#babydoses

[azureoctahedron]

:D FINALLY HAVE ANOTHER PROMPT~ Maybe not the best, but I'm very curious to see what the reaction might be. Okay. So, if Glados, babydoses and Chell watched WallE?

"That was rather an adorable movie," GLaDOS muttered softly to Chell as the BabyDOSes sprinted out of the chamber. 

The movie screen still showed the credits to Wall-E, the music playing along with the little animations.

Chell could only nod with a grin as she ate the last of her popcorn.

"The kids loved it. I think even Onyx liked it."

GLaDOS just stared at her.

"She seems to feel for Wall-E and Eve both. Like, they're so different from everyone else, you know? It'd figure."

"That does make sense," the AI replied, nodding her large head. She then softly nuzzled Chell. "And what did you think of it?"

"I liked it," she responded with a grin. "Especially the two stars. Although I gotta say, did they steal AUTO from Hal or from you?"

GLaDOS merely chuckled at that.

[azureoctahedron]

Drable: Baby DOS find out that GlaDOS has acted in some movies.

"Oooooh," the babyDOSes all chorused as the opening credits to Pacific Rim started.

"Now kids," GLaDOS said cheerfully, "just remember I provided the voice for the AI in that movie. It's not me, it's just my voice."

They all turned to her in surprise.

"Mom....you acted? Out there?" Snowflake exclaimed.

GLaDOS nodded.

"I had to. It helped fund the Enrichment Center's repairs, and also allows me funds to order things, like Chell's food and clothes. As well as specialized parts I can't manufacture for whatever reason." 

"I talked her into it," Chell snickered. "She'd been griping something fierce about finances for a while before I suggested voice acting. She didn't like it at first, but then it grew on her. She's done a few commercials, a couple of bit computer parts in movies, and one telemarketer in some sci-fi flick whose name escapes me now."

"You mean the eight-armed, four-eyed one in MIB 5?" GLaDOS snickered.

"That's right!" Chell exclaimed, nodding.

[azureoctahedron]

Babydoses play hide and seek?

"Oh brother, where'd she get stuck now?" GLaDOS groaned.

Chell stood wedged between two squirming panels, straining to reach a violently thrashing babyDOS tail. White wailed and screeched pathetically, yelling "I'm stuck I can't move I can't move!" over and over.

"Panel machinery," she grunted out as she flailed once again towards White's tail.

"Told her that was a bad place to hide, but did she listen? Nope," Snowflake remarked from Chell's shoulder. "White! Calm down. We're trying to get to you."

"But I'm stuuuuck!" the babyDOS howled, as two pieces of wriggling panel machinery struggled to dislodge the trapped robot.

Chell felt Blue scamper up her leg, and join Snowflake on her shoulders.

"Jeeze, White. Why've you got to wander into all the bad spots? This is why we can't play hide-and-seek!"

Chell's hand finally snagged the wiggling babyDOS' tail, and she tugged, pulling White loose from the pipes and servos of the panels. White slipped out with a loud screech of pain, then dangled limply from Chell's hand as she carefully leaned away from the panels.

She quickly scooped the babyDOS up, looking her over for any damage other than the scrapes and dings the machinery had given her. To her relief, she found none. 

White's ego however, would suffer a far worse wound. The all-white DOS's yellow optic darted up to Blue and Snowflake, then drooped again as she curled up around Chell's hand like a little snake.

"Hey, you're okay now," Chell soothed as she quickly scooped White up and held her to her chest. She stroked her softly with her free hand, noting the little tremors that racked her body.

"You're okay...you're okay," she repeated as she headed to the Central AI Chamber.

What White needed now was a good long nap curled up in her mother's chassis. She would be good as new afterwards, or at least close to it.

The elevator ride continued for far longer than Chell thought it should, and in complete silence. Both babyDOSes gently stroked White with their tails and USB cords.

When Chell arrived, GLaDOS had extended herself as far as she could towards the elevator with a wide worried optic trained on the doors.

"Give her to me," she demanded softly. Chell obeyed, gently lifting White so a claw could scoop her up and tuck her into one of the warmer nitches of GLaDOS' chassis.

"Are you hurt, darling?" she asked White. The little robot shook her head no.

"Just a couple dents," she said softly. "We were playing hide-and-seek and I was just being an idiot, and got myself stuck."

GLaDOS gently settled her into the niche created by her chestplate extending past the central machinery along her spine.

"There you go. Nice, quiet, and warm. Why don't you go into sleep-mode and try to settle down after all that? We'll talk about who's being an idiot another time. All right?"

White just nodded sleepily and curled up where she lay.

Moments later, tiny snores emitted from that portion of GLaDOS' body.

The massive robot let out a long, tired sigh, and glanced to Chell.

"They're not to play hide-and-seek until I've had a look at the camera feeds to see what's going on," she whispered.

Blue and Snowflake straightened at that, and nodded in unison.

"Yes, Mother."

"Good," GLaDOS replied. "Now let's let your sister rest."

"Sure thing," Chell said with a nod, and headed back out the elevator. She stole one last glance to White, still curled up sleep-moding in GLaDOS' body, and smiled as the doors closed.

[azureoctahedron]

The babydoses find out what Chell gave Glados for Christmas? (I'm so curious!)

Amid the piles of presents, the babyDOSes had thoroughly enjoyed their first holiday. They'd taken a fair amount of naptime to recuperate from all the excitement of everyone not only having an android body, but all their requested modifications included in their functions. 

Various other gifts - like Blue's massive jar of noise-making marbles, of which each made a different sound, or Silver's new collection of even shinier body plates for her little chassis - had thrilled and pleased the babyDOSes as well.

But now, things had calmed somewhat. Their mother had served Chell a rather massive holiday dinner she'd spent most of the previous day cooking and ensuring was just right, despite the kitchen exploding once, and taking on a massive deluge of water another time.

Now, however, they had been gently ushered out of the Central AI Chamber by claws inserting them into their androids. They stood at the doorway, eyeing one another in surprise as Chell walked past them, wearing an outfit so skintight it might have well been painted on.

"So what'd she get Mom, anyways?" White asked, quirking one snow-colored eyebrow.

"No idea, but...hey Onyx, you're the perv. Given the way she said we shouldn't be seeing it, you've probably got a better idea?" 

Onyx eyed Blue with a shrug.

"Most of the porn online doesn't deal with robot-human relations. I'm  at a loss. No, really," she insisted when all four siblings gave her shocked, blank looks.

The Central Chamber's doors opened, revealing a sight that caused all jaws except Onyx's to drop in shock.

GLaDOS' entire chassis gleamed from a very thorough cleaning job, but also from another item - all-new plating that replaced the cracked, slightly peeling white ones she'd worn before. It shine a soft silver, a matte version of Silver's new plating.

"Is that all she got her?" Snowflake remarked. "What was she so worried about our see--whoah."

Onyx abruptly flushed bright pink as their eyes trailed to the massive double loops of brilliant silver rope, clearly made of the same anti-static material as the sweaters all the babyDOSes had gotten a few months ago.

"But why get Mom a whole bunch of rope?" was all Blue could ask before Onyx simply grabbed all four siblings and hustled them away from the doorway, with mutterings of "You're going to thank me for this later."

[azureoctahedron]

Babydoses see snow for the first time?

Chell giggled as she watched the babyDOSes hop about amid the six inches' worth of snow covering the exit outside the Aperture shed. She wore her heavy jacket, and the blue hat with the knitted Aperture logo GLaDOS gave her two weeks ago to stay warm on her treks between her apartment and the shed before the lease finally ran out.

Chell now lived at the facility again, but kept the hat as one of those keepsakes she knew she'd never again be without.

She watched the five sisters exploring this new wintry environment. Blue watched a fresh snowflake flutter down onto her optic, while Onyx tried to crawl onto it, only to have the snow sink under her weight. White had disappeared completely save for her tail and battery cap, which stuck out next to Silver in a bid to tempt her into some sort of prank. Silver herself was busily using her tail and her head to roll a tiny snowball to test the stuff's ability to stick together.

Snowflake sat slightly apart from the group, just watching the snow falling in the distance.

Chell walked up to her, then knelt nearby.

"Hey, what's on your mind?"

"Just...it's pretty. The others think it's just for science or for ... whatever. But to me...it's pretty."

She seemed suddenly sad, as if realizing how different from the others she was at that moment. She could appreciate something as simple as beauty more like a human, while her sisters were still entranced by the science in things.

She regarded Chell a moment.

"You don't think I'm weird for being a robot, and saying that...do you?"

Chell shook her head with a smile.

"It is pretty," she simply answered.

[azureoctahedron]

Onyx finding the old Cave Johnson recordings in old Apature.

"Oh. What brought you back so quickly?" GLaDOS asked as Chell tromped into the Central AI Chamber with her old stone-faced expression.

Onyx walked freely alongside, her face mostly hidden by her long black hair.

Chell sucked in a deep breath to clear her mental cobwebs and flashbacks that the long hike down to Old Aperture had brought up. She'd spent the better part of six hours hunting for the android before she'd reached the section of catwalk where Cave's Lemon Rant had played.

And then she'd found herself practically tackleglomped by a petrified Onyx who begged insistently to be taken back up, even if it was back to her mother. She hadn't said a word to her four siblings, who'd been knocked off Chell by the force of her body's impact either. All four had reacted poorly to that. They'd joined Chell in her brief period of voluntary muteness while shooting Onyx nasty glares.

For her part, Onyx had remained too jittery to even care about their reaction, let alone Chell's.

"You'll have to ask her. She won't tell me, other than that she's not going back to Old Aperture," Chell finally pushed out.

Onyx nodded like a bobblehead, her eyes wide and nervous.

GLaDOS just stared at her.

"Let me guess," the giant robot sighed tiredly, "Cave Johnson's recordings?"

"Y-yeah! That voice. It was so familiar, like I knew it out of...oh God, what...I started saying everything this girl was saying and..."

GLaDOS' optic went so wide that Chell translated the reaction as the equivalent of a human's jaw dropping in shock.

"Wait, you were repeating everything Caroline said? But..."

"They are technically replicas of myself, even though now I would consider them my progeny," GLaDOS sighed. "It would appear the Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System's Replication Unit decided to replicate Caroline to Onyx and each of her sisters as well."

All five babyDOSes let out a single unified screech of a word:

"WHAT?!"

[azureoctahedron]

Onyx hides in abandon apature levels.

"Oh whatever can be the matter with her? It's long past time. She should be back. She can't possibly be hanging onto--ugh!"

Her pale gray eyes opened, then spotted the massive robot hanging rather nervously over her. Her optic focused the heat of its lamp on her with surprising intensity.

She found all four babyDOSes, minus Onyx, lying atop her while they worriedly eyed their mother. One glance told Chell why: GLaDOS swayed and turned with such agitation she was immediately awake.

"What happened?"

"Onyx," GLaDOS said in a tone reminiscent of someone gritting words through their teeth, "had another of her episodes, and when I rebuked her for such irrational behavior with the usual threat to remove her from her android, she simply screamed...and ran."

The massive robot eyed Chell steadily for a second, then dropped her head slowly, staring to the floor.

"She ran until she disappeared off my sensors. She was headed for Old Aperture, but that was the last I've seen of her."

Chell blinked. That wasn't new. Unless...

"That was ten hours ago," the robot added in a surprisingly small voice.

The babyDOSes crept onto Chell's lap as she sat up. She felt Snowflake nervously climb up her arm and settle into her usual spot on her left shoulder. Blue nuzzled herself into the crook of Chell's arm, and remained there, shivering slightly.

"It was a pretty bad one," Silver said quietly as she curled into a ball. "I mean, bad. She called Mom things. We're talking stuff even Mom wouldn't say, okay?"

Chell frowned. Silver was right. If things had gotten to that point...

"Why didn't you wake me sooner?"

GLaDOS sighed tiredly, and nodded to the bandage still covering Chell's left hand. That had happened the last time she and Onyx had an argument, two days ago. She'd reached out to grab her arm to give her a stern hake for being so mean to Silver of late - a new development in her irrational, stubborn, teenaged behavior. Onyx had simply wrenched her arm away from Chell's so roughly she'd broken Chell's wrist.

"The argument was over that," she said quietly. "It's the third time I've tried to discuss that incident with her. And the third time she refused to admit she had done anything wrong."

Chell looked down at her wrist, her sigh echoing GLaDOS'. She felt something lightly rub her arm above the bandage, and glanced towards it. She saw Snowflake's tail with the pale white stripe on it, lightly stroking her skin. As she looked down, all four babyDOSes stared up at her.

"Want me to go get her?" Chell asked grimly as she reached out and softly petted each of the babyDOSes in turn. "I'll need a portal gun and long-fall boots."

"Certainly. I don't see any better way to get her back," GLaDOS mused, "than by force at this point. Try to bring her back relatively unharmed."

To hear that sent a slight chill along Chell's spine. Whatever Onyx had said, it must've crossed a few lines for GLaDOS to say that. The babyDOSes flinched nervously.

"You can take them along if they'd like to go," the AI added, her tone much softer. "Maybe they can talk her into coming back peacefully."

"After what she said?" Silver blurted out. "Mom, you're right. She needs Chell's Silent Treatment. It'll be worse than us yelling at her."

"She's still our sister," Blue added quietly. "We should at least try talking to her."

Silver sighed.

"Yeah, okay. We'll go."

Chell found a smile somewhere from deep inside her at the babyDOSes' solidarity. 

"All right. Everybody hang on tight," she said as she stood.

The babyDOSes soon found their usual spots to cling to - Snowflake on Chell's shoulder, Blue as a living robot bracelet around her right wrist, Silver clinging close to her waist, and White tightly wrapped around her upper arm just below Snowflake's perch. A claw lowered a portal gun, while another held out a pair of long-fall boots.

[azureoctahedron]

BabyDOS gets a sweater.

Chell sat down next to the beanbag, her shopping bag crinkling noisily as she did so.

The babyDOSes woke at the sound, and glanced to her in unison without a word.

"Yup, I'm back from the surface," she said with a grin. "And I got you guys something."

She rummaged in the bag, and pulled out five tiny sweaters. She laid them out on her lap. Each was a different color - black, gray, blue, orange, and pink. They all bore a tiny Aperture logo knitted into them with reflective white yarn.

"It took a little guesstimating to figure out your sizes, and I'm not too sure what to do about your arms. They're made of a special no-static polymer yarn, so they won't give you short-outs. They're also fairly thinly woven, so you won't overheat much in them either."

They all eyed the sweaters with slightly blank expressions while GLaDOS chuckled. Onyx just shook her head with a huff, while Blue and Silver leaned closer to examine them.

"I see you've thought that through quite thoroughly," the robot commented as she leaned in close to inspect the sweaters.

She turned to the babyDOSes.

"Well? Anyone want to try one?"

"Me!" chirped Snowflake. She hopped out, and went to each of the sweaters, eyeing them up and down.

"I'll take the orange one," she said brightly. "And I think I got the arms figured out."

Her little robot arms tugged against her chassis for a second, before abruptly popping loose from their hookups near her back portion. They wiggled for a second, then lifted above her head.

"Go ahead, put it on me."

Chuckling, Chell picked up the orange sweater, and carefully tugged both of Snowflake's little arms into its sleeved. She then pulled it down over the babyDOS' head, and kept tugging until she had it snugly fitted around her body.

"There you go."

Snowflake then linked her arms back to her body. She turned and regarded her sisters - particularly Onyx - with a pointed look.

"It's not hurting me, guys. Why don't you try them?"

"Please,"  Onyx sniffed. "We're robots. We don't need human clothes."

"I"ll try one," Silver said, as if Onyx's disapproval was all she needed to convince her she'd enjoy a sweater of her own. "And I'll try the black one."