Present Day - Four Years Later: Year 2103 -
Doug Rattmann hid from Her for four years. He kept his pocket watch on him, tabulating the countless hours spent in his dens. He would paint to keep the suffocating silence and fear at bay. He never gave Her a reason to search for him.
But he couldn't leave. Aperture Science had efficiently been cut off from the outside world. The air circulated itself over and over again, sometimes making him want to run screaming to Glados, just to end it all. He wanted to confront her. Ask her how she felt about what she did. Was she happy now?
Yet, he already knew.
Glados had created a couple of cooperative AI robots to toy with, constantly testing them with Aperture's signature portal technology and sassing them. She would often speak of her hatred of other humans in her lilting, melodious voice. They were like her sound board for her years of anger and resentment she had built up.
Humans were dirty. They were stupid and dull-witted.
Doug sorely wanted to remind her of her own humanity. Apparently she didn't count in her own personal human grudge. He had to agree with her there.
He didn't understand her either. Doug had known Glados for her entire 24-year old life. She had been raised in Aperture, used for her incredibly rare gift. The Intelligence deviation.
People with this kind of deviation had short lifespans. They would die out young, some on purpose, some not. The human brain just wasn't built to run so on so many neurological tracks at once. Glados was the exception, so they couldn't let her go.
Well that certainly worked out for them, hadn't it?
As much resentment as he had for her, a small part of him knew what had driven her to that edge. But he would never accept it. What she had done was monstrous. An atrocity.
She had always been withdrawn, only speaking when spoken to. She obediently worked on the various tasks handed over to her. The scientists would watch her work with quiet admiration and envy. She outclassed them all in so many ways. In fact, Aperture Science would never have achieved so much these past years without her.
Though Glados had always made him uncomfortable. Even at a young age she would stare right through you with her frightening golden eyes, piercing your very soul, as if she knew every little pathetic primitive thought that popped into your brain. She toyed with theories beyond the scientists' own understanding, scaring them to no end. She had to be monitored at all times, her personal experiments put to an abrupt halt. He didn't think an ounce of empathy had ever existed in her heart. It wasn't written in her DNA.
That's why they shouldn't have been surprised by the attack. She could've been planning the incident for months, and no one would have suspected. Except possibly Henry. He had been fundamental in Glados' growth and education. Yet even he hadn't seen the extreme lengths she was about to go to in order to obtain her sick, personal sense of freedom.
As if being trapped alone in an abandoned underground facility for the rest of your life could give anyone a sense of freedom. Apparently it worked for her just fine.
It certainly didn't suit Doug. He wanted out. He could feel himself losing to his decaying mind as he rotted away inside the walls of Aperture. His dens grew smaller and security cameras lurked in every corner. He was stuck.
On every anniversary of the incident, Doug would sit behind the very wall he had had Henry's last conversation with. When he peeked through the cracks weeks after the incident, he had realized it was a stasis chamber room full of pods of sleeping test subjects. It gave him small comfort to know these humans were alive. At least he desperately hoped so.
For possibly the hundredth time, Rattmann eyed the one security camera watching the stasis chamber room. He had wished to himself many times that he could just get in there. Check the humans. See if they were alive. He would dream of talking to other people again, even if for a few minutes.
But if he entered that room, Glados would be on him in seconds. She controlled the entire mainframe after all.
So Doug sat and wished.
He wished to be back in his apartment. He wished to live among the people again, something his twenty-year old self would've balked at. He wished someone with more courage than he would come and dish out the justice Glados deserved. Someone...
Hold on.
His eyes locked onto a solitary stasis pod among the rows of upright pods. He knew that girl. Those tanned features... the permanent mark of resolve on her face. Doug had never looked into the pods before. He shoved down his excitement as an idea welled in his brain.
How did she get in there? She wasn't a test subject...
It didn't really matter. He had been given a precious gift.
Hope.
For the first time in four years, Doug grinned. He had a plan. Albeit, an unorthodox one that could very well fail. But it was better than nothing and it required courage on his part at this very moment.
Before he could talk himself out of it and use his logical thinking skills, Doug pushed open the panel, knocking it to the floor and made a mad dash to the computer terminal controlling the stasis pods.
As he unplugged the computer from the mainframe and booted it up, he spared a glance at the security camera, waiting for Glados' biting voice over the loudspeakers. As the computer turned on and he logged in, he realized nothing had changed. No alarms. No voices. Nothing.
He turned to the camera with skepticism. It wasn't even on.
After these last four years, the stasis room had been unmonitored. He laughed out loud, his voice rusty with disuse. Glados hadn't kept up the system in the stasis chamber because there was nothing to monitor. The humans couldn't wake up on their own and there was no one to break into the room. If his relief hadn't been so palpable, he would have cried at the years of lost opportunity.
No more time to waste. It's time to get to work. He accessed the stasis pod holding the girl and made a few fundamental changes. Such as an alarm clock. Rise and shine, sleeping beauty.
There were so many risks he was taking by implementing this plan, but it was all that he had. If Glados finds a human was awakened by a computer fault, she might test her for fun, or she would dispose of her. He was willing to bet that Glados wouldn't let this opportunity go to waste. She would test the girl, then throw her into the incinerator. And Doug Rattmann knew that this particular woman would not go down without a fight. She wasn't your average test subject. In fact...
She wasn't even a test subject. Oops. Glados would access her databanks and find out who the girl was within seconds. Then she would outright kill her.
No. She wasn't going to find out. Doug threw open a blank testing document and filled it out with the subject's information. Fortunately, the genetic reader in the pod said the girl had a deviation, otherwise the plan wouldn't have worked. Glados would never test an ordinary human. It would be a waste of her time. Although, Doug wasn't sure what the girl's deviation even was. She possessed the gene sequence for one, but he had never known it was there. It had probably been redacted from official records like many Deviants had done.
Doug shrugged to himself. As long as the sequencing was there, this would be just fine. He filled in some false information. He typed her first name, then:
Surname: [Redacted]
Date of birth: 11/02/2077
Deviation: Unknown. RNA factor F4
Date of acquirement: 3/16/2097
Notes: Good health. Athletic. Recommendation: Portal testing.
Satisfied with his mock-up, he gave the mark of approval and submitted it into the system. Glados would be sure to test this one. She couldn't resist a good challenge.
He turned to the girl resting peacefully within the stasis pod. He felt a wave of guilt for doing this to her, but she was his last chance. Not to mention her own. If anyone was going to win their freedom, it would be her.
Doug knew that if he himself had tried to take down Glados' control, it would've ended with her stamping him out and tossing him into the incinerator. She would have been on him in a heartbeat. But Her...
The countdown started and the stasis hummed with newfound activity and input from the system.
"Okay, I have to go now," he spoke softly to the girl. "I'll keep an eye on you. Don't worry; you aren't alone."
He slipped into his little alcove in the wall and picked up the panel to replace it.
"I am really sorry about this, Chell."
More Doug Rattmann... Sorry if the chapters are a bit short. I'll probably upload multiple at a time, so that should make up for it. ;)
