Chapter Text
“Oh!” Glad-one squealed as the steward swooped into the main room of the number car, “What seems to be the hold up? Is it nap time?”
The cracked, porcelain doll-like face of the steward lifted up to allow One-one a good look at the situation. The two vertical lights that made up what could be called a face on the small mechanical ball narrowed as One-one tried to find an answer. The room was becoming crowded with porters who stood around waiting for the next passenger to float down the blue river to receive their number, but there wasn’t a passenger in sight.
“It’s like they all left to have a party, and didn’t invite us,” Sad-one sighed.
“Ooo, look, there’s something at the entrance. I bet that’s where the party is,” Glad one said.
The steward crawled over with its many metallic tentacles splayed out, giving it a more arachnid appearance. After observing the blockage for a moment, One-one used two of the limbs to stretch the entrance, allowing the blockage to flow through followed by dozens of unconscious human bodies. The blockage looked less like a human and more like a 10 ft robot. Its body was made of a smooth, black material in a humanoid design with two arms and two legs. Both arms and legs ended in sharp claws instead of hands and feet. Its head stood out from the rest of the body, looking like a white, rounded rectangle with a small glass lens in the middle to act as an eye. As it reached the small, blue pool under the number printer, one of the porters walked up to the display. Its head opened up as it reached inside and pulled out what looked to be the hybrid offspring of a VHS and an 8track tape.
“Is that a passenger?” Sad-one asked.
“It’s definitely less human than what we usually get, but it does have a tape, so I guess it gets a number.”
They took the tape from the porter and inserted it into the monitor so that the machine could read the passenger’s history. Dozens of moments from the passenger’s life flashed on the screen as a large, needle-like machine moved down from the ceiling as the porters lifted up one of the clawed hands, holding it palm up. A blue laser shot from the needle and started printing a number on the palm, and then somewhat down the arm. The porters allowed the arm to fall back down, and a white pod swallowed the body up. The blue liquid from the pool oozed out of the pod. The bottom of the pool opened up to allow the pod to fall down under the racing train and down towards its destined car.
“Does something about this one seem familiar?” Glad-one asked once they were finished
“I know. I bet it’s part of our past, and by keeping her here we probably messed up the timeline in ways that can’t possibly be imagined. I knew our meddling in the past would finally catch up with us. For all we know we will cease to exist in 3, 2, 1…’
They paused, but nothing happened.
“My timing might be off.” Sad-one decided.
“Hurray, our deaths will still be a surprise!” Glad-one cheered, “Now we get to see what happens. I bet since she seems familiar, we must be on the right track.”
The porter removed the tape to allow for the next one to begin the same process for the next passenger that floated up to the pool. The porter spat out a label for the tape, applying the name GLaDOS, to the side and storing the tape in the library with the rest of the passengers’ tapes.