Portal: Euphoria

Chapter Six

Chapter Six

"What was going on, exactly?"

"We don't know. The only way would be to ask directly, and you know how that usually goes. We were getting some pretty strange feedback from the pain receptors, though. We ran a few tests looking for a short, overload, stuff like that, but came up with nothing."

"Do you have any idea what would cause that sort of reaction?"

"Well… no. The only thing we know of would be an overload via the deterrence program, but there'd have to be an awful lot of testing track solutions being revealed for it to be that bad. And that's not what happened, anyway. That application hasn't been activated in the last year. It has to be a programming error, but that'll take a lot longer to uncover."

"Let me know if you find anything."

"Yes, ma'am."

Fading footsteps. GLaDOS hoped that no one had noticed she -

"I know you're on. Get up." She left no room for argument.

GLaDOS did so slowly, backing away from Caroline as much as possible, not knowing whether to focus on her or to focus on something else, and thoroughly confused herself by attempting to do both at the same time. She had wanted Caroline to come, but now she was here, GLaDOS wanted nothing more than for her to leave.

"What were you doing. And don't try to get out of telling me. I don't feel like dealing with your lies right now."

But she hadn't lied to Caroline, had she? Didn't Caroline know that when GLaDOS was vague, she was only bantering with her?

"GLaDOS. I don't have all day."

"I was… feeling, ma'am."

"Why." Caroline's arms were folded and her face decidedly negative, and GLaDOS was honestly afraid of her for a long moment. Caroline had all the power in this place, and if she were to turn against GLaDOS as everyone else had, she would have nothing left to hope for.

"Henry sent me to look for you, and I found you in your office, and you were upset. I was angry because someone upset you, but then I… I remembered that it was my fault. And what you said, ma'am, I started to feel it, and it hurt, and I tried to make it go away, but I couldn't. I didn't know I was reacting that way, ma'am. It was an accident." She looked anxiously at the floor, afraid of Caroline's retribution. She didn't know what she was going to do, but whatever it was, it would be terrible. She would take her blueprints away, or she wouldn't let her test anymore, or something even worse that she couldn't even think of because she was not human and therefore lacked the creativity required to come up with terrible punishments –

"Look at me."

She tried, but as soon as the woman entered her visual field she had to look away.

"That wasn't a request."

She managed it, but it was difficult, and tremors began to run through her chassis. She hoped Caroline wouldn't notice. It would probably make her even angrier.

Caroline took a breath and let it out through her nose. She looked very tired. "It hurts, doesn't it."

"What hurts, ma'am?"

"When someone you care about dumps you like that. They just act like you never mattered, and end it right there, and that's it. Doesn't matter what happened. Doesn't matter what's supposed to happen. They just dump you. Because they feel like it."

"It made sense when I –"

"Shut up."

GLaDOS barely managed to suppress a 'yes, ma'am', and did so.