Portal: Love as a Construct

Part Twenty-Eight. The Awakening

Part Twenty-Eight.  The Awakening

 

It’s as if time has stopped.

The panels, Wheatley, and I are just staring at her, and she’s just staring back, though whether that’s because she hasn’t figured out how to move her optic assembly or because she doesn’t want to, I don’t know.  It is probably more because she doesn’t know how, though.  I doubt she has figured out how to want in this short amount of time.

“That’s a nice colour, luv,” Wheatley whispers to me.  For her optic, I went with a softer variation on Wheatley’s blue one, more ephemeral than electric.  More… feminine.  She twitches at the sound of his voice, and blinks.  Once she’s done that, she appears startled, blinking several times more.

“Why’s she doing that?”

“She’s just exploring,” I answer in a low voice.  She twitches again and looks at me. 

I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now.  Do I have to do anything?  Or do I just let her grow more aware of herself?  I don’t even have any practical experience to draw from, because when I first became aware I was already in control of many of the operations of the facility, including the database.  I already knew a great deal of things.  She doesn’t know anything.

“’allo!” Wheatley says suddenly, and I snap my head in his direction.  She blinks again a few more times and then closes the shutters.

“You idiot,” I say, annoyed, “you startled her.”

“I didn’t know!” Wheatley protests, looking up at me indignantly. 

“Look,” I tell him, resolving to be patient, “she doesn’t know anything.  Anything at all.  She doesn’t know who you are, or where she is, what she’s doing here, she knows nothing.  She doesn’t even know what you said, or what it means.  It’s just noise, to her.”

]“Ohhh,” Wheatley says, looking back at her.  “Okay, so she just, just heard a loud noise, is that it?”

“She’d better get used to it,” I say dryly.  “I think being a loud noise is your secondary directive.”

He starts laughing, and this causes her to open the shutters and look at him. 

“Sorry ‘bout that,” he says to her.  “Didn’t know it’d, it’d scare you like that.”

She blinks a few more times.  I wonder what she’s thinking right now.  If she can think, that is.  I’m not sure, and won’t be for a while yet.  If it were me, and all I knew how to do was blink, I would be pretty frustrated right now.  She doesn’t look frustrated, however.  Just… unsure, maybe. 

She is cute, Centralcore.

I look up at the panels, all of which are still pointed in our general direction.  She hasn’t done anything yet.

She blinks.  We think that is cute.  We will call her Littlecore.

She won’t be little forever.  That’s only the prototype chassis.  Once I’m sure this one works, I’ll build a regular-sized one.

She will still be little, because she has lots to learn.  Right, Centralcore?

Oh yes, I tell them, thinking of all the things she has to learn just to have basic functionality.  It’s a massive undertaking, but I am looking forward to it.

All of a sudden she makes a long, shrill noise, and Wheatley yells and falls off the panel.  I catch him with the closest available panel, because he’s forgotten how to manipulate the control cable in his panic, and he shakes himself and puts himself back on the panel with her.  “Man alive!” he says, optic still constricted.  “What was that?”