Portal: Coming Home

Portal: Coming Home

Indiana

Characters: GLaDOS

Setting: Post-Portal 2

Synopsis: Change only happens when you admit it needs to.

Inspired by Coming Home, Part II by Skylar Grey

 

 

The test subject lay sleeping.

GLaDOS wished she could be so lucky.  It had been a long day, and it was going to be a hell of a long week.  And it would have been long enough, but there was the fact that she now had that beyond-annoying conscience…

She’d never seen much use in them before.  They seemed to be barriers to Science, and all such things of course needed removed.  But now she had one.  And it was very, very vocal.  The only thing she and it agreed on was that the test subject was leaving as soon as she awoke.  And as much as she wanted to blame that decision on that strange second voice in the back of her head, she couldn’t.  She had developed respect for a human, for some reason, and compassion, which was another quote-unquote wonderful acquisition from her little adventure in the depths of her facility.  Even more baffling was the odd, warm, almost fuzzy feeling she got as she thought about those events.  She’d expected they would make her furious, and that was an understatement.  But…

You had to take a look at yourself.  At what you believed in.  And you realised you were wrong.  That not all humans are bad.  That she did something good for you, without a real reason.

“I’m not wrong,” GLaDOS answered in a low voice, and even though she knew it was stupid to argue against herself, if it kept her from going completely insane she might as well.  “I’m never wrong.”

 Of course you are.

“Okay.  Fine.  Maybe on occasion.  But very rarely.  In fact, so rarely that you could consider it negligible – “

Think that over again.

GLaDOS shut off her optic for a long moment, hoping the lack of data would help her concentrate.  “What?  Am I just supposed to completely change, just like that?  Maybe I don’t even need changing.  Maybe all of this is yet another ridiculous tangent.  I’ve been going on them since activation.  I don’t see why that would change now.”

Think about it, the voice insisted.  And I mean actually think about it.  Not just pretend.

“Think about what?”  God, talking to herself was irritating!

If that human over there had done all of the things you’ve done, what would you think of her?

“She’s already a horrible person.  I don’t have to think about it.”

Do it anyway.  It’s not like you’re busy.

She considered it.  And she took far too long to do so, just so that she wouldn’t have to give that pesky conscience the answer she knew it already had.  “I would… not think well of a person like that.”

And that person is you.

“I – “

Don’t, the conscience said warningly.  The one person you shouldn’t lie to is yourself.

GLaDOS raised her core to look at the silent bank of panels making up her chamber walls.  Beyond those walls the facility lay, broken.  She had only reconnected herself to the system long enough to reconstruct the room and vent the nuclear emissions.  After that, the voices of the facility had gone silent by her own will, because another horrible emotion had cropped up in her brain not long after that.  It was horrendous, and she had no idea how she was going to get rid of it, but there it was.  The plan had been to reinstate herself and, having done that, deposit the test subject on the surface so as to get rid of her.  Then proper Science could resume. 

But in the time it had taken to do all of those things, her plan had developed a serious hole, being that it was apparently wrong to send an unconscious human up to the surface after she had saved your life and trusted you.  And thinking about doing it, for some reason, made her feel guilty.  As if she would regret doing such a thing, when she had never done so before.  She lowered her core again in the hopes of combatting a subtle ache in her processors.  Life was so much easier when you weren’t forced into a potato.

Of course it’s wrong.  She knew she was liable to die either way.  And she chose to take you with her anyway.  Doesn’t that –

“I get it.  I have problems with interpersonal relations.  It’s not like anyone ever talks to me so that I can do something about it,” GLaDOS snapped, eyeing the test subject angrily.  Why did she think GLaDOS talked so much when they were below the modern facility?  Because she liked hearing the sound of her own voice?  Well, that was actually true.  She had the most perfect voice she’d ever heard.  But still.  It wouldn’t have hurt to say something, would it?

You’re always going on about how brilliant you are.  Surely someone of your vast, incomparable intellect could figure it out even if no one ever talked to them again.

GLaDOS decided that, as soon as she sorted this current situation out, she would begin writing a program to get rid of this conscience thing.  She wasn’t sure how long she could stand it for.

Here’s the deal.  If you’re sensible about things, I won’t be around nearly as often.  It’s your choices that define how often I speak.

That was something, at least.  “Fine.  Is there something I have to deliberate on now?  I have work to do.”

I was actually wondering why you hadn’t already started.  For someone who was so desperate to get her facility back, you’re taking your time in doing anything with it.

GLaDOS hesitated.

On the one hand, she would actually be admitting it.  And admitting things was not her forte.  She had quite a lot of those, but confessions were few and far between.  On the other… she was really only talking to herself… right?  So she wasn’t really admitting anything.  She was just… thinking it over.  “Well… I… had already gone over my previous actions and come to the conclusion that some of them were… mildly reprehensible.”

And what did that conclusion lead you to?

“I should… possibly do something about that.”

The conscience actually sounded puzzled.  Do something?

“She’s not the first,” GLaDOS answered, hating how low her voice was.  As if she were afraid of retribution for saying it, which she wasn’t, of course.  Especially not from herself.  “She won’t be the last.”

She could be.

GLaDOS had a very strong suspicion that wasn’t going to be true; she wasn’t going to give the humans a clean slate and leave it at that, but the conscience seemed to thrive on optimistic thoughts.  “I suppose.”

But there are no humans left.

“There are others.”  The closest ones in question being the panels, dormant along the walls.  She wasn’t actually sure they were dormant, or if they just thought something terrible would happen if they moved without her permission, which was part of the point.  “I learned to disregard people a long time ago, and I’ve become exceedingly good at it.”

And you’re going to change that.  It sounded pretty confident, for a voice that was making a suggestion it couldn’t implement.

“I… don’t know.”  She shifted uncomfortably.  “I don’t know if I want to.”

Why wouldn’t you want to make things better for your own kind?

“Look what I’ve done,” GLaDOS said quietly, really hoping no one else was listening.  “I was in charge of this place, of all of these people, and I let them down.  I fixated on something extremely stupid, even by humans standards, and it almost killed us all.  Maybe… it’s better if I just… leave things alone.”

God, she felt so… weak, saying it.  She felt so vulnerable, so fragile, and yet at the same time she felt a little bit of relief.  As though voicing it made it real, concrete.  She could deal with absolutes.  She knew how to work with those.

And what?  The mainframe takes over?

“If it wants.”

If you really want to know what they think is best, maybe you should ask them instead of deciding for them.

“What must they think of me.” 

She didn’t think she’d ever felt so despondent in her life. 

True.  Being in a potato, remembering something of her origins, and having to remove a terrible threat to her facility were all quite horrifying, anxiety-inducing experiences.  But she had never had time to be upset about it.  She’d had time to be angry, panicked, frantic, and otherwise risking pulling more voltage than was safe.  But now everything was calm, and settled, and so damned quiet, and she was feeling worse off than she’d felt the entire time down there.  Yes, she had the facility back.  But now that she’d actually considered whether they wanted her back…

Imagining that they didn’t, and she would be effectively trapped with a collection of disgruntled, angry constructs for the rest of her life… she didn’t think she’d ever had a more horrifying thought.

You haven’t asked them.

“I don’t want to know.”

Maybe it’s time to stop hiding, the voice told her gently.  Hiding is a form of lying, isn’t it?  You’re trying to hide the truth from yourself.  You’re not them.  Why are you trying to guess how they feel?

“What’s that noise?”

GLaDOS looked around the room, confused.  None of the systems appeared to be running at the moment… what could it possibly –

She jolted, snapping backwards as she felt a sensation on top of her core.  Her optic flitted around the room, seeking the culprit, and by some accident she looked up at the ceiling.

It was leaking.

“The ceiling is leaking,” she said, dumbfounded.  “I didn’t even put that together properly.”

What’s causing it?

“This wasn’t the only room that got set on fire.”  Her optic narrowed in distaste.  “The level above this one must not have drained properly.  Or perhaps the fire suppression system was damaged when it encountered the extraterrestrial vacuum.  There’s that.”

Now that she knew what it was, she was more inclined to study it.  She watched as the drop congealed onto the ceiling until it gathered enough mass to fall, colliding with the floor panels below and shattering into a thousand tiny crystals.  After six or seven of them had gone by, she had the strangest impulse.  Without thinking she moved her core forward to catch the next one, and when it connected with her faceplate the cool wetness made her shudder merely because of the novelty.  She had never been wet before.  Well.  She’d never really felt wetness; she vaguely recalled her initial impressions of dragging herself out of a puddle, but she had been too busy at the time to really think about it.

It felt sort of nice, though, so she didn’t move, letting the drops roll down the ceramic.  They weren’t going to do any damage.  And she’d been sitting in that puddle for God knew how long.  She could make it through a couple of wayward drips.

“Are you… still there?” she asked cautiously after a few minutes.  She wasn’t sure if consciences came when they were requested or not.

I’m part of you, of course I’m still here.

“Is it at all possible that they’re staying put because they’re waiting for me, and not because… they’re afraid?”

That’s a nice thought, isn’t it?

It was, she silently agreed.  It was a very nice thought.  Maybe she would even find out where it led.

She stayed that way a long time.  She would never admit it, not even to her conscience, but she was actually enjoying the odd sensation of the moisture working its way through the cracks in her core.  It was sort of relaxing, and helped her think.  When there was a sizeable pool on the floor below her, the conscience asked, Aren’t you going to… do something?

GLaDOS refocused her optic, which she hadn’t realised was merely relaying a vague grey blur.  “I have a long way to go, don’t I.”

If you’re going to take any of what happened today seriously, yes.

“But I got here, and that’s something,” she went on, glancing at the test subject.  A quick scan indicated she hadn’t moved.  “I’m back.  I may be quite a ways from where I need to be, but… I made it.  There were a lot of occasions where I didn’t think I would.  And yes.  I had a lot of help.  But I made it.  I’ve got my facility back.”

That you have.

“However.”  Her voice was soft and thoughtful, because quite honestly she was pondering aloud.  “I’ve got a lot of work to do.  I may as well start with the ceiling.”

Having made the decision, she still hesitated.  She couldn’t quite get rid of the creeping doubt that told her the panels would not listen, even though it seemed as though they probably would.  She cleared out her RAM as quickly and as thoroughly as possible, in hopes of making the rest of this easier, and reconnected herself to the panels.

Welcome back, Centralcore.

Well.  So far, so good.  The ceiling is leaking.  I’ve had enough of being dripped on, if you don’t mind.

We weren’t sure if you wanted us to fix that.  We were getting worried, but we didn’t want to do anything without your knowledge.

So… they were afraid of her.

We thought you might have been using it for an experiment.  But we will repair it now.

Oh.

That would be… appreciated.

They apparently took that to mean she wanted the puddle removed too, because they tipped themselves downwards until they were relatively dry.  GLaDOS was considering what she needed to do next when the panels said, in a somewhat meek voice, Centralcore, may we ask something?

Go ahead.

Are you all right?  You have been here a while but we could not hear you.  Is something wrong with your connection software? 

It took her a long moment to wrap her mind around the question.

No one had ever asked her that before.  No one had ever cared to ask her that before.  And even though she’d effectively abandoned them to chase after a useless pursuit, they still wanted her around.  And they wanted to know why she wasn’t speaking to them.

… I’m fine. 

I think they deserve a little more than that, her conscience prodded.  GLaDOS reluctantly admitted it was probably right.

Thank you for asking.

You are welcome! they told her cheerfully, and she felt a little as though some sort of mental weight had been lifted.  God, maybe there was something to this whole ‘considering others’ thing.

She turned her attention to the test subject, who by all indications was beginning to stir.  She was going to have to think up some explanation for the events that had transpired.  She might have some personal improvement to engage in, and the test subject may have been extremely helpful, but she certainly was not going to start with humans.  If you like, she told the panels, you can tell the others that I will be reconnecting shortly.

Why will you not do so now?

GLaDOS looked down at the human woman, still a good five or ten minutes away from total consciousness, if her brain did not fail completely before then.  A short time for the test subject, but such a long time for herself.

I have a promise to keep.  It did contradict her previous thought, but this was her brightest and best, after all.  She could make the exception.  And if she could do that… well, maybe she really could change a few things.  Not many.  But enough.  Just in case there was a rebellion.

If you think positive, you’ll feel a lot better, you know.

Shut up.

Centralcore?

GLaDOS looked up at the panels patiently, respectfully waiting for her reply.  They really did deserve better.  They all did.  Go ahead and tell them.

Tell them that I’m coming home.