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"What in the name of Aperture are you doing?"
Chell couldn't help but smirk at her friend's scolding. She had portaled onto GLaDOS's "back" to mess with her and have fun, but it seemed she was having a bit too much fun.
"Careful, lunatic, you might snap me in half by being up there— Put. That. Down." the supercomputer scoffed as Chell messed with a few wires.
Of course she didn't listen. Instead, she tied them into a little bowtie. "Maybe I should bring back your best friend, deadly neurotoxin, hmm?" GLaDOS joked. Chell quickly hopped off her, not wanting to take any chances in case the AI wasn't joking.
"How about we find you something less destructive to do? If that's even possible." she teased, earning an eye roll from her former test subject.
"Like what?" Chell said. She didn't talk much, so a verbal response from her must mean she was interested. "Hm, let's see…" GLaDOS pondered as she "accidentally" pulled up countless clips of Chell being destructive on her monitors. "Oops."
The AI proceeded to list off a plethora of different ideas while Chell only half paid attention, opting to fidget with the prongs on the portal gun instead. The few "ideas" she did hear consisted of normal GLaDOS stuff. Murdering something, breathing in the deadly neurotoxin "for the sake of science," going to clean out the incinerator, and seeing how many feet she can fall without her boots before breaking a leg.
"I would say you could try baking a cake, but with your…" she paused, looking down to Chell and narrowing her optic, "generous… size… you'd start drooling at the sight of the cake mix."
"Could I give it a shot?" Chell asked.
In return, GLaDOS let out the robotic equivalent of a chuckle. "Of course not. The cake mix here is thousands of years expired. And you'd burn down the facility."
"I'll break more glass in your test chambers if you don't let me."
"...I'll find a kitchen."
"You imbecile. You're supposed to whip the frosting."
"That's a little hard to do when the frosting is older than you."
GLaDOS let out an overexaggerated gasping noise, pretending to be offended by Chell's joke. "Only a lunatic like you would find that funny."
GLaDOS was generous enough to bring up the kitchen part of some cafeteria into her chamber. She would've just told Chell to go explore and find one herself, but the robot didn't want her destroying more things on the way. Or breaking Aperture's last functioning oven. Or burning the place down. Or all three. Instead, she just picked apart the first kitchen she found and swapped out a few panels in her chamber with an oven, stove, broken fridge, cupboards, and countertops.
Chell ungraciously ripped open a bag of chocolate chips. Well, they were supposed to be chocolate chips. Without the faded label, Chell would've guessed they were fossils. "Looks… appetizing." the girl said sarcastically as she dumped the "chocolate" into the bowl of frosting. "Smells like Aperture."
"Then I'm glad the scientists didn't bother giving me a nose. Good luck to you though." GLaDOS jokingly retorted.
"Maybe they should've. I'd love to see your reaction to the absolutely outstanding scent of this lovely concoction." Chell smirked, using all her strength to mix the chocolate chips into the frosting. "So you have the strength to try murdering me twice, but apparently can't mix a little chocolate into some frosting?" the robot taunted. Chell just rolled her eyes.
Their bickering was quickly interrupted by an even stranger smell.
"Something smells funny," Chell said, still struggling to stir. "And no, it's not the mix." She put the bowl down and looked around in an attempt to locate the source of the odd aroma.
"The oven!" they both shouted in unison.
GLaDOS used one of her mechanical claws to throw open the oven door and take the "cake" out, practically tossing it onto a nearby counter before taking the oven away. "You were supposed to be watching the time." the bot scolded. "Well, I'm sorry I couldn't watch the clock while breaking my arms trying to mix a bowl full of rocks and cement!" Chell shot back.
They looked at the dark brown mass that sat in front of them. It looked undercooked and overcooked at the same time, with spots clearly black and charred while also leaking some batter they'd whipped up earlier. Schrodinger's Cake.
"Did you put poison in it?" Chell asked as she grimaced at the smell of the cake.
"No, but I'm tempted to after you ruined it," GLaDOS responded. "Maybe the icing will save this.. thing.. and you'll get a chance at redemption."
Chell handed GLaDOS the bowl while she used a baking pan to fan the cake in a futile attempt to cool it off. "Not my fault," she said, blowing on it. "You suggested we do this."
GLaDOS seemed taken aback by that, but Chell couldn't take her seriously while she was using a comically large metal claw to mix a tiny bowl with an even tinier spoon. The girl couldn't help but smile at the sight. "What? What's so funny?" GLaDOS asked, genuinely confused.
"Nothing," Chell lied. "Just thinking of something silly."
GLaDOS wasn't taking that as a response.
She flicked a bit of frosting onto Chell's face, hitting her right on the left cheek. "Give me that!" she shouted, but GLaDOS raised her chassis and swiped the bowl away, causing her to trip and fall on the floor. A cheap 90s laugh track echoed throughout the chamber. The girl scoffed and angrily looked up at her.
"Not so funny now, hm?" GLaDOS teased, lowering herself back down and handing Chell the bowl.
They took turns frosting the brown lump they made. Occasionally a chuck would fall off and they'd have to glue it back on with more frosting, resulting in ugly crevices all over the cake. "I didn't think this could get more hideous, but for once, it seems like I was wrong." GLaDOS said.
"It was ruined when we found it," Chell corrected, "It somehow looks more radioactive than before."
Despite their attempts to save the cake, no matter what they added, it just kept looking more and more inedible. Chell tried rolling batter into little balls and placing them along the top to resemble cherries, but they just kept rolling off. GLaDOS thought sticking a metal rod into the center would make it stand. That lasted about five seconds before the cake split in half and they had to smash it back together with icing. Their creation looked like a lump of dirt at best.
"It's certainly not good," GLaDOS said, "but not too bad either considering everything we used went bad thousands of years ago." Chell nodded in agreement. The bot continued, "You should do a taste test."
Chell looked up at her in shock as a slice of "cake" was shoved in front of her face.
"NO." she said sternly, swatting the slice away and jumping back.
"Oh well. Maybe I'll feed it to Mr. Chubby Beak." GLaDOS said, grabbing the cake with a mechanical claw and taking it away.
Chell lunged forward and snatched the cake from her, but it was clear that the supercomputer wasn't going to give up that easily. They tugged back and forth, fighting for the tray. All fun and games before Chell lost her balance and fell backward which sent the cake flying in GLaDOS's direction. It was already a mess on the floor before she could catch it. GLaDOS shot Chell a glare as her test subject just giggled and struggled to form a sentence. After a while, her laughter subsided.
"Want to make another one?"