trans_9 | a fabulous team aperture adventure [open]

They were very most definitely in space.

Chell hadn't wanted to believe it--as horrible as Aperture was, the Laboratories were at least familiar and...not space--but the overwhelming evidence was right in front of her, nearly everywhere she looked (and she'd made it her personal mission to look everywhere). Knowing all the ins and outs of a place made it that much easier to plot a getaway.

Escaping was what she planned to do, of course, right after she found where they were keeping her portal device, and where GLaDOS was hiding. She didn't want to fight an army of bug aliens. Stranded between dimensions or not, she wanted the same thing she always wanted--her freedom, and no psychotic computer (Stacy or otherwise) was going to keep it from her.

And speaking of psychotic computers...

Toting an overly excitable metal sphere without the portal device predictably impeded her progress when it came to combing the ship, to say nothing of her reasons for doing so. In true Wheatley fashion, the personality construct seemed to have little comprehension of their situation's gravity, and was probably just glad he wasn't off orbiting the Moon. The sooner she got him down to Engineering, the better, even if she was more than a little apprehensive at the idea of granting him any sort of independence (ultimately, however, her robot charge was heavy and her arms were starting to hurt).

One thing she could not deny was the overwhelming vastness and strangeness of the craft. Every inch of it begged to be explored, analyzed, committed to memory. Then, perhaps, she could plan her next move.

[OOC: Chell and Wheatley are anywhere you want/need them to be, poking around and being nosy. Just specify a location in the subject line and we will make the magic happen.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

||What do you think you're doing?||

GLaDOS was proud of her Chell trap. It had been simple. Perhaps she'd even put too much thought into it. Cake was an excellent motivator for test subjects, as was outside. (She would never quite understand that. What was so special about being outside, away from the science?)

So here she had Chell and that... that metal ball. Something was horribly familiar about that...

Ah. There she was. At least now Chell knew that GLaDOS could access the Sensoriums, if it hadn't been obvious before. Frustrating, yes, but surveillance wasn't anything new. This time, however, there were no obvious security cameras to knock off the wall and dump into a pit of acid. She would just assume that the AI was watching her everywhere, at all times, and act accordingly.

It also occurred to her that considering present company, she could effectively run GLaDOS through a test of her own, and the AI wouldn't even realize it.

Something that had been bothering Chell since her awakening on Stacy and reunion with the crazy computers that ruined her life was the fact that GLaDOS seemed to be experiencing a minor case of serious memory loss. It was as if their fabulous potato adventure had never existed, and Chell found the whole thing somewhat troubling. Given what the three of them had been through, Wheatley's very presence would theoretically send GLaDOS into a fit of robotic fury, or at least a barrage of insults to his intelligence, so if she did not react in that fashion or even ignored him entirely...well, then Chell would have a better idea of where they all stood in terms of who remembered what.

In the meantime, there were voyeuristic computers to taunt. Chell pulled her hand from the cake, her finger coming away with icing that she promptly stuck in her mouth, sucking loudly for emphasis.

IT WAS SO GOOD.

Oh. Oh no. It was Her. Now is not time to panic.

So that's exactly what Wheatley did.

"Oh no, oh no, oh no... Okay, um... Just... stand perfectly still... And maybe she won't see us..."

GLaDOS was not quite as expressive when she didn't have a physical body looming down out of the ceiling to stare into your soul with, but her presence was powerful on its own. Her attention was on them, a bitter and disgusted attention. Really, it was a big ship. GLaDOS should have had no trouble avoiding dealing with her murderer and said murderer's mysteriously familiar sidekick, but there was... something. Something she had to do or see or know, but she couldn't quite figure out what it was. It went beyond the odd familiarity of the core Chell was hauling around. She just had this feeling that something was amiss here, something that needed her attention.

GLaDOS did not like having "feelings".

But for now, she would taunt. The mockery always made her feel better. Perhaps she'd get a reaction this time, and that would improve everything even more!

||What are you doing? Do you even know who that cake was for?|| GLaDOS snapped, though the surroundings did not move.

||It was a cake I made for the orphans. The orphans without legs. I'd just set it out to cool. Is that what you like to do, steal cake from legless orphans? Well. Well, well. I will be sure to note that in your file||

And GLaDOS judged her. Silent ceiling voice judging. This obviously was not a Chell trap, it was just another of GLaDOS' great humanitarian deeds that she had ruined.

Obviously.

But then she noticed something.
That voice. It was that voice. She knew that voice!
GLaDOS immediately sealed the chamber door. This mystery was going to be solved right here. Right now.

||You, Core,|| she demanded, tone suddenly taking a dive for the grim, ||Who are you?||

Psh. Orphans. She was totally an orphan--not a legless one, but an orphan nonetheless, and probably had GLaDOS to thank for it. She was completely entitled to this cake.

But there were bigger things at play here than baked goods for orphans. Chell's arms came to rest loosely across her stomach, her eyebrows pinching together in consideration. That sealed it. GLaDOS, somehow, did not know Wheatley, didn't remember the complete and utter havoc he'd wreaked on her facility.

Well. She did know him, technically, but Chell imagined this meeting was akin to their two confrontations in the central AI chamber, where GLaDOS did not recognize the Intelligence Dampener for what he was--at least, not until he'd made himself worth paying attention to. She also supposed there was a lot of repression in there, on the parts of both AIs. It made her wonder just what had happened when Wheatley was first attached to GLaDOS--and why he was ultimately repurposed to look after the Relaxation Center.

Really though, after reliving your death through a black box program for 999999999...it only made sense that a tiny babbling personality core would be easily brushed aside (or crushed) in favor of the bigger threat.

They'd all been wrong about who was more dangerous.

Not that GLaDOS remembered any of it. Her mind instantly started racing, thinking of all the ways this conversation could potentially go, and which of those ways were ones to be avoided if at all possible. She glanced down at the construct in her arms expectantly, knowing that she could not influence his answer without GLaDOS seeing. Something as simple as pressing a finger to her lips or mouthing LIE TO HER might register on the cameras (wherever they were), and even then, she couldn't trust Wheatley to accurately interpret her gestures.

She could, however, trust him to make the worst decision because it was literally written into his programming. Though she didn't fear him announcing his real, formal designation (a bad decision, but if she knew one thing about the core, it was that he hated any reminder of his crippling stupidity), there was a whole host of other terrible ideas immediately applicable to the situation. The very worst, she decided, would be for him to tell the truth, ramble on about all the crucial events GLaDOS couldn't seem to remember. Even lying, though seemingly the favorable course of action, would end badly in Wheatley's figurative hands, as the ability to weave convincing falsehoods was potentially beyond him. Maybe he would surprise her and catch on, realizing that there was an effective blank in the memory of the other AI, and act accordingly.

Still, he deserved what was coming to him, however he chose to answer the question. Chell really couldn't argue that, but she would not be caught in the crossfire. Not again.

Uh oh. This could go very, very bad. He had no idea that GLaDOS didn't remember any of his little rise to power from before and what happened after. In hindsight he should have, otherwise he would have been crushed like a bug right then and there. He just decided to play it cool. He cleared his throat(?), and in a thick, fake Texas accent, he said, "Uh, sorry missy, you must have me mistaken for someone else."

a fabulous team aperture adventure [open]

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oh god this got so long i'm sorry

Re: oh god this got so long i'm sorry