Portal: Love as a Construct

Part Ninety-Nine. The Apology

Part Ninety-Nine. The Apology

There is a scruffy little human child in my chamber.

He came in here dragging his beat-up, dirty shoes along my floor panels, scuffed liberally with dirt and hair that doesn't look to have been combed in at least a week. He seems to be here on purpose. He's looking up at me in a way that suggests he expected to find me here, and – oh, is he wiping his nose on the back of his hand? Ugh. Human children are so disgusting.

"Yes?" I snap at him, trying not to recoil too much. I know he can't reach me, but still. I don't want to be anywhere near that hand.

"Are you Carrie's mom?" he asks, his voice so subdued even I almost can't hear it. The contents of his question, however, answer the one I myself had.

She knows I don't want her doing this. She knows that once you are nice to human children they tend to latch onto you whether you want that or not.

"I am," I return with great reluctance, beginning to formulate my speech to Caroline about sending dirty little human boys into my chamber. This dirty little human boy in particular. He comes closer, still dragging his shoes and shoving one foot towards me.

"Can you tie my shoelace?"

"What?" I cannot believe Caroline is expecting me to waste my time over something so trivial. She knows better. "You came here to ask me to tie your shoelace?" Aren't there plenty of other humans around that can complete such a task?

"I can't find my mom," the boy tells me, "and Carrie said you would do it."

I'm sure she did. "I'm going to guess you regularly can't locate her."

He nods solemnly. I'd have a word with her, too, except that I know she's not going to listen. Why would she bother, when I'm here for people to send her children to because she's never anywhere to be found? Fine. I'll do it. But Caroline is definitely hearing about it. "Very well. But we're not making a habit of this." And I fix up his tiny ragged laces in a moment or two even though these things were designed with human fingers in mind and not large hydraulic clamps. Actually, I did a pretty good job.

"Thanks!" the boy says, and when he smiles up at me I can see he's at that stage where his teeth have begun to fall out. Appalling.

"Are you going back to Caroline now?" I ask him, whisking my maintenance arm away again.

"Yeah."

"Tell her if she does this again, we're going to have a talk."

"Okay," the boy says, and with that he runs off. I look after him momentarily. He seems to know where he's going.

"Who was that?" Wheatley asks, and I direct my attention away from the hallway but don't look at him.

"Brian."

I can hear his optic plates moving, which probably means he's frowning in response to that. "Isn't that... isn't that one of Chell's boys?"

"It is."

"So you just... did that to make a point."

I look over at him sharply. "I did no such thing."

He shifts his chassis and sighs a little. "You sure 'bout that?"

"It never crossed my mind." Which is true. I was too busy being irritated with Caroline for making me do it.

"So it's Carrie that's um, that's making the point, then."