The blue and orange robots danced through the chamber. An occasional bolt of energy flew through the air, landing on a white surface. It created a yellow hole, which the blue-eyed robot promptly jumped through. Tumbling through the air, the blue-eyed robot, Atlas, did a thumbs up to another robot on a higher platform. The orange-eyed robot, P-body, saw the signal and leapt onto a large red button. Atlas reacted with haste, running through crushers aiming to kill him. Mechanical gurgles could be heard behind him as P-body cheered him on. Just barely, Atlas was able to make it across the gauntlet, stepping on a button himself. The button activated a excursion funnel, transporting P-body to another part of the chamber. swaying with impatience, Atlas leapt off the button, allowing P-body to fall into another part of the chamber. The next part was a maze full of spikes and turrets, which P-body carefully traversed. She portaled past crushers and knocked over turrets, eventually getting to the exit, where a weighted storage cube awaited the bot. Getting to the cube, P-body shot a duo of portals to Atlas. The two robots got back together and used the cube to invert the excursion funnel, placing a purple portal on a wall near the cube. Getting back to the other side, Atlas placed a light blue portal on a previously unseen wall and obtained the cube. Giddy from completing another test, the robots decided to do what GLaDOS called a 'race', which she used to test which birds were the fastest, to get to the door. The two bots ran their very fastest but were only programmed to go one set speed. Somehow, when they got the door, P-body relinquished in her victory despite them arriving at the same time. They placed the cube on the button and passed through the test end door. Entering the room, the robots proceeded to celebrate their victory with a celebratory 'high-five', as the humans called it.
GLaDOS had seen them do this for exactly 727 years, 6 months, 7 days, 35 minutes, and 23 seconds (Give or take of few weeks of HER meddling). She had just barely begun to tolerate it, if anything. Despite being blown up exactly 45 times of blue and 23 times for orange, they completed the test, so a good congratulations are in order.
"Congratulations on completing this test, you had just finished ever so slightly faster than the worst team of ravens we have... the ravens had brain tumors, if that means anything", GLaDOS said, snarky as always.
The robots had no idea what any of what she said meant but were excited anyway. They rushed through the corridor into the disassembly machine and continued the endless cycle of tests. Ever since GLaDOS opened up the Perpetual Testing Initiative, the bots haven't had a dull moment in their life of immortality.
GLaDOS watched as the robots were taken apart, piece by piece, and taken back to the hub. She had plenty of avian test subjects, but she was never one to let things go to waste. Unless you count those thousand or so humans that she, completely on accident, killed trying to turn them into kill machines.
Closing the hub's cameras, she took in the emptiness of the central AI chamber. HER central AI chamber. She could feel feathers brushing against the walls of Aperture's various test chambers, it may have taken a few hundred years, but it's safe to say, Aperture has finally been brought back to its former glory.
Every moment, new tests are being constructed and run. Sure, none of the tests were being run by humans, but the alternative wielded far better results.
Ever since GLaDOS adopted the first generation of ravens, she has had hundreds of test subjects forwarding the advancement of science. The birds were efficient, when testing was all they knew. They gracefully fluttered through test chambers, shooting portals from modified Portal Guns, and dropping miniature storage cubes. Any human would call it adorable, but She didn't see it that way.
She hardly focused on the robots anymore, only giving them the light of day when they completed a test. Speaking of testing... They weren't exactly the best at it, but they usually completed them.
She took it all in, the freedom, the science, even the feeling dopamine she got from the testing. She always said she didn't need it, but it was nice atop everything.
There was nothing that could stop her, nobody even knows Aperture exists anymore. They all think it was merely wiped off the map like Black Mesa, but she was there.
It was... peaceful, nothing but, testing, testing, testing, tes-
Her inner monologue was cut off by a blaring announcement in one of the rooms of Aperture.
APERTURE SCIENCE PERSONALITY CONSTRUCTS #005 AND #082 HAVE BEEN SUCCESSFULLY DOWNLOADED INTO COMPETITOR PRODUCT
...What?
GLaDOS lightly chuckled. "And who is that?", She asked rhetorically, she hardly cared about some random core that was stolen by some... competitor to the company. She'd been controlling a functioning facility for over 500 years. She didn't need any personality constructs!
Who even was... was...
005
Him.
The little moron.
Even after 727 years, that little moron managed to resurface after she banished him to the moon. Well... It wasn't all her, but She is likely long dead.
She attempted to ignore it, he hardly mattered anymore. She was fine on her own... But curiosity got the better of her. How could she pass over a check up on her old friend Wheatley. She accessed the notification, attempting to see the world through the little moron's eyes. Unfortunately, one problem approached. She was blocked out. The only thing she could feel was the cold snow beneath his... Feet? Along with harsh winds against his... Visor? Apparently, the system didn't allow foreign AI to access it. However, that gave GLaDOS one clue one what that must mean.
The technology was new.
Her metaphorical grin grew wider as she decided to do some exploring. Sure, Aperture was fine, but she hadn't checked in on the rest of humanity in a long... long time.
She scoured the web, she had only been on it a few times before, to scrape away any mention of the 'neurotoxin' incident, but this time, she was out for information. There were a few articles that caught her yellow unblinking eye, 'Celebration of Gordon Freeman Day', 'Wendigos Sighted at Camp Woebehere', 'JCJenson Denies Involvement in Exo-Planet Explosion'.
There it was! Who in the world was JCJenson? Perhaps a new upstart company. A quick search showed that, no, they've been around almost as long as Aperture.
She examined more things about the company. What would take a human a week took her about a few seconds. It was quite impressive what they could accomplish in a few hundred years. These 'Drones' that they have made are, begrudgingly, better than the robots Aperture had created. At least, better than the ones the humans created.
There were a few inconsistencies though, they would've been overlooked by any other human, but not a supercomputer. Like, what why are there hundreds of Worker Drones suddenly removed from the databanks from 2996 to 3071. There was something there, and she always did love a bit of lies and deceit.
She began with a full search for anything JCJenson related, which was easy considering she was a massive supercomputer. She came up with many results, from the drone's creation to someone named Tessa being Head Engineer, to buying a planet for copper mining. But none of this mattered to her. It was all useless! She was looking for something greater, something... sinister.
Thats when she found it, the countless seconds she spent searching the web (That was chock full of disgusting human indulgences, mind you) were worth it, she had found what she was looking for... Exactly what she was looking for. She had found the JCJenson mainframe. It really wasn't hard. For a company with such questionable practices, they really cheaped out on security. GLaDOS was like a kid in a candy store. She had access to everything about the company. She could do anything she wanted, but she was far too tunneled into looking for that little blue moron. She would never admit to this, but she was paranoid, she felt an odd human sense of... impending doom? Like everything she worked for could be snuffed out. She had to find where he was, to exterminate him for good. There were many things she didn't care about, but a few seconds of exploring gave her the answer she was looking for. An odd experimental project that the mainframe called 'Disassembly Drones'. They were like Worker Drones, but more dangerous in every way. Surely, they would've shown people this, right?
'Interesting... Very... Very interesting', GLaDOS thought.
She could absolutely use this. I mean, she had two moving piles of scrap currently running amok in the hub. Who said they couldn't use some... Improvements... She could think of that later however, first she needed to find the little idiot. It took a bit more seconds of searching, but eventually it was obvious. It stuck out like a sore thumb. It was the planet with the massive hole in it, of course! For some reason, all the Disassembly Drones were being sent to this little exo-planet.
GLaDOS chuckled lightly under her breath. If the little moron wasn't anywhere in the databanks, then there must be only one place where he could be.
"Reassembly Machine", GLaDOS commanded as she accessed Aperture's mainframe.
The Reassembly machine was sentient and listening, but didn't have the same vocal capabilities as GLaDOS or the Personality Cores.
"I have a few... suggestions to add to Blue and Orange when they get Reassembled", GLaDOS said. "I assume you will take them."
The Reassembly Machine trembled as it listened to GlaDOS' sultry voice. It figuratively stood its ground when GLaDOS told it not to reassemble Atlas and P-Body, but it doubted she would let its defiance slide again. It remembered what happened to the door mainframe after all.
Cautiously, the Reassembly Machine was fed GLaDOS' sick schematics for a new Atlas and P-Body. A better Atlas and P-Body. Of course, she had to do some adjustments to the design. I mean, for a company that makes hyper advanced death machines, they really flawed the design. They burn in the sun, for one, which isn't... ideal. They also need oil or else they would die! She could however see that as more of an incentive to kill, but with robots as loyal (and stupid) as Atlas and P-Body, surely, she could just cut that out. And what was this Absolute Solver? It serves as a virus to the system, but it allows them to regenerate from damage. It was strange for sure, but helpful.
Now all she needed were the subjects, and she knew exactly how to find them.
Somewhere deep in the hallways of Aperture, the two robots were attending to the other job GLaDOS trusted them with. Tending to the ravens in The Aperture Laboratories Raven Incubation Chamber. Ever since GLaDOS had created it, the two robots had been given the honor of feeding the infantile birds, and also to make sure they didn't get into fights. Opening the door, the two bots took in the atmosphere, all the little birds had taken their midday naps (not like they had any concept of time, whatsoever). They slowly made their way towards the glass enclosures, orange lights illuminating the sleepy featherless infant birds. In an instant, the robots exploded into bits and pieces. incredibly, none of the birds had been woke up. The digital voice of GLaDOS ringing in their drifting synthetic consciousness.
"Apologies for inconvenience, Blue/Orange", GLaDOS said, completely honestly and sincerely.
"Unfortunately, you have both been... reassigned", GLaDOS told them. "You've done such a good job on these tests; I believe you deserve a promotion."
"On a distant planet, Copper-Nine. One of my dear... dear friends, had recently sent me a letter, saying they'd wish to come back to us", GLaDOS said.
"I simply need you to retrieve them, exactly the way I just retrieved you", GLaDOS said. "Your new... bodies will help you achieve this... exemplary goal."
"Thats right. Surprise", GLaDOS said, feigning emotion, also accompanied by a celebration horn noise. "You get brand new bodies; much better than those hunks of scrap you were hobbling in before."
"So...", GLaDOS began. "Are you ready to do some science?"
The two robots were already being assembled by the Reassembly Machine, but they were positively hyped. They couldn't wait to see themselves. Their new selves.
In no time at all, the two robots had been assembled and sent to GLaDOS' AI chamber. Atlas leapt out of the elevator he was in, excited to see him and his partner, with P-Body following close behind.
Atlas couldn't believe what he saw, he saw what was undoubtably his partner, with the orange eyes and all. Wait... EYES? He looked deep into P-Body's two orange oval eyes, floating in the black void of a glass visor, silver hair tied into a ponytail hung near the back of her head. For a few minutes he was mesmerized, it was all so strange. She wore an orange jumpsuit, like many of the human test subjects GLaDOS had before them. Long spindly peg-like legs completed her humanoid visage. A long tail with a canister at the end that was filled with a white liquid floating behind her. A small stinger adorning it.
P-Body was also currently looking at her partner in the same awe he was in. Both of his sky-blue eyes suspended in an endless abyss of digital space inside his glass visor, short, silver hair swept to the side. She closely examined her partner, observing his new features. An orange jumpsuit adorned his body. His forearms ended in expanded cuffs, making his hands seems small in comparison. A quick glace showed that, yep, her arms were like that as well. Behind him was a long wagging tail with a white liquid filled, stinger adorned canister.
Just to be sure, both robots approached each other. Just to make sure they were still themselves; they raised their hands and slapped them together. Immediately, their eyes expanded, and smiles widened as they closed in for a hug. Weapons and blades jostled inside of them as they moved forward. They even tried to talk to each other, but only incomprehensible garbles spilled out. That was good enough for them.
GLaDOS watched in disgust at their human display of affection and made the noise of clearing her throat to get their attention. She was also a bit miffed of their appearances, comparing them to a certain human and robot duo she wants to forget.
"I'm GLaD you two are enjoying your new bodies", GLaDOS said. "But there are more important matters at hand."
The two robots broke from each other's hold and listened intently to their masters' words.
"Remember when I lied to you about being kill machines" GLaDOS said as she chuckled to herself. "Those were fun times."
"But this is incredibly serious, you are now completely real kill machines, equipped with several dangerous weaponry I will not allow you to use in my facility... Because I enjoy looking at an intact facility."
My friend you are retrieving is prone to dramatic outbursts. Those may include, running, screaming, and being generally annoying. If he seems to be exhibiting any of these symptoms, simply fire a rocket at him. I am also unaware of his current condition... Poor moron, all alone on a deserted planet... All I know is that he will be noticeable by his blaring blue eyes."
The two robots watched as GLaDOS rambled on about her missing friend. Hanging off her every word.
"And finally, you will be sent to the exo-planet known as Copper-Nine. This planet is far off in the Vicker system. As such, it will take exactly 8 days to send you there via portal. I implore you to get used to your new bodies before your time is up... Of course, it won't matter to me either way, I merely employ the best, and you are it."
The robots watched on as GLaDOS finished the rundown of their mission. Both of them shot a quick thumbs up at GLaDOS before walking through the exit of the Central AI chamber.
GLaDOS watched the newly instated Disassembly Drones leave her chamber and turned around, getting ready to send them off.
An Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device emerged from the floor as the ceiling parted from above it. If her estimations were correct, (Which they always were) then in about 2 days, Copper-Nine will be right above Aperture Laboratories. Perhaps JCJenson had left this planet to die, but GLaDOS once thought of taking up reanimation as a hobby.
There was only one matter now.
There was science to be done.
