It was hard. After the thorough search of her facility to realize she was, in fact, utterly, and completely alone. The cores were gone. Either by escaping into space, or dying of neglect. Turrets. That was her escape. It was almost pathetic. How smart she began to make them. They had the mental capability of humans.
Impressive in a way. The shutdown did nothing to her extensive knowledge. Even if it was wasted on making guns smart. They were capable of walking, feeling the vibrations of humans, detecting thermal energy, and even detecting heartbeats. This proved to make them one of the most deadly killing machines to ever be programmed. Well, beside her.
Their programming hadn't been just because of how lonely she was. There was a lurking threat. Humans. Interring her facility. At first, she was ecstatic. Testing subjects! Something to get rid of that dreadful itch. It wasn't until she realized that it wasn't just apparently Chell that was out to kill her, that her mood shifted. From excitement, to shock, to anger. A deadly combination of thoughts for the bot.
Turrets began to lurk behind the panels. But they couldn't move them without her authorization. So she had to fix it. Began building them into the panels. In a heartbeat they could swing out and kill the threat.
There was a time when she was the cause of a child's death. Something that made her very core feel pity. It was a sickening feel. So the technology had to become even smarter. Children were not to be shot. It was hard, even for her, to pinpoint all the things to tell the different.
The most obvious would be height. But adults could crouch. So there had to be more. After taking a full day to discover the differences between adults and children, she had made a list. Those below five feet, with fast heart beats, rounded cheeks, large necks, cutesy attire, and childish voices would not be shot. Instead, a companion cube would be given to them before they were led out of the facility.
Eight children died before she could say the programming was complete. If only Caroline didn't inhabit her body. Then this wouldn't even make her bat an eye. But she was, and instead of fighting the being within, she simply listened to her by her. A thing she wouldn't dare admit to any.
It wasn't the camera outside began to show the seasons of fall that GLaDOS realized how long she'd been working. It seemed to have been ages since Chell was her. Another person she didn't want to think of. Irrelevant. The human is probably dead anyway. It was time to get her mind of her.
But it was hard. After that first initial though over her favored test subject, the thoughts just wouldn't go away. What if she wasn't dead? Had one of the turrets killed her? Is she captured? Is she the reason why these humans in black kept attacking her base? Where these her kids that the central core was killing?
They came in, at the most random of moments. Distracting her from work. It was hard to make new test tracks when your mind wonders to an old crush. Mind wondering off to ideas of how Chell would complete these. She was so fast. Graceful, even. Never failing to surprise.
Until Wheatley. That's when it had gone downhill, and the old hatred began to fill her mind again. Chell was pointless to have. Only leading to stress. Stress and cleaning. The woman had never even offered a hand in helping. Just sending cold glares to the camera. The A.I. had almost killed her one of those looks. Couldn't the other understand how easily she could crush that pathetic skull of hers?
Of course she did. But she also knew how GlaDOS would never. Why crush and kill a valuable orphan of your own? It was the smug attitude that made the core desperate for her. No one had stood up to her before. Always choosing to hide behind glass doors. Working her like some kind of machine. Shutting her off when no longer needed.
Optics blinking on, she was ready to begin her day. Running scans. No intrusions. Except now. Not even out of sleep mode for more than five seconds, alarms where blaring. Not that any of those panic sounds were loud enough to make it outside.
It was hard to think through the struggle of red lights, and errors. A faint click echoed through the halls. All turrets alert. Air vents off. Whoever was coming down here was preparing for death.
Wait, hello? No one seemed to be coming through the shaft. It was dead silent. No clicks of guns, or the static rumbling from a walkie-talkie. Just dead silence.
Turning her attention to the outside camera, GLaDOS was speechless. No. It couldn't be. Anyone but this pathetic human. She was alive. She was back. She was well. None of it made sense. How could this happen? The annoying little human should've been dead days ago. Far from her, and rotting in some field. But here she was, sitting pathetically outside the shed.
This is it. This was her chance. Time to try out her new mobile body. To go up there. Make her come in. Scream. Scream and tell her how pathetic she was. No, that was too much. Bring her down and make her test. But that would be a lie. This human would never test a day in her life again.
She would be hoarded. Kept as the A.I's companion. But none of that would happen if she didn't move. Shutting down her central core, she abruptly switched systems.
There was a feeling of dread. This was an untested model. Failure was possible. She was dead. That's it. There was no way this was going to work.
Or so she thought until the brutal light beamed down on her new optics. Oh, good. She could still feel Aperture moving around her. Everything checked out. Mobile system was a success. Now for a test drive.
Hoping off the little pedestal her android body had been on, she collapsed. Walking wasn't her forte. It took her a second to adjust enough to get back on her feet. Wobbling back and forth. Like a pathetic little toddler. It was downright embarrassing, and she was glad the human wasn't here to witness it.
Seconds of fumbling around on the ground passed. A good two minutes having gone by before she was in the shaft. Sending up the tube as fast as she could. Grabbing onto the handle laid before her so she wouldn't fall again.
Ignoring the steady stream of feeds, she prepared herself for meeting Chell. It made her new heart thunder. This body was too human. It was startling. Finally, she was up. The elevator slid open, and she stared at Chell.
It was easy to read her expression on that pristine body. It was so lifelike. Almost hard to tell that she was human. Well, it would be, if she wasn't bone white. White hair, white face. The white beautifully clashed with her black boots, gloves, and Aperture logos.
Black shadows moving in. So she lunged straight for her. Shoving the woman behind her messily. Up, back into the shed.
The bullets dotted her beautiful figure, blood like substance running down her abdomen and legs. The shadows moved in, trying to aim better shots. Most of which hooked GLaDOS, as any damage to her precious tester would mean her failure. But she could only take so much before she slammed the door, shove Chell into the elevator, and order its descent.
Once feeling safe, and confident with Chell back in her grasp, she slouched against one of the walls. “Hello, and welcome to Aperture Science Laboratories. We’ve been expecting your return. We are currently experiencing attack. Please do not move unless instructed. We are trying to quarantine the threat.”
