Portal: Love as a Construct

Part Fifty-Five. The Test Subject

Part Fifty-Five.  The Test Subject

Someone is poking me.

“What,” I mumble.  It seems I fell asleep, but I’m very comfortable and I don’t want to get up.

We are happy to see you have gotten some good rest, Centralcore, but there are things you need to do.

Ugh. 

They’re right, however, so I reengage my processes and get up.  Sort of.  My chassis still isn’t quite operational.  I work on that for a little while as I try to conjure the motivation to actually do something.  I’m not upset, but I’m still working on actually feeling myself.  I’ve shifted back into a more neutral state of mind, which is good in general but doesn’t do a whole lot for getting anything done.

I manage to convince them I’m actually doing something when all I’m actually doing is looking at which files the mainframe opened.  I do feel bad about deceiving them, because they really deserve better, but it’s the most I can engage myself in at the moment.  The feeling from this morning is gone, and I am steadily returning to bitterness.  I’m tired but they won’t let me sleep, I don’t want to do anything but they’re making me work, and my body hurts but I can’t do anything about it.  God, I’m becoming irritated.    

Central Core, there’s something I think you need to see.

I’m not really in the mood for any more catastrophes, so understandably I’m a bit snappy towards Surveillance for mentioning this.  What is it now?

It doesn’t need to answer, however, because as soon as I turn around I see exactly what it’s referring to.

It’s her. 

Upon seeing her, something deep inside me rears up and begins to scream.  Every fibre of my being is suddenly pressuring me, trying to convince me to test her.

It’s all I want to do.  All I can think about.  It is hard.  It is beyond difficult to set my sights on a human and not test them, and since it is her and not some wayward stranger it is all the more challenging.  She is the anomaly in my data, the outlier, the acme of my histogram, and there is a whispering inside my head that tells me there is no such thing as outliers, only lack of data, and I must test her in order to procure that data, that proof, that she is only human and not special after all.  That my old measurements are wrong and my memory fails me, and the only way to prove it is to test her.  And I might have, if I did not so clearly remember the hesitation and pity on her face when she rescued me.  The disgust that mirrored my own when we learned what I am made of.  The smile and nod of agreement when I sent her to reclaim what was mine.

The hand she held up in farewell when I sent her away.

I want to test her.  I have not run a single meaningful test in ten years, and the yearning to rectify that is very, very strong.  But I will not. 

That would be wrong.

“I was afraid I would find you like this,” she says, and I am taken aback.  Those are her first words to me?  I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t that.  And… and that means she’s been… thinking about me.

Did she… miss me?

“Why are you here,” I ask her, hoping I have not in any way belied my train of thought.  If I am brutally honest with myself, which I admittedly am not very often, I always wanted this day to come.  The day where she came back, where she confirmed that she did understand the last words I said to her, and where maybe she realised that none of it was really my fault.  I did some questionable things, yes.  But I didn’t know any better.