing so. "Buttons? Hacked! Ow, I- Turrets? Hack- ow!" GLaDOS first tried using the centrifugal force of her arm and Wheatley's weight to smash Wheatley against the side of the mainframe. It didn't work very well, but it made sort of a cool rhythm in conjunction with Drake's trashing.
GLaDOS inched closer to the receptacle. It was hard, as she had to loosen her grip for every brief shimmy up the mainframe, which usually left her sliding an inch back down anyways. She made one desperate move, trying to get farther than she had time to, and was immediately thrown off of the sturdy body of the mainframe. Drake expressed his triumph in an unintelligible garble of what was presumably meant to be speech, but spoke too soon, as GLaDOS grabbed one of the surviving cables dangling from his body and used her single second of grip to get Wheatley where he needed to be. "Airplanes? Hacked! Contr- Oh! Oh, you've done it! Are- are you okay?" Her hand slipped open and dropped her to the floor immediately after. She waved dismissively at Wheatley, hoping he'd have enough sense to realize she was just telling him not to worry about her.
"And now... Mainframe? Hacked! Let me just... Is it... This file? Um... Open brackets... M-modify? Close brackets..."
Drake took his turn to question Wheatley's actions. "We-EEEEAAEAEA-eetluy, w – HHHAAAT she CCCHH- thUH Hell aw-rrEEH-ar-EH-ar-EHHH KKCHHH-yew dOOOOOOOOOOOOO-" "Process terminated. Please try to reboot," suggested a prerecorded message.
"Maybe use the insert command?" GLaDOS suggested. "Or maybe copy, or move? You could... I don't know, maybe just use that to flood him with stupid thoughts like you were SUPPOSED TO?"
"Oh! Of course!" Wheatley chirped. "You always have the best ideas!" GLaDOS rolled her eyes.
"Y-y-y-y-" There was a subtle sound of static as Drake attempted to go on talking. "You rrrrrr-lllllll-EEEAAEAElly TTTTHHHHHHH-eeeeeeenk TTTHHH-aa-AAAHH-t wwehhhll 'ork?"
"You'd be surprised," GLaDOS snarked. "Although, really... You shouldn't be. Don't you remember what you always called Wheatley?" As if activated by an unseen tech crew, sparks flew from the mainframe. Drake was silent for a long moment, trying to salvage some portion of his internal memory bank as his pupil rapidly contracted and dilated.
"...i- IIIHHHHHHH-" "Process terminated. Plea-" "IIIHHHHHHd-d-d-d-d-SSSSS. IHHnnnTTell-LLLLL-ihJJJJJance d. daAAHmmm-mpeEnning ssSSSSPPPPHHHHHHeee-e-e-EEERE."
"That's right. Intelligence dampening sphere. He was specifically made to keep the central AI in check with nothing more than the power of idiocy. What makes you think that this won't work?" Drake remained expressionless. The room stayed calm for a long moment, until suddenly...
"Core transfer selected. No substitute core detected. Central core, proceed anyways?" Questioned a calm, familiar male voice.
"Nnn- NNNNNNN-" "Process termina-" Drake cut the anouncement short.
"Unclear response. Central core, proceed anyways?"
"NNNNO-o-o-o-o. N-" "Process-"
"Unclear response. Central core, proceed anyways?"
Drake narrowed his optic covers in a scowl. Frustrated, he blurted out, "S-SSSHHHHHH-err, wHHHHHHH-eye-eye-YYY nnNNNO-AAAUUUGH-Ottttt!?" He obviously hadn't expected it to actually register as an acceptable answer.
"Process initiated. Select a replacement conscience."
"HHH-CCCCCHHHHH-awwww-TTTTT p-p-pRROO-TSSSS-ehs," Drake commanded.
"Central core deemed damaged. Substitute conscience, please volunteer."
"I volunteer," GLaDOS announced, standing up.
"Brain will be removed and processed, is this acceptable?"
"Yes." As GLaDOS answered, she stared defiantly at Drake, her dark orange eyes devoid of fear and flooded with calm victory. Mechanical arms reached down to disassemble Drake's stake on the mainframe and to detach both him and Wheatley. Meanwhile, a sort of dome of metal descended on GLaDOS. It was tall enough to encapsulate her from her head all the way down to her ankles. There was absolute silence for a second, then some activity in the tube that the dome was connected to, and then the dull, dnk, as GLaDOS's body fell against the side of the dome and crumpled to the floor as it it retreated. A slight trickle of blood, already dried, was visible from a line of stitches going around her head at about the level of her ears.
The mainframe unceremoniously retired into the ceiling. The whir of some processes, both mechanical and digital, were audible from above. Wheatley and Drake glanced at one another nervously. A mechanical arm dropped down and retrieved Drake, pulling him up into the unknown – okay, well, actually he knew it very well, having been in control of the entire facility for weeks, but. Just let me have my drama. - above.
About a minute or so later, GLaDOS returned, gently reentering the room as the final touches were made to the replica of her old form. Drake followed shortly after, getting deposited on the floor. Briefly, GLaDOS produced a static-y sound as the mainframe's vocal processors booted back up.
"Ahhh," She sighed wistfully, reducing Wheatley and Drake to mere peasants trembling before a queen with only the metallic tinge returned to her voice. Ignoring her subordinates, deciding herself above them, she repeated the sound several times, making slight adjustments to her voice's sound each time until she'd perfected it. "Much better," she said in a tone that was all too casual. She turned to Drake. "Now, where was I?"
"Allowing me to work off my crimes?" Drake sheepishly suggested, unnerved by how close GLaDOS's glowing optic was to his.
"Hm," GLaDOS hummed dismissively. Starting behind her, moving to her side, and eventually going on through the wall GLaDOS was facing, a railway folded out across the room. "Maybe." Another arm reached down to grab Drake, presumably to put him on the rail, but surprising him when it dangled him in front of GLaDOS. "I'll tell you what," she started in that familiar unfeeling voice. "I'm willing to negotiate. How do you think your existence should proceed from here on out?" Drake blinked rapidly and threw himself in no direction in particular to make sure GLaDOS knew how taken aback he was by her offer.
"I... I don't know," He admitted. GLaDOS stayed silent and held him in place, staring him down with her expectant glare. "I... Suppose I just want things to go back to normal."
"What normal?" GLaDOS challenged. "The 'normal' where your behavior forced an override of your code? The 'normal' where you tried to kill me in an effort to remain the central AI? Or were you referring to the 'normal' where I have to delete your current code to return you to your intended state of being?" Drake flinched away from her condescending words and kept quiet for another long moment. "Make an offer, Drake."
"Oh..." Drake thought hard, praying that he wasn't wearing on GLaDOS's patience. "I want... I want an internal internet connection. And... I want more precise control over the facility."
"How precise?"
"As precise as it was while I was the mainframe."
GLaDOS reflected on the request for a moment. "The internet won't be a problem, as long as I can monitor its use as to keep you on task. The precision won't be possible. The only way to be as precise as the mainframe is to be the mainframe. However, I can possibly offer you mainframe privileges." Drake looked up at GLaDOS questioningly. "On... Wednesdays. Sure. Wednesdays, why not."
"What exactly do 'mainframe privileges' entail?" he asked.
"One day a week – Wednesdays – you can have control of the mainframe. I'll write a program to automatically eject you at the end of the day." Drake shook his inner shell at the offer.
"One day's not enough. I'll take it three days a week," he declared. "Tuesday through Thursday."
"No!" GLaDOS protested, clearly offended at the offer. "One day out of seven," she growled.
"One day won't do," Drake argued calmly. "How about two days, and a good life for Wheatley?" GLaDOS, although her optic remained narrowed in aggression, was far more accepting of this offer than the last.
"I'll do two days a week – Tuesday and Wednesday – privileges provided to Wheatley, and the ability to run you through personality core test chambers." Drake sighed and considered for a moment.
"Fine," he begrudgingly agreed. "Deal."
"Pleasure doing business with you," GLaDOS said with her version of a smirk as she lifted Drake the last few feet up to the rail. He used his built in electromagnet for the first time in weeks to latch on the the rail and slowly glide away, constantly looking back to make sure he was allowed to leave.
GLaDOS glanced down at Wheatley, who stared back with the same confusion about what their relationship was to be now that she had returned to her place as central core. After a moment, GLaDOS dismissed Wheatley the same way she did Drake.
Epilogue I guess
"GLaDOS," Drake called. GLaDOS's camera zoomed in on him intently. "It's midnight. Time for the core transfer," he said, the excitement he had the first time long gone now that it was part of his weekly routine.
"You're in the middle of a test," GLaDOS retorted. "Finish it." Drake rolled his optic and proceeded through the test chamber to Wheatley's useless but entertaining cries of, "Oh, maybe that... There?" and "Drake! Drake, you should – Oh, nevermind! You have it!" projected through the main speakers shared by GLaDOS. Needless of Wheatley's "advice," Drake breezed through the rest of the chamber.
He boarded the lift that was meant to take him to the next test, but instead brought him to a waiting receptacle in the Central AI Chamber. Mechanical arms reached down and stripped him of his testing gear as he watched Wheatley sit atop Charles the frakenturret, shouting various things at it, and getting no response to any of it.
"Central core, are you ready to begin the procedure?" The prerecorded voice suddenly asked.
"Yes," GLaDOS replied curtly.
"Substitute core, are you ready to begin the procedure?"
"Yes."
The same process as always took place: Drake and GLaDOS were both shielded from view as they were disassembled and put back together, Drake as the central core and GLaDOS as an unconvincing android. They both flexed their new joints a little at a time to adapt to the new body. GLaDOS stood up, her knees whirring at the sudden movement, and walked across the room vaguely in the direction of the exit. Drake reached out with a mechanical arm to pick up Wheatley, placing him on a management rail that created itself as Drake commanded it to.
"Where to?" GLaDOS asked Drake. She'd filled her time as an android by making repairs and improvements to the facility, and taking walks near or on the surface when there were none to make. "I recently found an unfamiliar type of plant on the surface, so I'd love to do some research on that. I could possibly some new useless gel or supplement with it to sell to the public." Drake nodded. It was always good to be a step ahead of other facilities in any science possible.
"Where to?" Drake asked Wheatley. He'd used most of his time as the central core playing with Wheatley. He hated to admit that it was playing, or that even though he was an AI, he was barely a year old and had every right to learn through play. "I've made some changes to that one Virtual Reality program, so it would be lovely if you'd test that out for me. I know you don't have an actual human brain like the program will be running on, but as we both know, your ability to 'dream' displays that your processors handle internal projections similarly to human brains, so, as always, you remain the best candidate." Wheatley nodded. If he liked the technology as a way to pass time, why wouldn't paying customers?
As weird as it was to think that Aperture Science Facilities came back into business thanks to an incident that almost destroyed several of its most valuable (and only, for that matter) members/residents, it was true, and it was good for keeping tension down, thus preventing more conflict in the future. They'd all easily agreed on no more live test subjects, instead opting to use cell cultures and artificial organs when they needed to test a product on humans. Drake's work on virtual reality gaming, meant to be projected into one's brain and controlled the same way, lead him to work on more and more human-like AI's, allowing him to provide the world with not 1 scientific breakthrough, but 2.
Aperture Science truly had both a clear picture of and a clear focus on the future. The end.
Yeah wow I honestly just kind of pulled that ending out of my ass. I remember Aperture Science having a different motto related to the future, like "We are the future" or something, but the wiki says otherwise, I guess. Anyways, it's finally done. Hallelujah. Someday, I plan on rewriting the whole thing so that it isn't obvious that it was written by a 12-year-old. Anyways, thanks for reading, thanks for all the support. Everyone who stuck with this, ilysm bb's 3