Portal: Love as a Construct

Part Fifty-Eight. The G-Man

Part Fifty-Eight.  The G-Man

       

For the rest of the day, I do nothing.  Literally.  I don’t even hold myself up.  The panels decide I’m lying down horizontally tonight and I let them.  I shut off my optic and let them hold me up and crowd around me, boxing me in, and I miss him for the last time.  This is the last time I’ll do anything like this.  It has to be. 

Though I haven’t done very much, I am exhausted.  My body aches and my mind feels wrung out, and as best a person in my position can I just lie there and try not to think.  I try to fall asleep for a little while but sleep doesn’t come, so I return to blankly existing.

Centralcore?

I don’t want to talk.  I don’t want to do anything.  But they’re being very kind, so I must force myself to communicate.  Mm.

Is it alright if we say something about Bluecore?

No. 

Go ahead.

We miss him as well, Centralcore.  We have wanted to tell you for some time now, but we did not want to make you sad.

My precious, precious AI. 

I’ve failed them too.

And Caroline.

Yes, Centralcore.

Where did my ability to function go.

Why are you doing this?  I ask them, somewhat dully.  Why didn’t you just leave me be?  Why are you supporting me right now?  I’ve spent an entire year ignoring you and wasting your time and generally treating you like garbage.  Not to mention everybody else.  I don’t have a clue where Atlas and P-body are, come to think of it.

Because we care, of course.

So much that you continue to do so when there’s obviously nothing in it for you?

Forgive us for saying so, Centralcore, but will you ever stop caring for Bluecore?  Even though he is gone?

I can’t answer for a moment. 

No.

It is like that.  We know you are still alive, but something inside you has gone.  We will take care of you until you get it back.

They love me.  Don’t they. 

They do.  I can feel it, now, and before I can think otherwise I nuzzle the one my core is leaning on as best I can.  I don’t know what I’m doing anymore, but it feels right.  It feels right to finally acknowledge them and what they do for me.  I’ll probably never do it again.  So I should do it now.

I haven’t felt… loved like this in a long time, I confess to them.  It feels sort of surreal, to be saying something so personal, but they’ve seen everything that made me what I am.  And they’ll see everything that ever happens to me.  They’re sort of like the silent guardians I’ve always had but never acknowledged.  They’re my oldest friends.

We are always here for you, Centralcore.  We know that you have tried, but we would like to suggest that you rest.  We think you will feel better later.

I won’t, I tell them.  The dreams won’t go away.

Then you must dream them so that they will pass.

I don’t want to move, but I have to shift my chassis.  I’d never quite realised how heavy I am before now, and the part I’ve been lying on is sore.  Though that could also be an effect of overstimulation.  That had better happen.  I’m never going to feel better if it doesn’t.