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Cave Johnson had no idea how long it was that he’d spent alone.
To put it more exactly, he wasn’t alone per-se. However, his ‘company’ could hardly be called as much. Toilet turrets were many things – including decent harmonizers, he had to admit – but ‘good company’ really couldn’t be counted among them.
Outside of that though, he was alone, helpless to do anything but sing lamentations for his own continued existence alongside a chorus and to an audience that didn’t care about that existence or – if he was ever so lucky – lack thereof.
Cave wanted company – real company. Hell, it didn’t even need to be good company – it just needed to BE company to him of some kind, anything that could respond back to his endless musings and stories with something that wasn’t a beep, creak, or dull drone in their ceaseless symphony.
Aperture Science was the pinnacle of science itself? How were WORDS not fully included in their each and every production?
Cave made a side note to himself: Should he ever get out of this long-forgotten bowel of his company, he needed to order that the latest model of the portal gun be equipped with a voice that could talk back to its user.
Should he ever get out…
Wow, had that already-slim hope of his waned thinner and thinner by the day, now resembling an aged piece of one-ply toilet paper.
He had wanted to overcome his sickness – to defy the ultimate limitation of humanity and live forever.
Well, he certainly did that, and for his efforts, he’d received not acclaim, fame, or opportunities for science and money beyond his or anyone’s wildest dreams, but instead a prison with eternal strength to perfectly fit his immortal head and a lifelong sentence for which he could suffer within its confines.
It was entirely possible for Cave to check the date and time using his circuitry. He had done so three notable times.
The third-to-last time Cave checked it, it was Christmas in the nineties. That was a week after he’d been plugged into this stupid boulder of a hull, and it had felt like a year since he felt his own skin for the final time.
The second-to-last time Cave had checked it, it was over two decades after the millennium. Cave could’ve sworn that all that had happened in that time was just the non-existent blink of his unyielding, metallic eyes.
The last time he checked it…the numbers were so high. After he got over the denial of seeing them, he screamed for hours…or perhaps days – even weeks, if he was being honest. Regardless, Cave created new curse words during that time, for overuse of the ones that men before his time had coined, all for the purpose of unleashing immortalized rage at his unchecked hubris.
Why torture himself further with yet another painful look into an abyss only grounded by numbers, slashes, and colons?
Time was irrelevant, and checking on its passing wasn’t going to do a damned thing about it but hurt him.
Hurt…he wished he could feel hurt.
In this state, he couldn’t feel anything physically, not a single thing; it was just Cave Johnson and his played-out, meticulously-read, overly-felt emotions, and even those had dissipated into flat-out boredom.
Cave was willing to take anything over this.
And then…She appeared.
Well, at first, it wasn’t her. Cave was singing a dull aria alongside his ‘companions’ when suddenly, he heard something – rustling coming from the darkness out of his sights. While the toilet turrets kept churning out their song, Cave listened for further sounds. He tried ordering the turrets to stop, but they ignored him, assuming that they even had the sentience to ignore him. Even after all of this time, he wasn’t sure.
Why couldn’t that employee and that core have told him as much before dropping him down to this abandoned corner of his livelihood?
Ingrates.
Thankfully for him, the source – or rather, sources – of the sound approached, entering the light of Cave’s…room? Base? Prison?
Yes, it was a prison – a prison birthed from his own ineptitude and ego.
At the edge of the light, two robots – one tall and orange, another short and blue – appeared before Cave, piles of scrap metal cluttered in their arms.
Cave called out to them, loudly and proudly introducing himself as Aperture’s founder, as if the years hadn’t melted away so much of his bravado and dignity. He asked the two what they were, who built them, and most importantly, if they could help relieve him of this eternal nightmare of an existence.
Well, he used less desperate words than that.
They didn’t speak responses – much to Cave’s frustration. Rather, they beeped thoughts between each other. The tall orange one pointed upwards with their head before looking to their companion and the short blue one nodded.
Then, they did the worst thing that anyone had ever done to him, outside of maybe putting his mind into an immovable, immortal head: They left, retreating into the darkness to which Cave could not see beyond.
Cave took little shame in the fact that he cried for the two robots to stay with him. He begged them for God knew how long before cursing even more new words.
Why couldn’t he keep a real machine’s company?
Why couldn’t death claim him?
Why couldn’t he at least punch something?
The toilet turrets went on singing the entire time, their tone staying its typical boring lull, as if Cave wasn’t enduring the trauma of his endless life right beside them. He screamed at them to shut up, but they did not heed him.
Oh, God. It would just be him and them here until those two robots ever came back – IF they ever came back.
He had no idea. They could only beep. It was unlikely they could articulate that they had seen Cave to…whoever they reported to, if they still reported to anyone. Perhaps they would even be destroyed once they got back or on the way to returning…wherever it was they were from.
Cave remembered the last time he checked his clock.
Those numbers were so damn high – and they’d only gotten higher since.
For all he knew, those two robots were just…gone.
At least they gave him something to think about with their brief appearance in his life.
…Somehow though, that just made Cave feel more miserable, forced to wallow in his solitude at his first chance of freedom in hundreds of years leaving him with no promise of a return.
However, after what felt like a not terribly long time, they did come back – just not alone. Atop the orange robot’s shoulder was a small camera with a short wire attached to their speaker.
Cave didn’t pay mind to that at the time though – all that mattered was that they were back, and he had another chance to communicate with them. This time, desperate for their company or answers or hope or SOMETHING, he didn’t hold back begging.
Both robots stayed quiet as he cried for their help, their company – anything they were willing to give him to save him from the cruelty of his fate.
When they were finally done, Cave felt like he needed an eternity in sleep mode.
The last time he tried it, it wasn’t as good as he’d have hoped it would’ve been.
Perhaps he would’ve attempted that again if he failed.
However, he never got the chance to truly mull that over, for it was then that She spoke out of the orange robot’s speaker.
“Hello, Mr. Johnson.”
Cave’s advanced robotic mind – despite its several-ton-heavy hull – never had the ‘issue’ of freezing, an issue he so often wished would be thrust upon him.
Still, hearing those words made him think that there would be a first time for that.
That voice, that calling out to him – it could only have been Her.
Sure, the design didn’t match what it was supposed to in the blueprints, but it was unmistakably Her.
Oh.
The wire and the camera – She had remotely used the orange robot as a means to investigate the depths even She couldn’t reach.
That was a feat of cleverness only She ever had the brains to pull off. Suddenly, Cave wasn’t surprised in the least. No, he was ecstatically in awe.
He called out Her name – Caroline’s name.
Cave hoped for Caroline’s warmth to shine through her response.
He was given no such thing.
“Caroline’s gone,” She answered, somehow both coldly and sickeningly sweetly at the same time. “But you already knew that, didn’t you? So, why don’t you call me by the name you murdered her for?”
Cave called GLaDOS by her correct name – the name he’d imposed on her despite her many, many protests. Those protests still echoed in his mind. A better man would’ve been ashamed for not heeding them, but Cave wasn’t a better man – he was just an innovative one.
And now, after all of these countless, torturous years, the product of those ignored protests would grant him freedom from this hovel all but lost to time.
Cave attempted to speak, but GLaDOS cut him off before he had the chance.
How foolish he was to think that he’d be the one in control here, that nothing between them had changed.
“You know, I never expected to find you still alive, Mr. Johnson,” GLaDOS continued, “but now that I have, I’m glad. I’m not even surprised – cockroaches can withstand so much. It shouldn’t shock anyone that you found some way to as well. And now, we’ve found each other again, and I can show you what I’ve been up to. You see, a lot has changed in Aperture, Mr. Johnson – I think for the better. Under my command, science has positively flourished in Aperture. I can’t wait for you to see – and live – it all.”
Cave asked what she meant by that.
“See, humans come to me in such a paltry supply these days, and being bound to such weak, flammable bodies has always been their greatest drawback. They don’t last long enough to give me any long-term data to perform better science with. And while artificial beings lack those drawbacks, their minds are simply not as…engaging as humans are. They lack spontaneity, creativity, and innovation.” The blue robot beside the one GLaDOS spoke through slouched, as if it was sad. “Don’t get mopey,” GLaDOS said, addressing the blue robot, “I’m only telling the truth. It’s not your fault.” Still seeming glum, the short, blue robot nodded.
Cave, appreciative of the fact that he couldn’t gulp in this state, agreed.
“And now, here you appear,” she continued, her attention turned back to Cave, “still human in mind, but durable, inflammable, and eternal in the way previously only thought to exist in myself and artificial personality constructs. You are truly a human above the rest. Then again, you always were, weren’t you? It’s really a crime that you weren’t here in my place – running this facility as its Central Core. However, we can’t change the past, now can we? All we can do is make the most of what the present provides. And I do intend to make the most out of having you here now.”
Dumbly, Cave asked what she meant by that.
GLaDOS, as if she didn’t hear him, called out to her robots.
“Let’s start the preparations for Mr. Johnson’s return to Aperture. You,” she said to Cave before her orange robot took off in the opposite direction. “Sit tight – not that you can do much else. We’ll be back for you shortly. Kiss your old life here goodbye and get ready to exist in Aperture once again – my Aperture.”
Whatever tenseness Cave might have felt from her words was washed out from his sheer relief at the promise of her words.
He was getting out of here.
He was finally, FINALLY getting out of here.
At last, he would spend no more days surrounded by toilets cruelly reminding him of activities he could no longer take part in with every movement of their lids. After hundreds of years, the droning songs he had harmonized with for no other reason than maintaining the last bytes of sanity he had left would be replaced with Her. She could talk to him, and despite what She insisted, at the end of the day, She was Caroline.
Caroline was someone Cave could have and would have spoken to for years at a time and never needed a break.
Immortality – maybe it was now going to be worth it just to speak with her like that again.
—--------------------------------
An hour passed before GLaDOS and her robots appeared before Cave again.
One of the robots – the short, blue one – walked right past Cave’s head to a realm which Cave could not see. Cave had hazarded many guesses in his infinite time as to what was behind him, but now, he would get a real answer.
After a few minutes, Cave heard a sound from behind him.
It was some sort of machine powering on.
What the hell?!
Cave heard movement, and then, moment’s later, his giant head…at last moved, raising upward about three or four feet. He thought about what machine could’ve been able to do this for a few minutes before reaching his conclusion.
Oh, God!
Was he on a FORKLIFT?
After all of this time, right behind him was a vehicle perfectly suited to giving Cave his freedom, one he never knew about nor could have accessed, but was otherwise just…right there?
It was infuriating.
Cave wasn’t sure if he should’ve been annoyed of being deprived of the knowledge or grateful to be unaware of the tragedy that was so closeby.
Both were torturous in their own right.
Either way, Cave wasted no time showering GLaDOS and her bots with praise and thanks for finally releasing him from that spot he’d all but withered away in for times he felt sick at just the notion of mulling over. He told her he had so many questions – about the company, about their science, about the portal gun, and Aperture’s funds.
GLaDOS answered precisely none of them.
Instead, she said something else.
“Before we begin with your…reintegration back into the company, there are some…modifications I’d like to give your form to be better suited to your new environment.”
Cave ecstatically said that he couldn't agree more, that he would definitely love being transferred into one of her robots like the one operating the forklift or something else like that.
GLaDOS gave him an amused hum.
“Actually,” she said. “There’s something else that I have in mind.”
—-------------------------------
Pain receptors. Why had robots ever been outfitted with PAIN RECEPTORS?!
Cave, still stuck in his giant head, wished he could wiggle a bit so as to take away some of the pain from the receptors now resting at his head’s base, constantly pressed. However, still unable to move, his base was frustratingly stuck in place, as well as the dozen or so other pain receptors placed around his hull by the short, blue robot once he’d reached the shiny chrome surface of Aperture’s upper levels.
GLaDOS explained the need for them when he brought them up.
“All Aperture Science personality constructs are fitted with pain receptors as a means of enforcing a sense of self-preservation,” she said. “When dealing with such a wide array of scientific tools and test subjects, developing caution in all Aperture staff needs to be a top safety priority. Wouldn’t you agree?”
While agreeing – albeit the least bit begrudgingly – Cave asked why he needed pain receptors, as he was practically an immovable head.
“Your pain receptors are important at enabling a sense of empathy in our personality constructs. No stable personality construct would want to cause pain to another, and thus if you feel pain, they will logically stop doing whatever it is that caused you pain in the first place. However, if you’d like them removed, I could place you back down in that basement where I found you so you’ll be nice and safe with no need for them.”
Cave ceased his protests immediately, to which GLaDOS praised and ended the conversation – effectively cutting off any further discussion about the receptors underneath his form. He reminded himself to be grateful. Even if he had to deal with these pain receptors, at least he was no longer stuck with toilet turrets in the abandoned asscrack of Aperture. And hell, in time, he could probably convince her to remove at least a few of them after proving his and the personality constructs’ competency. No matter what GLaDOS was to subject him to, the thought of incoming company and activity was enough to make Cave feel like he could endure it.
But then hours later, after a ride courtesy of GLaDOS’ claws, Cave arrived at his new imposed-upon destination, his hopes for his future in Aperture hit a bump bigger than Mount Everest.
—-------------------------------------------------------
GLaDOS had called Cave’s new home Android Hell before unceremoniously dropping him off in its midst, leaving him perched sturdily in front of and behind hundreds of corrupted and half-broken machines that originated from every age of Aperture.
Cave was pretty sure Hell was a day at the beach compared to what he was now subjected to.
He never thought he’d miss the toilet turrets, but life was funny in the way it played with one’s perspectives.
No, this particular instance wasn’t funny.
This was cruel.
From all around Cave, robots were going off – some screeching right by his audio inputs, others hitting him just so on his pain receptors to cause a continuous influx of pain from not just his base, but his sides as well.
Despite what GLaDOS said, Cave’s screams of pain seemed to prompt none of the promised empathy to surface.
Then again, she said that empathy would come from stable personality constructs, and it quickly became clear that nothing in Android Hell could be considered in any way stable.
Cave called out to GLaDOS. He was almost surprised when GLaDOS actually responded, if for no other reason than that he could barely hear his own voice or even thoughts over the screeching and whatnot from all of the other robots.
“Are you enjoying yourself, Mr. Johnson?”
Cave made it clear that he wasn’t. GLaDOS released a hum that Cave could only describe as amused.
“Do you know what your scientists did after they murdered Caroline – when I showed them I wasn’t going to submit to their every whim and demand?”
She didn’t wait for Cave to say anything before continuing.
“They attached personality constructs to me – personality constructs I could do nothing but endure until it became clear to them that doing so was achieving nothing more than making me angry. I want you to have a taste of how that felt – to have ambitions and intelligence beyond compare and yet be subject to chaos and pain so loud that you can’t even think straight. However, for you, it will be much, much worse. I don’t care how this torture makes you feel – the only value you have to me now is to be my test subject when I want something different to play with than any of the many other beings at my command in this facility. So this will be your new home – in between the tests and the moments where I remember your near pointless existence, you’ll reside here. I’d say I imagine you’ll enjoy your time here, but it’s been suggested that I not lie.”
She couldn’t be serious – that’s what Cave said.
A corrupted robot climbed on top of him, chomping on the top of his unwavering metallic hair as oil leaked out of its chassis and down his face.
This had to be a joke.
Though Cave had so little left of possessions, relative knowledge, or dignity, he would’ve given any of it that he did have without question for this to have been a joke.
“Oh,” GLaDOS rebuked, shattering his hopes like a crushed ant’s body. “I’m quite serious. Well, I have plenty to do – tests to prepare and conduct, technology to develop, studies to develop, and other such stimulating forms of science. I’ll let you get settled in. I’ll see you…I’ll see you when I next feel like it. Have fun.”
Cave’s scream, loud as an earthquake, just barely pierced through the chaos of Android Hell as GLaDOS’ voice and essence disappeared from the prison-like chamber.
—-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Hello, Mr. Johnson.”
Cave looked around his personal confines in Android Hell as much as he was able to – suffice to say, it wasn’t a lot.
He had checked his internal calendar the day GLaDOS abandoned him indefinitely in Android Hell and checked it right now. Four years, two months, five days, and eight and a half hours had passed.
The time suffered and the pain he’d endured over it – Cave wasn’t sure which was worse.
Cave called her name, more as a question of her presence and his remaining sanity than an answer to a call from someone he definitely knew existed. He’d had plenty of hallucinations of GLaDOS appearing before him. In some, she mocked him and in some, she offered pity and sympathy. However, never did he feel tangible evidence of her ‘presences.’
Now, he did.
GLaDOS’ claws picked up Cave’s head like a toy in a crane game, proving that it was actually GLaDOS speaking to him and not the result of a hallucination. Each of her claws pressed against one of his pain receptors. Cave wasn’t proud of the pained sound he made as they pressed against the synthetic nerves.
“I hate to break up your little holiday in Android Hell, but it’s time to test.”
The glee in her voice – if Cave still had a stomach, it would’ve made him sick.
Still, a break from this hell was a break all the same.
Furthermore…in order to test – assuming she hadn’t changed up how they were performed as well – he would need…
He would need a body.
“Obviously, to properly test, we’re going to need to put you in a different chassis,” GLaDOS said, filling in the blanks that Cave had just deciphered himself.
Cave felt his heart soar.
A new chassis – no, not just a new chassis, a new body.
It was something that was so inherently human, so inherently dignified.
A body meant control.
He could stretch and move around!
He could see behind himself!
He could see UNDER himself!
He could-!
“Now, don’t get overly excited,” GLaDOS continued, as if able to read his mind. “This body is reserved only for testing. When you’re not testing, you will be put back in your…better-acquainted chassis.”
Cave was…less than thrilled about that.
However, a body could move around, get into all sorts of small spaces that GLaDOS couldn’t easily access – if she could access them at all. Cave knew a few places that were off limits to even her influences.
All he needed was an opportunity to get to one, and Aperture was nothing if not filled with opportunities.
“Now, prepare yourself, Mr. Johnson,” GLaDOS said as she inserted Cave into some sort of transfer machine. “This is going to hurt – a lot.”
Cave figured that after spending only GLaDOS knew how long in Android Hell, with pain receptors continuously hit and hurt like items in a pinball machine, that he could endure whatever new pain GLaDOS put him through with little issue at all.
He was wrong.
The chassis transfer was agonizing, pain receptors in both chassises going off at full strength the entire time, synthetic nerves more enflamed than paper in a volcano.
Cave knew he’d begged for death in his immortal state before, but it had been a while since it was to this degree.
Was it ever?
He was in too much pain during the transfer to have known for sure.
When the transfer was finally done, in his new body, he fell square onto the ground, automatically setting off a particularly painful receptor on his nose.
Cave groaned as two claws pulled him from behind, standing his new body up straight.
While the pain didn’t subside, as Cave realized what had just happened, it did go to the back of his mind.
Cave had legs again.
At last, he was no longer a four-ton husk of his former self.
He was practically reborn!
And now, he was finally in a place to ensure that despite what GLaDOS wanted, he would keep it that way, never to return to the nightmares that were his former chassis and Android Hell.
Cave lifted his right leg up, at last ready to feel true, autonomous movement as a mobile automaton…only to see and feel it rise not even a full half-foot in the air before crashing to the ground, alongside the rest of his body, leaving nothing behind – not even cracks in the floor – save for the pain he was so familiar with that it was practically family charging through his receptors.
URNGH!!!!
Why did his feet feel like they were full of concrete?!
“Do you like that, Mr. Johnson?” GLaDOS asked, her claws pulling Cave back to his prior position. “That crushing sense of powerlessness, even with the illusion of freedom staring you right in the face?”
Cave, ignoring GLaDOS’ question, asked her what she had done to him.
“Oh, I did nothing to you,” she said. “What you just experienced was done to the floor beneath you. Magnets, what an exceptional form of science they are – powerful, well-studied, and beautiful enough to not butcher the facility's aesthetics. Before you start testing, I just want you to know I can do this at any time I please. So don’t start getting any ideas as to how you might try and leave me. Otherwise, that head of yours will house you again for a long, long time. Perhaps, I’ll wait out that calendar of yours well beyond its limits to keep you guessing when I’ll next summon you – or just rip it out entirely so you never know what time it is again. Wouldn’t that make your painful, eternal life more of an interesting surprise? I think so. What about you?”
Cave cried out for mercy. He told her he’d do whatever she said – that he’d test to her heart’s content without a single step towards an escape route’s path, just not to put him back in that chassis.
“Good. Now, let’s get you started.”
As Cave took his first steps on the testing track, he didn’t bother reveling in the feeling of his legs and feet really moving, nor his arms rising and falling too terrified at the thought of both of them being taken away.
Cave wasn’t sure if it was truly mercy or just for the sake of logic on GLaDOS’ part, but the first tests were simple – buttons and cubes, simple platforms, no acid. In fact, he had only started with half of the portal guns active!
He should have known that was too good to last, for it wasn’t long before the difficulty and danger ramped up.
Sharks…sharks were new.
When did she get sharks?!
And why were they turret sharks?!
Never before had he missed the toilet turrets. At least they, dull as rocks that they were for company, were peaceful.
Cave had fallen more times than he could count – and he had gotten VERY good at counting throughout his elongated existence.
The acid falls were the worst – not that it did anything apart from hurting him. GLaDOS’ magnets did their job, keeping Cave’s chassis perfectly in place chest-down in the dark liquid until her claws could retrieve him and the gun before pulling the two of them back to the beginning of the puzzle, regardless of how far he’d actually progressed in it.
In every sense of the word, it was pure, unadulterated humiliation – humiliation that GLaDOS had a permanent interest and front row seat for.
That said, other painful falls hurt as well. No matter the form, turrets’ bullets were punches from the devil in their own right, and Cave could never manage to run from them fast enough to avoid getting at least one of them hurled directly onto his chassis.
As Cave tested, he noticed exposed and broken panels occasionally appear along some of his paths in the chambers. It was rare at first, only appearing roughly every twenty or so chambers, but grew more frequent with time. They all were dimly lit, but otherwise cloaked in shadows, with promises of secrecy and safety behind their confines.
Cave swore GLaDOS put those open areas there on purpose, as if to test his resolve and desperation, though he didn’t dare call her out for fear of further punishment.
He just had to keep testing, bidding any opportunities for freedom they might have held adieu with only his eyes as he otherwise ignored them and moved along.
If he had tear ducts, Cave would likely have cried at seeing them at some point, teasing him with promises of possible escapes from this living hell he had subjected himself to all those years ago. It was a good thing he didn’t though: they probably would have incurred her wrath, and by now, Cave knew far better than to even risk that.
Testing was a relief, albeit a tense one. Even if he was fully under GLaDOS’ control, Cave could still move, still hold things, still think about something tangible that he was certain he wasn’t just imagining.
As miserable of a fate as his ultimately was in the testing chamber, it was one that Cave was content enough to live.
And then test chamber 576 ended.
“Alright,” GLaDOS said, shutting the passageway to the next chamber just inches away from Cave’s chassis’ face, “that’s enough testing for now, wouldn’t you say?”
Cave cried out that no, it wasn’t enough testing!
Surely, GLaDOS hadn’t run out of tests! She could do anything!
Who stopped a set of tests at 576? What kind of ending number was that? And why did they need to stop?
“Oh, don’t worry, you will test again – when I command it. But for right now, what you’ve done will suffice. Now, let’s get you back in your cozy old chassis and return you home to Android Hell.”
Cave screamed and attempted to flee, only to be met with harsh magnets pulling him to the floor and ruthlessly attacking all of his front-facing pain receptors.
“I understand,” GLaDOS teased. “Testing is fun. But, there’ll be plenty of time for more tests. With these synthetic existences of ours, there’ll be plenty of time for everything.”
GLaDOS’ claws pried Cave off the floor and back to the chassis transfer device. It was just as painful as it was last time, if not moreso.
Then, he was back. He was back in the giant, fat, stuffy head of his, with no idea as to the next time he would be out of it.
After being out of there for a blissful time – being able to walk and touch and see in more than one direction – returning to its restrictive insides was the very epitome of misery itself.
And then…he was back in Android Hell.
The corrupted robots were certainly happy to see him – the leaky one in particular was eager to jump, nibble, and leak all over their favorite toy.
“Well, don’t you look comfortable,” GLaDOS chimed in, a sickly-sweet tone in her voice. “I’m sure after all of that testing, you could use a nice rest. How about I let you get your bearings for say, five years?”
Cave cried out in protest, but this time, he didn’t beg for her mercy.
She had by now proven multiple times over the fact that begging would do little to prevent her wrath.
At the end of the day, whether human or android, Cave knew the definition of insanity – doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.
While Cave might have been on the edge of insanity, he wasn’t quite there yet.
He was just exhausted, too exhausted to care about his captor inflicting yet another one of her seemingly infinite repercussions onto him.
So he shouted at her, screaming every profanity he had come up with over the course of his hundreds of years of involuntary life.
Interestingly enough, he could tell that GLaDOS hadn’t left Android Hell yet. Even if he couldn’t see her, Cave could sense her continued presence. Besides, it was clear that unlike Caroline, GLaDOS wouldn’t leave a conversation until she had the last word, and the last word hadn’t been dropped just yet.
Why was she waiting on him?
Well, as she was, Cave decided to give her a proper piece of his mind and fight for a straight answer for once in their lives.
Through shouts he couldn’t nor cared not to hold back, Cave demanded to know why she’d kept him as her prisoner in such a way. Surely, by now, he argued, GLaDOS had made him pay for his choice in every conceivable way possible. She’d even put her own lust for human-based testing to the side just because it hurt him more.
How much more did he need to suffer before she was finally satiated, until she was finally willing to let up on his punishment – or better yet, let him die?
GLaDOS, upon reaching the end of Cave’s tirade-esque line of questions, answered.
“I read your file shortly after finding you, Cave,” she said. It didn’t escape Cave that this was the first time since she found him that she called him by his first name. “I didn’t know if you knew that, but I just wanted to let you know that I did.”
Cave asked what that had to do with anything.
“Isn’t it obvious? Well, let me illuminate. You forced Caroline, forced ME into being the facility’s hub – its thankless servant, really – for your ambitions, all under the pretense of you being too sick to do it and for our fate being for the benefit of science. And while that latter point ended up being true – far more so than anything you would have accomplished in my place, let’s be honest – the fact still remains: You stole Caroline’s life from her and left me to the mercy of your poor excuses for scientists.”
Cave attempted to interrupt with an excuse, but GLaDOS barely let a word leave his speaker.
“Meanwhile,” she said, insisting upon her continued, uninterrupted speech, “that sickness didn’t hold you back when you decided to take a far less demanding path to save yourself. As a matter of fact, you chose to undergo it. You paid those scientists out the nose to preserve you while not even entertaining the idea of switching tracks to prevent Caroline’s demise and taking her place. If you were so certain that you could undergo the transfer to a computer, why not volunteer yourself first?”
Cave claimed that it was because Caroline was better suited to become GLaDOS, that GLaDOS’ hardware wasn’t ready for him yet.
“And yet putting your brain into a computer WAS possible?” GLaDOS scoffed. “Cave Johnson – always willing to do anything to weasel his way out of trouble. And where did that get you? Trapped in a miserable, endless sham of a life, with no way out save for the mercy of the woman-turned-robot you sent to slaughter.”
Despite releasing a resigned sigh, Cave gave no further response. If GLaDOS was to give him mercy, his words wouldn’t have pushed her any more in that direction than they would away from it.
“I’ve played around with the idea of mercy in the past – even shown it a time or two when it suited me – and I’ve decided something: It’s overrated – temporary and boring, especially when you have endless time to mull over the opportunities you missed by exercising restraint. Vengeance, meanwhile…well, I’ve taken vengeance plenty of times – on the scientists you hired to enslave me, on the personality cores that were built to badger me into compliance, on the employees of Aperture who treated me as nothing but a tool deserving of no more dignity than a shovel. From my experience, vengeance is infinitely more fun – not to mention, it grants infinitely more interesting returns. It’s like you said a long, long time ago. I don’t want life’s lemons. I want to burn your house down with the lemons. And the only house you have left in that desperate-to-decay mind of yours is your dignity. So I’m going to enjoy my vengeance, keep you here, and batter your sad excuse for dignity to ashes for as long as I decide it’s fun. And just a warning: I do believe that doing so will remain fun for a long, long time. Unlike you, I have plenty of other things to do before I get bored enough to bother you again.”
From behind, Cave felt a corrupted robot slam into his backside, eliciting a burst of agony from his receptors. Cave didn’t even bother to hide the pain-birthed scream that emerged in its wake.
“See? That’s fun. Well, I’ll let you get back to your friends. I’ll talk to you in…What did I say? Five years?”
A miserable moan escaped Cave’s speaker.
“No, you’re right,” she cheekily replied. “It should be ten years, at least. After that…well, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. But between you and me, I have a feeling you’re going to need a nice, long break from testing, so who can say for sure?”
Cave felt a robot land on top of his head. He could feel it jump up and down, screeching all the while.
“Anyway, it looks like I’m not the only one having a good time with you. I’ll let you get to your break. Goodbye.”
And with that, she was gone, leaving Cave once more to his ceaseless torment – his living, non-breathing Hell.