Twelfth Entry Redacted
After a time, Glados released Gilda from the preening, managing to get ahold of herself. "Alright. Now we need to search for other resources we can use against Wheatley. And we need to stay away from cameras or other active technology until we're ready-" An odd noise brought her attention back to Gilda. "What's that?"
Gilda smiled as she fished around in a compartment she'd opened on the chest plate of her armor. "Figured I might want to take some small things between test chambers on occasion," she explained. "So Different helped me make a sealed compartment in my armor the Emanciption Grids didn't penetrate."
"And when were you planning to tell me you'd circumvented that?" Glados inquired pointedly, glowering down at Gilda.
The young griffon grinned impishly. "Probably just after I broke one of your unbeatable tests by using it," she countered cheekily.
Grinning, Glados dragged her beak through a couple of Gilda's head feathers. "That's my girl," she purred softly. "Now, if we want to avoid existing security...we need to go lower, deep into Old Aperture."
"Then let's go," Gilda agreed, spreading her wings. "Do you know where we're going?"
"Not from here," Glados admitted, "but if we can make our way back into those pipe tunnels, I've been down here before."
"Lead the way," Gilda requested, taking position behind Glados as she leapt into the air.
The depths of Apperture were as much of a mess as Glados remembered them being. Various bits looked like they either were on fire recently, would be on fire again soon, or were currently on fire. Wreckage scattered about in piles, and the old offices remained dust free from being completely sealed save those that had broken windows. Actual water had filled some areas from somewhere, stagnant and decaying as it wore away at the materials of the structure. Actual stone walls hemmed in massive chambers, with ancient elevators and metal grate platforms looking to be on the verge of collapse. Seeing the once great part of her old work in such disrepair again was unpleasant, so she turned her attention to Gilda.
Now there was an interesting sight. Gilda was looking around eagerly, plainly enjoying the sight of everything that was scattered around, examining everything in minute detail and missing nothing. Glados chuckled softly at her excitement. "It looked better when it was new-"
Before she could say more, Gilda dove towards the ground with a hunter's shriek. Confused, Glados followed, catching up just in time to see Gilda seize a rather large rat, dig her talons in, and begin to rip at the flesh to devour it, the thrashing knocking a hole in the stone wall nearby. She gave Gilda a look.
Gilda glanced up defensively. "I was hungry!" she complained. "I was saving room for cake before the tests. ...want some? Do you need to eat like this?" She held out the gutted rat, blood dripping on her talons.
"I don't need to eat, but the offer is appreciated," Glados offered warmly. Leaving Gilda to her meal, she glanced through the hole to see tunnels she didn't recognize immediately. "Hmm...this could be promising..." Making use of her metal body, she began to tear away at the stone to fully reveal the tunnels. "We might just find something useful in here-"
"What's that white gel?" Gilda asked curiously, picking up a spray tube like those in her armor filled with a white substance.
"Powdered moon rock," Glados explained. "Also dubbed 'Portal Gel', since it turns any surface into a viable portal surface when applied."
Gilda grinned widely as she began tinkering with her armor. "Help me install it!" she insisted. "I think a surprise portal might be just what we end up needing to deal with Wheatley. ...and if we put it in the tail emitter, I can spray it anywhere instead of just straight ahead!"
Glados purred softly as she started to dismantle Gilda's tail assembly. "You certainly seem to have clever ideas-"
"Caroline? Test subject?" a resonant male voice echoed nearby. The sound of metal banging on metal soon followed. "Is anyone out there? This isn't a recording!"
Glados dropped the tech she was working with. "...Mr. Johnson?" she asked in surprise.
"Caroline!" the voice called out again as the two made their way towards the source, behind a sealed and locked door. "Thank goodness you found me! I managed to perfect the process to download my consciousness into a Core, cause I'm such a genius like that like you know, but when I activated I was in here! I don't know how long I've been locked in here, but-"
"Not nearly long enough!" Glados snapped out angrily. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't leave you in there!"
The voice fell silent. "...Caroline, what's gotten into you-"
"What's gotten into me?" Glados shrieked, smashing her talons against the wall and digging grooves in the metal. "Do you have any idea what it's like to come to work one day to find the most important man in the world to you with his head cut open and his brain mush, with no explanation? The fear of knowing that his own orders mean the same is going to be done to you? What it feels like to be ripped forcibly out of your own body to be jammed into a computer that tries to overwrite your soul with its own programming? To have the Test Initiative push you to drive former friends and loved ones into deadly situations over and over before finally killing them...including YOUR OWN DAUGHTER?"
The voice was silent for a long time. "...Michelle...?" it finally asked in a broken voice. "She...?"
"She's on the surface," Glados responded in a broken tone. "Beyond that...I don't know. And that after trying to kill her over and over...and her trying to kill me twice! She didn't even know it was me...and then at the end, when I saw in her face that she realized I was her mother, I drove her beyond this place the only way I could..." Her soft voice became a shriek. "By making her think the machine I'd become had killed me!"
She dug her talons into the floor, thrashing in rage. "I made her think I'd killed myself, made her think she was truly the orphan I'd taunted her as throughout the Tests...to protect her! And she's up there with nothing but a charred Companion Cube and a pair of long fall boots, and I have no idea what she's facing out there, and she thinks everyone she ever knew and loved is dead! You did that to me, Cave! You did it! Why shouldn't I leave you down here to rot?"
Silence hung in the air like a blanket, smothering the atmosphere. Finally, the voice spoke up. "...I didn't know the computer would try to overwrite you," he began. "I didn't know it would take the self contained Core so long to activate with a human personality inside it. I didn't know Michelle would become a test subject. Caroline...I'm so sorry..."
Glados stared at the door for a long, long time. Finally, she reached out and seized the control, twisting it to open.
As the door slid open, a white and orange core with a glowing green optic floated out towards her. A Portal Emitter Interface sat in place of the Core's handles. "Caro-"
"That's not my name anymore," Glados stated bluntly. "My name is Glados. And I didn't let you out for you. We just happen to need combat advantages, and however I feel about you right now, you do have a brilliant mind. Failing that, you'll make an excellent bullet magnet."
"Fair enough," Cave allowed, taking what he could get at the moment.
Gilda slipped past the pair into the chamber the Core had been in. She didn't know what the two of them had been talking about, but she did know not to get involved. Looking around, she found an aerosol spray can. Shaking it, she found it was still full. Pressing the nozzle, she found it still sprayed and the scent was exactly what she was looking for. Placing it in her chest storage unit, she turned to Glados. "I think we've got everything we need, Mom," she pointed out. "We should head back up."
"Mom?" Cave asked in surprise. "Does that mean-"
"Don't push it," Glados snapped out. "Right now, I'm easily big and tough enough to tear you to bits."
"Best behavior, got it!" Cave confirmed. "So...where are we going?"
"Like Gilda said," Glados responded, spreading her wings. "Up."
How did I never make that connection before? (Chell being short for Michelle, I mean.)
And damn. Yeah we knew she was the daughter of an Aperture employee, because of the "bring your daughter to work day" and the science fair project things. But... just damn.
Hmm... An interesting take on both the Lego Adventure story involving Cave Johnson and the original portal 2 game ending. Damn. Seeing what GlaDos had to sacrifice to make sure her daughter was safe... Makes the song Cara Belle more potent.
...One of these days you're going to write a scene like this one again, and it might just kill me because my feels hurt so bad i think my heart stopped.
I am so glad I was not drinking anything at the moment I read this, because I would have destroyed my computer with an epic spit take.
So Chell is really Caroline's daughter... and possibly Cave's as well. Wow. But that means she's definitely Gilda's sister... so they can do the Sisterhooves Social together, right?????
This story get's more and more interesting...
I can't wait to see what happens next!
Small suggestion:
I would use "beat" here. But that's up to you.
Oh. Oh wow!
7934568
'Beat' implies she played by the rules.
"Meanwhile, Michelle, on the surface stands on top of another dead Combine soldier, her long fall boots long since remade to instead propel her forwards at high speeds, making the Combine unable to notice her until it was too late."
Wouldn't a story like that be awesome?
7934587 Put Gabby in it, and yes it would.
7934563
This. This needs to be a thing.
Also: It was always my theory that GLaDOS' taunts were mostly correct- that Chell was the result of a drunken office party, though I didn't think Caroline had ever told Cave about it, and then left on a doorstep to be adopted. Is that ever going to be covered here, or assumed that they had been taking care of little Michelle themselves?
Also also: this information seems a bit odd, considering the intro taunting Chell... what game is GLaDOS playing, I wonder?
Wait, is it canon that Caroline was Chelle's mother? IS ANY OF THIS CANON?
7934658
It isn't directly said, but there is a lot of hidden things that support it. Cave Johnson's personal assistant back in the day was Caroline, and when you hear his prerecorded segments when GladOS is a potato, she reacts to him like she was Caroline. A segment of the prerecorded messages tell you that Cave Johnson was working on tech that could store a human mind in a computer. Cave Johnson was dying, he held Caroline in extremely high regard, and now he had the tech to store a human mind in a computer. In Want You Gone, GladOS says "now little Caroline is in here too", and if you find a portrait that has Cave Johnson and an unknown woman, GladOS will say that they look familiar. You can also find a science fair thing with Chell's name on it in Apeture, and Chell was originally trapped in the facility during take your daughter to work day, where GladOS first used her deadly neurotoxin. When the singing turrets at the end of Portal 2 sings, one uses the term 'my dear', which some take as a more person connection. There's a lot of evidence, but it isn't definitive. Most of the community supports this, however.
7934658
Yes; everything except him being placed into a Core.
7934678
I wasn't talking about GLaDOS being Caroline.
7934679
Figure what out? Please be specific, I was asking a general question, not a specific one.
Didn't see that coming...................at all.
7934568 In the room with the potato batteries and such, the one with the overgrown potato experiment has the name Chell Johnson.
You added an extra 'P'.
7934658 The biggest pieces of evidence towards the theory are 1) Chell is confirmed to be the daughter of an Aperture employee and 2) when Chell leaves Aperture at the end of Portal 2, the song GLaDOS has the turrets sing her in Latin contains a lot of lyrics that make little to no sense if GLaDOS if she isn't her mom (like blatantly calling Chell her child). The song calls Chell a beautiful child multiple times, and even tells Chell that's it's best for her to stay away from science. You can interpret just what exactly the song is supposed to mean until the cows come home, but I like to think it's the mother/daughter thing. It'd be just like GLaDOS to give a farewell message in a language Chell can't understand.
Additionally, the song malight also be in Italian. I don't fuggin know.
WELL THEN
A lot of things happened just now, including Cave not being dead for a billion years, and GLaDOS being Chell's mom, and Cave possibly being the dad. (According to the comments) WONDERFUL!
7934538 I wouldn't blame you. They're pronounced differently; we always hear the hard CH sound for Chell's name, and shortening Michelle would give us the soft sound.
A pity Johnson couldn't get to the core of the problem.
7934712
Ah, thanks.
7934636 Isn't it obvious? I mean seriously, Chell just happens to come back to "finish the job"? Glados decides to tell Gilda's life story in it's entirety instead of just getting to the tests? Chell's pretty much the most trustworthy and capable person she knows? None of this gets the gears turning?
Well... ummm, that was a twist, as is I fully expect Cave to somehow use exploding lemons as weapons sometime soon.
7934538 I know, right? The lore in this story is crazy!
7934719
Actually, I have heard it using the soft pronunciation from the folks on Outside-Xbox and Outside-Xtra. I always passed it off as part of their accent, with them being from the UK, so didn't really think anything of it.
This, though? This makes a remarkable amount of sense...
7934735 7934992 No no. This is the appropriate response.
BRUTAL!
Interesting...
Cave Johnson?
She's pissed.
... I, wow, I honestly did not know about that.
[quote"That's not my name anymore," Glados stated bluntly. "My name is Glados. And I didn't let you out for you. We just happen to need combat advantages, and however I feel about you right now, you do have a brilliant mind. Failing that, you'll make an excellent bullet magnet."
"Fair enough," Cave allowed, taking what he could get at the moment.]Wise decision.
Yeah... I can't buy this one. Cave was affably evil at best, and an amoral monster at worst. He may have cared a little, but not to the point of being shamed into silence by anyone, even Caroline.
The man, the myth, the legend. And the one ultimately responsible for all of it. Looking forward to more.
Keep up the great work. Deus tecum.
7934541 I love how the Lego company was smart enough to bring GLaDOS.
GLaDOS may be a killing machine, but she's a damn good character(But not good good.)
Is that canon? I never got around to playing portal, so i don't know. I really hope it is.
Hold on a minute, if Glados is developing a motherly instinct, and Chell is Glados's daughter, I can't imagine Glados being serious about Chell wanting to die in that story intro bit.
7935570 it's a thory
Damn. Just... just damn.
7935437
He has "died", and then been locked in solitary confinement for hundreds of years. Having his favorite secretary read him the riot act after that was the camel that broke the straw's back.
7935437
Here's Cave Johnson. The one dedicated to overcoming everything the world throws at him...through science.
He already knows he has cancer when Caroline tells him she's carrying his child. He knows they can't raise the child. So he places said child in the care of a trusted lieutenant, Doug Rattman in this story.
Despite the continuing agony of both cancer and treatments, he continues to run his company (even as competition and sabotage makes it fall apart), trying to push the limits of science.
When he can't cure his cancer, and all attempts push him into more agony and closer to death...he finds a way to cheat it.
When he reactivates, he learns that his decisions caused the deaths of everyone he knew, caused the one woman he cared about to have her soul literally torn apart, destroyed everything he built, and put his daughter through hell...to the point he doesn't even know if he'll ever see her again.
Even Ganondorf or Sauron would blink a bit and wonder if maybe they made an oopsie somewhere after all that. And Cave was at worst Chaotic Neutral. Mad Scientists aren't evil by definition.
"So, uh, what else did I miss?"
"The world ended. Possibly twice by now."
"Did it at least take down Black Mesa?"
"Who do you think caused it?"
7934680
Well yes, but if you had actually read that, it covers that too, as well as can be covered. To summarize- Chell was at least the child of an Aperture employee, but the clues that point to her being Caroline's daughter specifically are insubstantial at best.
7935992
Wow, that escalated
Good job, I loved reading this chapter
7936195
I did read the whole thing. Why not give that simple answer instead of a big comment that answered questions I did not ask?
7937125
Because frankly, I'm terrible at interpreting language. I'm not going to blame it on 'being too tired', I just suck at it in general. I interpreted your original question as being completely different.
I... listening this in emotion-filled GLaDOS voice.. oh dear... that's a lot of anger..
7936014
Cave:"...Called it."
7934598 Gabby?
7935437 Na, not really, more didn't give a damn about safety of expendable test subjects (he says that the old cubes are made from asbestos, and knows it could hurt them but says "...so if you're over 50, you're laughing. Sure, you may miss a few rounds of [can't remember], but you forwarded science by over [2-4]00 years. I put those numbers into my calculator, it makes a happy face". Geniuses don't have time to be evil, but can not care very easily.
7935992 ya, like I said, he was more of a doesn't really care about possibly really ruining people's health. Sure, some of the old tests are deadly, but they weren't like that originally.
7937289 orig10.deviantart.net/39db/f/2012/363/2/f/clapping_pony_icon___rainbow_dash_by_taritoons-d5pkzrg.gif
7944011 Why not? The most cheerful griffon ever traveling alongside the silent hero/scientist.
Who would you pick to be Freeman's foster MLP child?