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

[fabricaketions]

GLaDOS was rifling through her options, figuring out how exactly this could be done.

"Maybe you should try a regular gun sometime," she replied, half distracted. "They're much more convenient for senselessly killing things." Yeeaaah, she wasn't going to let that go. She didn't seem upset or particularly vengeful with the remark, at least.

Aha! Success! She'd found her loophole.

Portal Gun: ETA 30 seconds.

[fattynoparents]

Chell shrugged. Senselessly killing Ohm, sure. Maybe the day would come when she'd have to kill Stacy--it certainly was possible, and she hadn't written off that possibility, yet. Having a Portal gun, however, was much more her style.

She raised her eyebrows, looking up at the robot dangling above her, wondering what, exactly, GLaDOS was getting at.

[fabricaketions]

An energy tentacle swept down from the ceiling, just melting out of the tiles and trailing through a light as it did so.

It held out the gun to Chell with a surprisingly delicate movement, and GLaDOS let go of whatever other jab she had been considering making about Chell's murderous murder problems.

"Here. Now you can't say I never did anything for you," she said sternly. "Not that you could before. But I feel this point benefits from repetition."

[fattynoparents]

She let the gun drop into her hands, testing its familiar weight. Chell hadn't quite realized how much she missed the reassuring feel of it until it was gone, and to have it back was much more comforting than she would have liked to admit.

Maybe the gun wouldn't even work anywhere on Stacy, but at this moment, she didn't much care. She'd figure it out.

There was, of course, the thought that because they were in the Sensoriums, the gun wasn't real, but that wouldn't be a problem--Chell would find out soon enough.

She offered GLaDOS a nod--as complicated as their relationship was, the AIs words were, at this moment, true.

Thank you.