Office Hours [Open, everyone feel free to bother GLaDOS]

[fabricaketions]

One of the Sensoriums is active. Inside it's been made to look like a spacious office. A whole wall of windows opens up on a bright but indistinct cityscape. The decor is sleek and modern, though the predominant black and white with no color is perhaps a bit too stark. Some absolutely untouched-looking books sit on a shelf and a plant that is far too green to be real sits in the window collecting dust. There are barely audible stirrings of bad office muzak that are not entirely blocked out by the walls. It's all very sterile and feels off, like it's been put together by someone with a precise list of things that an office is but no understanding of what it's like to be in one.

Suspended over the desk is a gigantic robot.

It glares balefully at anyone who looks in. Or at least it seems to, thanks to that yellow "eye" in its "face".

"Oh. Hello. Come in. Make yourself at home," GLaDOS says. Under her attempt at a flat tone is the faintest hint of resentment.

She does not want to be here. At all.

Comments

[fattynoparents]

It wasn't like Chell had been looking for GLaDOS, or anything. That would have been completely ridiculous.

Okay, maybe she had been, a little bit. The whole SHODAN thing had worried her, much more than she wanted to admit. In the end, however, she'd decided that she needed to see how the AI was doing. Silly, perhaps, maybe even stupid, but it was something Chell wanted to know.

Finding GLaDOS was the hard part. Everyone said that the computer would answer if you walked down the halls calling her name, but that wasn't really an option in Chell's case.

So it was perhaps very lucky when she stumbled into the occupied Sensorium to find the familiar chassis hanging from the ceiling. And...an office? It was probably best not to ask--she'd just trot over and make herself comfortable, right on the desk.

[fabricaketions]

This was not GLaDOS's real body, which was hanging safely in its chamber somewhere else, but she did draw herself up away from Chell just a little.

"Didn't anyone ever teach you to use furniture like a normal person?" she said. "Oh, I guess not. No parents, after all. So sad."

Yeah, she was already going to go there.

[fattynoparents]

Still, it was good enough for Chell, especially considering that the test subject had looked far and wide for the real thing, only to come up empty time and time again.

She fixed GLaDOS with a look that clearly said those kinds of insults didn't work anymore (if they even worked in the first place--okay, maybe they did, just a little), and ever-so-casually slid into the chair.

[first_in_time]

Though Barbara Wright, historian and educator, had tripped the light fantastic with a mad man in his transcendental box, she hadn't seen too many robots. Those that she had seen, were mostly trying to kill her, so it was no surprise that when a gigantic, sleek robot suspended from the ceiling invites her into a small room, she is a little nervous.

But curiosity pushes her forward.

She stands a couple of feet in front of the desk and humbly wrings her hands before her. "Uh, hello. You're a very large robot."

Clearly, stating the obvious is a terrible habit Barbara has not been able to shake.

[fabricaketions]

"A robot? Is that all that you think I am?" She's positively hurt.

Actually that's a lie, she's not very surprised. She's just moderately irked.

[first_in_time]

"Sorry," she wrings her hands together a little before she realises what she's doing, and hides them behind her back. The last thing Barbara wants is to hurt, or anger a...thing...that's not only suspended above her head but who is also twice as tall as her. "What are you, then, if you're not a robot?"

[tetsuwan_atom]

Atom peered over at GLaDOS and then, in response to her voice, sat down on a sleek-looking office desk, legs dangling over the side. "Thanks. Who are you? I didn't know there were other robots around."

[fabricaketions]

She had to check the crewman's file to explain that remark. The mimicry of a human child was very convincing.

"I am the Genetic Lifeform and Disc Operating System. GLaDOS. I am responsible for avia testing and monitoring, among other responsibilities."

The machine's head tilted to one side. "Is there something you want?"

[tetsuwan_atom]

He shook his head. "No, not really. I just thought I'd say hi. There aren't a lot of robots on the ship, not like home. Are you feeling okay? I heard you got shut down."

[wizardsaregodtier]

He had never been to the mazes and run the tests -- apparently elves just had very sticky souls? -- but everything Aibghalien had heard made him curious. For a few reasons.

So the wizard stepped into the sensorium with a businesslike smile. (He'd cast an Extended Eagle's Splendor on himself before coming in, so it was one hell of a smile anyway.) He might be put off if he had any idea what an office ought to look like himself. "Good day."

[fabricaketions]

This one was humanoid. Not human, but close enough for GLaDOS to lump him in with them on a general level. He was smiling, which she supposed was an attempt to be diplomatic.

"Is there something you needed, Crewman?" she asked, though she was already trying to guess.

[atadiscoverer]

Okay. This was weird.

Carson hesitates before stepping into the office.

"Uh, thank you." A pause, before the obvious question springs to his lips. "What's this all about?"

[fabricaketions]

"I am holding office hours," GLaDOS replies. "They are a newly mandated part of my duties. She thinks they will improve my performance."

The way GLaDOS jerks her head ceilingward and the bitterness in her voice gives little doubt who that she could be. Stacy clearly doesn't appreciate the hard work GLaDOS does for her every day.

[burnedbrighter]

Azula was having one of her bad days. The kind where she kept looking over her shoulder, positive someone was sneaking up on her to kill her.

She had fled the Air temple no longer feeling safe there even if she knew she had to return. Had she ever really felt safe there? That was debatable.

So when she ducked into the sensorium in an attempt to shake off her invisible pursuers she wasn't pleased to find herself staring down a massive robot. She'd gotten quiet enough of them from the attack.

[fabricaketions]

GLaDOS allowed herself to be stared at for a moment, then stretched down and out across the desk to stare at Azula more closely.

"I said you could make yourself at home," she repeated.

[moms_temperment]

Hana steps into the room, gaping as he approaches the massive robot in a way that suggests he doesn't know caution in any form.

You'd think after the fiasco involving SHODAN, the teen would be a little more wary around the more mechanical beings in the ship. But no, Hana still finds robots to be totally enthralling.

And this one was huge!

"Woooooaaahhh."

[fabricaketions]

GLaDOS was, on the one hand, always pleased to strike fear or awe in people. On the other, it would have been fine with her if no one came to stare at her.

"Yes?" she put in, a little more sharply than was polite.

[thewunderkind]

When Lash stepped in, it was just for a normal talk. Well, a SCIENCE talk. Chell was one of those robots who, unlike Wheatley or (forbid he'd ever be alive in here) Jugger, didn't make her want to punch a wall. Especially after the whole SHODAN incident.

She was surprised to see her there en personne, however.

"Oh! Is that how your body looks like?"

[fabricaketions]

Ah. That crewman, the one who liked tests. GLaDOS remembered that idiosyncrasy.

"Yes. This is an accurate replica," she confirmed. "I have been informed that it encourages communication if I have a physical shape."

Not that she's thrilled about communicating with the crew, but if she's going to have to do this she'll try to do it correctly.

[laughsassinate]

Sometimes Gamzee wanders around the ship aimlessly whenever it feels like the thing to do at the time. This particular excursion brought him to the sensorium, where he stopped at the doorway and peered into the colorless office room. Agh, it's so bright... It kind of hurts his eyes. So now he's blinking and squinting and thinking twice about stepping inside, but he does anyway.

Then there's a voice and after his eyes adjust a little further he sees a sizable robot stationed at a desk, welcoming him inside. So he guesses maybe he's supposed to be here all along. Hah, okay, he can so totally do that.

"Right then, I'm in! So what's all this setup for doing with anyway?" he asks, referring to the decorum. If there was any perniciousness in GLaDOS's disposition, Gamzee did not detect it for the present.

[fabricaketions]

It takes GLaDOS a fraction longer than usual to parse Gamzee's speech pattern, but she ultimately succeeds.

"I am here to speak with members of the crew. The ship thinks that communication will improve the quality of my performance in my assigned duties," she replies.

"My objections were ultimately overridden. So, here I am."

[thereisno11]

When Church stepped in the Sensorium, he wasn't sure what to expect of the strange robot. He didn't even know who Glados WAS. So Church turned to the robot. "You don't have a Spanish setting do you?"

[fabricaketions]

"The Transmigration 9 is equipped with a state-of-the-art translation matrix, rendering language difference on board the ship almost entirely moot," she replied coolly. "Is there any reason this is not good enough for you, Crewman?"

[notamoron]

There was something interesting going on in the Sensorium today. Someone had replicated a nice office. It reminded Wheatley of home, trapped all day in a dead end job with no future and no escape. Fond memories like that. So he decided to go take a look.

"Hello?" he asked. "Is anyone--" He looked up.

He immediately turned and tried to leave without saying another word.

[fabricaketions]

"You."

Not so fast, Wheatley!

One of those walls? Actually it is a panel! Suddenly everything is panels!

A robotic arm reaches out to try to catch him.