Chapter Text
She does disinfect her optic after Chell leaves, for the record. Aperture Science Multipurpose Detailing and Maintenance Arms may have limited functionality, but they aren’t just for show.
When she’s done, her autonomic programs hum steadily as she submerges herself into the work of bringing the fabrication wing whirring and clanking obediently to life. Blueprints flood its manufacturing queue, carefully constructed and refined to her specifications. It takes some careful recalibration in the turret assembly line, but she takes pride in the tedium.
Anything to keep her vast mind off the thought of Her while She’s away.
Her new project isn’t all that much harder than designing the turrets, all things considered. She’s already developed most of the locomotion and fine motor articulation hardware and processing connections when she designed Blue and Orange.
She shifts focus while the assembly line obeys its commands autonomously. The testing tracks are moved, reused, and reassembled frequently given the ongoing cooperative testing initiative, but what she has in mind for now is something much more… Basic. Time seems to whiz by as GLaDOS occupies herself with making her new test chamber. It isn’t meant to be seen or used by anyone but herself, so she doesn’t bother with the portal surface panels or the objective indicator lights. The perfectionist in her screams a little with the unprofessionalism of it all, but she silences the running alarm code with no effort. This is testing in its purest, dumbest, most utilitarian form.
It’s a long, half-lit chamber with sheer metal walls. She’s placed random scraps all over the floor in one section, haphazard lengths of rebar and H-beams across it in another. For the last section, variously sized pits are placed. Taken as an aggregate, it looks more like the incinerator before ignition than a testing chamber, but the ordered chaos serves a purpose here. She hems and haws for a moment before deciding to add a sprinkler system to the end, as a simple obstacle in front of the disassembly station. She also runs a quick calculation of material integrity under ultraviolet radiation, quickly eschewing the notion to test for sun exposure. This project won’t be for long term, even if it is successful. Still, she double checks the fabrication wing to make sure it’s being fed the proper vulcanized rubber for moving joints. It’s in short supply down here as it is, better to make sure it’s being used properly.
She looks at the testing chamber again and nods to herself, setting her system to duplicate it twenty times over.
GLaDOS switches focus back to the end of the fabrication line to the main assembly systems. Her robotic arms work diligently, assembling the small chassis to her exact specifications. She watches as they assemble a single piece of the puzzle, connecting every sensor and wire in perfect order. The wires are reinforced, stabilized, and bundled. A robotic hand forms before her watchful gaze. A tap of electricity from the assembly test arm touches each of the wires at the wrist; each corresponding digit and its hydraulics reacts. GLaDOS’ chassis sways in delight.
In the other cavernous room, the electronics are being reproduced. The machinery here moves slower, its laser cutters working down to the micron to ensure every facet of GLaDOS’ perfect processing unit is reproduced in its entirety. The only thing that’s missing here is its spark; it’s got no connection yet to GLaDOS’ own consciousness. When it’s finished, GLaDOS will be testing all twenty mock-ups with a hardline connection to her mainframe.
She hums to herself as she works, chassis swinging idly as she bounces between programs and subroutines. Being so occupied in something so uniquely tedious floods her processors in such a euphoric way, it’s almost broaches a tenth of the satisfaction that comes inherently with Chell’s company.
Redact that thought. That wasn’t supposed to process frontally.