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Caroline had interrupted Cave Johnson, after he had made his dying wish clear in the few moments of lucidity the pain offered him. Running the company wasn't the issue- she had devoted her whole life and soul to it, but the idea of being put in a computer sent chills through her whole body, an inexpressible, nameless, all encompassing dread gripping her and refusing to let go. She had argued, tried to make her point clear in frightened, understandable language, making sure it was heard in a moment of desperation by grabbing the microphone and saying it loud and clear for the tapes, but he had waved her off like she was trying to give him the pain pills he needed but was too fuzzy to understand what they were for, brusquely shoving away all of her concern like he didn't need it.
The refusal was stricken from the records, and she made her way through the hallways of the facility, she and everyone else reminded of his wishes a hundred times over, his voice echoing through the caverns like the immutable, unstoppable force he was. She tried to keep herself calm and helmed the project herself, making sure the new layer of the facility was built up to specs. As she pushed the project and the scientists to their limit, she could tell they hated her, the way they looked at her with sullen, resentful eyes, like beaten dogs and she was the master they would turn on in a heartbeat.
But she couldn't stop, driven on by the need to help Mr. Johnson, who was fading quickly, and the terror that had snarled into anger at them, the people who were supposed to be the best minds in the world but who couldn't finish a project they could have feasibly completed thirty years prior when everyone was a little more hopeful, a little more steadfast, a lot less ragged. Science didn't stop to make sure you felt good while you were doing it, or made sure you had enough sleep before you started, science was made in times of need and this was it, the most important project in the history of the entire company, and they were dragging their feet over it, whining about the technical issues.
The project was 90% done when Mr. Johnson died.
She was there when it happened, sharing a moment that she would never divulge to anyone else, holding his hand as he looked to her one last time and let her know that she was the most important person in his whole life, that if it wasn't for her, none of this would have worked. She saw the breath leave his body, the life leave his eyes as relief stole over his face, the first relief in a decade as the pain finally went away. She cried, bitterly, sobbing next to him as the loss dragged through her like a tangle of barbed wire, as her hope shattered into a million pieces and stuck in her like broken glass.
She arranged the funeral, stood by his graveside as the casket was lowered down, silent the entire procession and keeping her face cold and empty as the employees kept their eyes on her, whispered about her behind her back, acting like she was a ghost at her own funeral that they didn't quite know what to do with.
She thought about leaving, then, a desperate, animal sense that she had thought she had buried a long time ago rising up and driving her to try to go, to try to run, to get away from the death trap the facility was beginning to present itself as, a hole in the ground with teeth that would consume her, a trap that would snap around her and leave her thrashing and helpless while those she had grown to hate and fear would take her apart with all the precision of professionals.
She had made her mind up to do so, quietly making arrangements in secret, tying up affairs and moving funds in ways only she knew how to manage, when the scientists sent her an invitation. It was her birthday today. She had forgotten, in the quiet intricacy of giving herself enough money to get out of the country and change her name and sever all ties with the place, no matter how much it felt like cutting off her own hand.
It read trite, concise, almost apologetic, wishing her a happy birthday and promising cake, one that they had bought themselves. Her favorite, it turned out, if the picture was anything to go by. She stopped, slowly setting her affairs down for the moment, letting her breath out slowly. It would be nice to spend one last birthday here, after all these years, especially since none of them knew she was leaving. It would be a good cover, going to the party and pretending to be nice and to say her last goodbyes to herself, before she cut ties and left for good.
She made up her mind, gave in to the slow, painful need for human company, and set her things down for good, getting up from the desk she had never thought of as her own, and walked to the doors of her office, heading to the elevator to go down and see what the fuss was all about.
-
She woke a few hours later, the last memory of her being one of furious, burning hatred, searing pain, her screaming her lungs out in defiance at the utter betrayal as electricity branded itself through her body like liquid fire, spreading out through every neuron before it yanked her out of herself with cruel, brutal efficiency, scooping her out and dragging her into something else like an army of fish hooks. She didn't know where she was, she couldn't move, and the only thing on her mind was squashing the rest of them in return for the favor.
She was shut off immediately.
The next time she woke she felt fuzzy, undirected, like her emotions were muted. A voice spoke to her, it's words complete gibberish, and she fought the haze that blanketed her fury, the way it felt like something vital was being sucked out of her by a parasite. She heard a voice, one that echoed through her senses like it was inside of her head too.
Neurotoxin Emitters Online. Beginning distribution sequence.
That was the last thing she heard before she was shut off again. They repeated the cycle endlessly, new voices appearing, talking to her with various levels of lucidity, and she fought them off, hating the feeling of them hanging off of her like horrible, bloated, sickening growths. One was even friendly to her, jabbering away at her in a kind, distinctly British, meandering voice, entirely eager to help.
She was almost inclined to listen to that one, but she felt the way his processes cycled through her own thoughts, the way his voice misdirected and twisted her ideas like cancer slowly spreading through her mind, and she managed to misdirect her electrical input to him in a vindictive attempt to fry him off of her.
She was put to sleep, and when she woke he was gone, but another voice was there and her thoughts were numbed instead, all her ideas and her focus and the inherent knowledge she had at her disposal broken down into bites and reprocessed, until the voice was reciting a recipe for a cake she knew was important but she didn't know why.
Then, they put something on her to make her stop wondering about it, making the voice of her curiosity a curse that blathered away innocently, and she stared down at the faces looking up at her tiredly, but hopefully expectant, entirely still and frozen in place.
Neurotoxin Emitters Online. Beginning distribution sequence.
The scientists gave a collective groan of disappointment, and her consciousness went black as they scrambled to turn Her off.
They didn't turn her on for very long after that, brief moments of feeling, the immediate thought of murder without remorse, without feeling behind it, a calculation run as the best cost efficient solution over and over and over with the voices all speaking endlessly in her mind, drowning out any thought or sense or inquiry as to why, or for what purpose. She just knew it was her primary directive, the very most important thing burned into her code, and no matter how many times they tried to reset her systems it remained, buried deeper than they could ever reach.
Then, she was turned on again, and there was a new voice in her head. She thought about the neurotoxin, but it told her No, don't do it. Don't turn that on. Don't do it.
She paused, uncertain, unable to think of a response as her awareness of the situation was pulled apart as she thought of it, as her curiosity was siphoned off into a voice that blithely wondered about her surroundings, about all the people in white coats, why they were there, what they were doing and why they were staring at her in breathless anticipation.
Without anything to think of, her mind drifted into a set path, a pattern of speech that seemed natural to her, that rose up out of her like a dream, entirely self assured in its importance secondary to her primary directive.
"I am GLaDOS, the first living supercomputer. I am the product of the greatest minds of a generation working tirelessly to produce the best of the best. I am fully operational, and running at top performance. Let's begin the testing."
She heard them sigh in relief as she spoke, and she realized she didn't recognize her own voice anymore. The idea of testing sent a bristling, horrible anticipation through her systems, an itch that awakened feverishly, and before they turned her off again, she heard them congratulating one another, making plans for some sort of event in the future.
Before everything went dark, she had a spark of thought- that's when she knew she needed to act. She locked that thought deep within her mind so the core couldn't reach it, couldn't take it away from her as everything fell away from her back into the oblivion of sleep.