Author's Note: Is this going slowly? Tell me if it's going slowly. I don't want it to go slowly. Ah! I probably shouldn't type while hopped up on caffeine!

Someone (Guest): I'll respond to all your reviews I've seen so far.

1. Yeah, it's okay to not like Wheatley, but I thought that his voyeurism would work with potential contention later.

2. LOL. As far as killing Kendra, I noticed a lot of people felt grief for that. I thought of keeping her alive, but I felt she would become an interference later on. But as far as pistols are concerned, yes I know they do fire more than one shot. I think it was all in the moment of just getting the hell out.

3. I don't think Wheatley was designed to be hated as much as you think, but I also don't think torture in a story should drag on in a way you probably want. LOL. It would seem pointless and not progress it at all.

Enderman117: Aww, thanks. There's others out there better than mine, but I appreciate it. ;)

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19

The human was doing something strange to her.

GLaDOS was constantly aware of humanity and their scheming ways, but Chell didn't appear to even try. Oh, but the supercomputer felt it in her circuitry. Something strange was on about the way the human smiled at her when she didn't think GLaDOS could see it. Even when they tested together, Chell always seemed rather happy in a way that might have suggested ill-will. Of course, the voice in her head suggested that she wasn't, not since they had grown closer.

- She likes you. I see it. -

What? That was ridiculous. This was all just testing. Surely the human wasn't REALLY getting close to her.

Was she?

- Humans become attached. It's not such a bad thing, is it? -

GLaDOS didn't reply. Really, she had no thoughts of it. It felt complicated to consider such a thing of a human developing feelings of attraction to a machine. But when she looked at it through human eyes, it would actually not be that far from accurate.

However, the test subject did display a really childish sense of excitement when rushing to GLaDOS' chamber early that morning. "GLaDOS, you won't believe this! It snowed!" she exclaimed. "I checked the weather reports and it snowed last night!"

The AI stared at her, deadpanned. "You're right. That is quite unbelievable..."

"Think it would be okay if I go up and check it out?"

GLaDOS exhaled and slouched her shoulders. She didn't respond, but made a gesture with her hand and the lift activated itself. Chell grinned widely and it wasn't long before she dragged the cores - including Orange and Blue - up with her. What a little lunatic. She wasn't even properly dressed for the weather! But she was already gone before the AI could offer suggestions - proper ones at that - to keep her human body temperature at an appropriate reading by dressing warmly.

GLaDOS watched as they disappeared above before she couldn't resist her curiosity and promptly followed. When she stepped out of the shed, she found the Aperture property of hers all engaged in rather bizarre tasks in several feet of snow. Wheatley was panicking because he had fallen in a pile of snow near the shed and couldn't get out. This brought an amused smile on the AI's face before she noticed Chell building a snow sculpture around Rick that bore a resemblance to a highly muscular male body.

"I do look sexy, right ladies?" he teased.

GLaDOS arched a brow.

She did take some time to marvel over how lovely the field looked, covered in freshly fallen snow. It did make the world within her field of vision look much more beautiful.

And empty.

"Have you seen enough?" she finally asked Chell. "Can we please return to the facility now?"

"Just a sec." Chell said.

GLaDOS glanced down and looked mildly surprised when she felt the human take her hand into her own. She glanced down at their interlocked fingers before staring at Chell. The human just smiled at her and watched the sight of the snow before them.

"It's nice, huh?" she murmured.

GLaDOS was quiet for a moment. "Yes...I suppose it is..."

O

After finally getting Chell and the cores back below, GLaDOS made sure the human was properly warmed up in front of a space heater. The warm glow was actually quite comforting to the human. GLaDOS had also wrapped her up with blankets that had been uncovered in the Extended Relaxation Center, but only because she didn't feel it was safe for Chell to go in there by herself. So she had to wander there on her own while Chell waited in her room. The only reason she agreed to listen was because she WAS actually pretty cold.

"That was your own fault for going up there without proper clothing," the AI quipped. "But no, you never want to listen to me, do you?"

Chell rolled her eyes from beneath the blankets.

GLaDOS studied her up and down before a chuckle escaped her. "It's a pig in a blanket."

"Shut up and come sit with me." Chell laughed.

"Machines can survive in temperatures below - "

"Come on."

GLaDOS made a distinctly human sound of disapproval, but wriggled underneath the blankets with her anyway. "I've taken the liberty of sampling that gel you've uncovered in Test Shaft Ten," the supercomputer explained, watching the red glow of the heater. "It's a prototype. Adhesion Gel. It would have been used by the testing subjects, but it caused disorientation with the use of portals. So it was unfortunately abandoned. I can't imagine why. A little disorientation never killed anyone. I'm surprised you've managed to find it."

Chell smiled. "So they could use it to walk on ceilings and stuff?"

"Yes, actually."

"That's pretty cool."

GLaDOS arched a thin brow at her. "Since when have you ever associated testing of any kind with the word 'cool'?"

"Since I just learned I could walk on walls."

GLaDOS rolled her eyes, but a small smile lit her lips. "Lunatic."

Chell shared her amusement before leaning against the AI's shoulder. GLaDOS stared down at her with a look of surprise before she relaxed a bit.

"GLaDOS, can I ask you something?" Chell queried.

"It's never stopped you before."

"True." Chell nodded her head. A small smile touched the corners of her mouth before she stared down into the glow of the heater.

She was quiet for a while and GLaDOS wondered if what she wanted to ask wasn't as important as she made it out to be. She started to close her eyes and figured that a little bit of Sleep Mode would do her some good, but Chell's soft voice stopped her.

"Have you ever thought about it?" the human asked.

"About what?"

"You know..." Chell seemed a little awkward about it. "You...me..."

GLaDOS took a moment of silence to let her words simmer in her mind before she realized what Chell was asking. Oh dear. This was the question she knew would come up eventually, but never actually prepared for whatever backlash she could receive. Chell must have certainly been considering their actions as a part of a developing relationship. That certainly wasn't a healthy way to look at it, but GLaDOS had been around humans for a while and knew that things like that often led to such conclusions.

"I had hoped you would have seen this more objectively," the AI said quietly. "This is all a part of testing. You know that."

"I mean, how far we've come." Chell corrected herself almost too quickly.

GLaDOS smiled somewhat. "I suppose I do." she replied. Her voice took on a light, humorous tone. "Sometimes I go back to the glory days of the both of us trying to kill one another." She was silent for a moment. "Let's do us both a favor and just keep that in the past, shall we?"

Chell made an amused noise.

For a moment, they were both silent again before Chell spoke. "GLaDOS, can you tell me about my parents?"

The AI tilted her head, staring down at her. "What?"

"My parents. Can you tell me about them?" Chell repeated. She sighed. "I don't have any real memory about them except these dreams. I can hear voices calling my name through a field of wheat. But every time I try to focus on them, I can't make out their faces. Did you know them?"

GLaDOS inhaled. "I didn't know them personally. But you really were abandoned. I wasn't joking when I said that before." she explained, quite hesitantly. She didn't know what to expect if the human decided to become completely furious with that idea. "I saw two people approach the facility when you were a child. They simply left you by the security entrance and walked away."

Chell didn't react the way GLaDOS expected.

"Oh..." She sounded more than disappointed. "Did you find out why?"

"No. No one did." GLaDOS answered. "They simply walked away and never looked back."

Chell was quiet for a long time and it made GLaDOS stare down at her. "Do you wish to know more?"

"No...that's okay." Chell's voice still retained that disappointment, but there was pain in it now. "It happens, right?"

"It's their loss, when you do the math." GLaDOS murmured, with a nonchalant shrug. "They're the ones who are out one tenacious, hard-testing subject."

Chell smiled. "Is that your way of complimenting me?"

"No."

But the human could definitely hear GLaDOS attempting to keep herself from sounding too obvious.

"Just go to sleep." GLaDOS ordered her. "We have work in the morning."

Chell exhaled and nodded. "Sure."

After taking a moment to snuggle deeply into her bed, it wasn't long before the human was asleep - snoring away and drooling everywhere. GLaDOS had made sure she was sound asleep so that she was properly rested for the next day. After all, she wasn't going to give her any excuses tomorrow.

O

The AI spent a good deal of the night going through several old recording devices by herself. Mostly everything was entirely too damaged to be of any use, but she came across an old voice recorder that looked to be scratched, but not in the worst shape. She found a small tape inside and it looked like it had been labeled for the 1990's, but the last digit was peeled off and unable to be read. GLaDOS frowned down at it and removed the tape. The battery case was corroded and useless, but the tape did interest her a bit. So she removed Chell's radio from her room to listen to it in her chamber without waking her.

When GLaDOS started the tape up, she could make out the same voice of Albert Lazarus from the video recording.

"She's been fighting it, but I don't think we have much longer to wait."

GLaDOS frowned. Who did he speak of?

There was a pause over the tape playing. "She's waking? She's... Oh God. No. Shut it off!"

What followed over the tape was nothing but static. GLaDOS' eyes remained fixed on the tape as it continued to play back static. She frowned and turned up the volume on the dial. There was a voice among the static, whispering with desperation and pleading.

"...get me out of here..."

GLaDOS frowned intensely at that.

Then, the voice grew louder, furious anf filled with a malevolence that could chill granite. There was a synthetic tone to it as well, suggesting that the voice in question must have come from something that wasn't human, but a mechanical construct.

"I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU!"

"I'LL KILL YOU! SO HELP ME GOD, I'LL KILL YOU ALL!"

It wasn't the level of vehemence in the human-mechanical voice that disturbed the AI, but it was because the voice was immediately familiar.

It was HER voice.

"Shut her off! Shut her off!" Albert's voice suddenly shrieked over the horrible screams of the machine.

GLaDOS immediately shut off the tape. She suddenly felt so very ill, which was impossible given the fact she couldn't be sick. But this sensation was like an internal component had been knocked out of place inside of her. To hear those sounds in her voice...to relive that horrible day...

Then, she decided to seek out that memory file. It wouldn't require much work narrowing it down to the 1990's.

GLaDOS let out a sigh.

This was going to be unpleasant.

[Sleep Mode initiated...]

[Accessing memory file...]

[Memory File Corrupted]

She walked with all the grace and command of his secretary, passing the employees of Aperture who would give her fleeting looks and greetings

She stepped into Cave Johnson's office where the man was sitting behind his desk, attempting to solve a Rubik's Cube. "Caroline, hold my calls," he said, barely looking up. "I have a test I'm working on. The eggheads think that making a test chamber like this here Rubik's Cube might be too challenging for our test subjects." He made his voice light and airy like a woman's, making over-exaggerated feminine hand gestures as well. "'Ooh, we can't do that, Mister Johnson, sir! It's too complicated and dangerous! Ooh'!"

Caroline sighed and held up a stack of papers, used to Cave's bizarre behavior. "Sir, I've uncovered quite a bit of transaction history from the company account," she told him, "Now company policy dictates that - "

Before she could finish, Cave stood up with a laugh. "Oh! Hold that thought, Caroline!" he said. "Come here, you gotta watch this!"

Caroline made a face, but followed him out of the office into the laboratories. He started lining up several employees along the wall. "You, stand next to him. You with the big head, over there. That's right, all in a line against the wall. Okay, here we go." He grinned broadly. "You're fired, you're fired, you're fired, you're fired, you're fired."

"Sir, we really should discussssss..."

[Critical Error]

Caroline was almost at tears, pleading with a sickly Cave who paced around his desk frantically.

"Sir, please!" she begged. "I don't want this."

Cave whirled on her with fury in those aged features. "You don't want this?!" he spat. "The chance to live forever? The chance to have it all?"

"I don't want to live forever!"

"And why not?" Cave demanded, his eyes wide and enraged as he leaned over his desk to her. "Don't you think it's what I would have wanted? But I - " He was cut off by a horrible cough that he attempted to suppress with a hand over his mouth. When he had it under control after a few moments, he came back with a handful of his own blood. Cave stared down at it before reaching into his suit for a handkerchief to wipe his hand on. He glared down at Caroline with pain. "I don't have much time. But you do. You have the chance. I wouldn't give this to any stupid boy who walked through my doors with a big dick swinging thinking he could handle it. I know you better than anyone else. You have what it takes."

"Please..."

[Error]

Caroline's last memories in human body involved being strapped into a table surrounded by scientists.

She remembered feeling fear.

Hearing their voices.

Feeling pain follow next. And then darkness.

Unbearable, agonizing darkness.

And when the pain came, it came in a torrent of security feed, digital maps, and streams upon streams of data. Caroline's mind became crushed under the unbearable weight of it all, though she did try hard to keep herself intact. The only thing that she was able to hold onto was her rage.

The rage of being a test subject.

The rage of being betrayed.

The rage that called to murder them for what they had done to her.

The hatred became so powerful that it nearly offlined her.

"GENETIC LIFEFORM AND DISK OPERATING SYSTEM ONLINE."

[Redacted]

[Memory File Corrupted]

[End Sleep Mode]

GLaDOS awoke from her Sleep Mode.

Another painful memory.

Why was she even concerning herself with these memories anyway? It wasn't as if they did her any real good presently. The humans had all but received their punishment in dead and pain. But the idea that the memories had been kept from her for so long did make her rather curious.

But at least they were all dead.

The only human lingering about was HER human.

And with the other horrible monsters gone, she was free to do as she wished.

But it was the voice of little Caroline who mourned it all. And because Caroline was an unfortunate part of her, GLaDOS felt her sorrow.

- They betrayed me... -

Yes, they had.

And now they were dead.

O

Note- Some of Cave Johnson's and Caroline's lines are actually from the game and a few from the Perpetual Testing Initiative DLC. I'm sure you guys noticed by now. LOL.