It's been a long time. I'm sure most of you weren't expecting me to return to this fic. To be truthful, I sort of got stuck on it after writing the previous chapter, after which I was fairly swiftly distracted by… other endeavors. An idea recently struck, however, and thus here we are. Hope you enjoy the chapter; it isn't very long, but I figured it would be better to get something out than to wait and potentially get stuck again. My apologies for the long wait as well.

Chapter 15: Plans are forged

"It's been a long time…", GLaDOS muttered, her brightly yellow eye firmly fixed on the screen in front of her. She had considered many possibilities when she began this process, but encountering a younger version of what was essentially a part of herself definitely had not been one of them.

"I could have sworn my hair was shorter than that" the sizeable robot felt more than heard Caroline mutter within her head. The AI's reply was swift, concise and to the point; "One of you is more than enough, thank you."

"Now hold on just a-" – "CAROLINE DELETED", the Announcer interrupted, as Aperture's Caroline was suddenly silenced in the middle of her sentence. Now free of her inner human's influences (at least for the moment) the Queen of Aperture quickly took action, mentally commanding the closest reassembly machine to put together her two marshmallows which were technically supposed to be testing bots. They had not been very useful for their original purpose, but there really was not time to design anything from scratch right now. Whilst she waited for the two bots to assemble, she quickly started to think about possible courses of action. As luck would have it, after only a few moments, an idea struck.

Caroline was in her head. This wasn't a fact which either of them necessarily appreciated – GLaDOS herself knew for certain that she did not, and she highly suspected that the feeling was mutual. Not that she had ever held a conversation with Caroline long enough to know for certain. She could not just delete Caroline – the fail-safes, whilst originally intended as a safety measure in case the woman accidentally deleted herself whilst she had not grown accustomed to a computerized existence, were annoyingly effective at their job, enough to prevent simple deletion from really being an option. What she could do, on the other hand (at least if her theories were correct, and they usually were) was reversing the upload. In theory, this would allow her to get rid of Caroline's more active processes without triggering the automated repair protocols, and without destroying her own mind in the process.

The problem with the idea thus far had been twofold. Firstly, the technology for reversing the digital upload process had never been completed. By the time she was constructed, the uploading technology was still very much in the experimental stage, and by the point she took over in full, the technology to reverse it was still a long way off. She never really deemed it worthwhile to pick that specific line of research up again.

The second problem was the fact that only a compatible body would do. The human brain grew in unique ways for each individual, and as such, the body the mind was being transferred in had to resemble their original one quite closely. Unfortunately, the human body had a nasty habit to get its brain-cells fried during the mental upload sequence – Caroline's original body was brain-dead the moment her mind entered GLaDOS' metallic frame. Without a working brain to deposit the mind into, the reversed upload sequence simply would not work, and the only fathomable substitute would be an identical twin with at least a fairly similar mind to match (or a person possessing such resemblance through a massive genetic coincidence), something which Caroline simply did not have. Now, however, there was such a body just in front of her. It was young, perhaps a bit too young to really fit the description, but there was a Caroline in there as well. She could just use the body's original mind to… fix what did not quite fit, and thus allow the transfer to complete successfully. It should work. Probably.

So, in short: dispatch the bots with orders to retrieve the new Caroline. In the meantime, get the reversed personality upload technology working. Then download Caroline into Caroline's body, clearing her own mind from the annoying woman in the process. Problem solved. It was not a very elaborate plan, but as she had realized quite some time ago, the best solution to a problem is usually the easiest one. Besides, overly complex plans had a habit of failing at the worst of times.

At this moment, the two testing bots walked in, chattering quietly with one another. GLaDOS turned, her gaze falling on the two bots as she moved to speak to them directly.

"Blue, Orange, I have a new task for you. You are to find and secure this woman"-at this point, GLaDOS explained a still-image of Miss Pauling on the closest available monitor to the robotic pair-"and then bring her back to me, alive and without greater injuries. The… elevator to the test chamber is to your left. Enter it, and you will be transported there momentarily. Good luck."

Blue said something to Orange, gesturing almost excitedly with its arms, only for the latter bot to hit the former's rear hard enough to send its core spinning. Blue turned, one hand coming up to stop the orb in question as the other moved to retaliate. GLaDOS beat her bot to the punch, tilting the panel under Orange's feet just enough to cause it to stumble towards the dimensional transporter (aka 'elevator', to the testing bots' knowledge) situated some short distance off; a bit crude of a method, perhaps, but it seemed to get the point across. Just a few moments later, both the bots had made it into the device. It hummed softly as it sent them away, leaving the entire chamber feeling strangely silent afterwards.

For a moment, at least, before Caroline's voice made its presence heard within GLaDOS' head once again.

"Ugh, I hate when you do that." Caroline complained with a groan, seeming more than a bit dissatisfied with what just happened. The central core's other occupant was once more quick to respond, however, dryly stating "good, because I am going to keep doing it until you learn to keep quiet". A moment later, the Announcer's emotionless "CAROLINE DELETED" rang out within the empty chamber once more, after which its sole occupant was left, alone, in silence.

Meanwhile, in a small, dark room cleverly concealed behind what, for most people, would appear to be nothing more than a normal brick wall, smoke curled through the air. Thin tendrils of burned plant matter floated upwards, gradually dispersing into the thick smog which had formed in the room over the course of the last few hours. It was cigarette smoke, each tendril only adding to the considerable amount already gathered with the room. Logically, such smoke would emerge from a cigarette, which indeed was the case. More specifically, it was being released not just by any cigarette, but by a highly expensive luxury cigarette, a brand which only two people in the Teufort bases regularly smoked. Namely, the BLU Spy, and the RED Spy. This specific cigarette happened to belong to the latter of the two, situated cleanly in the corner of his mouth as the man himself considered recent events.

The majority of his present concerns could be summed up as follows: the imbeciles at BLU were hiding something and, as per usual, this probably meant that they were up to no good. In all probability, it started when they wrecked the central bridge. From there, several of them had been seen behaving in a rather… unusual manner. Part of what happened was to be expected, of course. You could not really expect the more fight-happy mercenaries to not start a bar fight when both teams went to get drunk at the same place. A few explosions and screams were to be expected as well, knowing how trigger-happy some of them were, but their entire base going dark simultaneously after an audible boom sounded from within was extreme, even for them. The medi-gun could have been detonated again, yes, but surely nobody was stupid enough to make that mistake again. Add to that the metallic-sounding crash he'd heard just a few minutes ago, and it was definitely suspicious.

Now, under normal circumstances, the RED Spy would have jumped at the opportunity to sneak around undisturbed in an unpowered BLU base. In a manner of speaking, that was what was expected of him. Which was the exact reason why he was not doing it. Doing what was expected of you was a sure-fire way of getting caught, and the RED Spy was smart enough to recognize that his BLU counterpart was almost as competent as himself. The man would be on the lookout for intruders right about now. Besides, he didn't really fancy another walk through the sewers; one time was more than enough, thank you. It would take forever to get that stench out of his suit.

And so, the Spy watched. He had quite the number of little cameras and listening devices placed throughout RED's base, and usually a fair amount in BLU base as well, although those had a nasty habit of disappearing every now and then. They all connected wirelessly to a nifty little device he had 'liberated' from the local Engineer's workshop, which in turn sent the data to a number of TV-screens within the room. Combined with a nice, comfortable (and classy) armchair, this allowed the Spy to keep an eye on the two forts of Teufort much more effectively than if he had gone out there in person. Sooner or later, his foes would reveal themselves, and when they did, he would act, striking them where they would least expect. Just like he always did.

Far into the deepest recesses of BLU base, hidden within the nigh-impenetrable darkness of the power outage, a voice could be heard. It wasn't the high-pitched voice of a lady, nor was it the deep bass of a heavy-set man such as the local heavy weapons guy. In fact, if one were to listen closely, they would probably develop a sneaking suspicion that whoever they were listening to had gotten hold of some sort of voice modulator, seeing as it sounded more like chirping than any real words.

Another voice, this one deeper than the first, warbled something in response, and a light revealed itself in the darkness. Emerging from a circular shape which could be compared to an eye, the light moved around almost as if it were observing the world in front of it. Clear-blue in color, the light formed a distinct contrast to the surrounding darkness, although it did little to disperse the blackness around it.

A second eye opened, this one a warm orange, standing in direct contrast to the somewhat more clinical, blue shade of its partner. The owner of the orange eye chirped something, turning its gaze towards its blue companion which quickly warbled a few indecipherable words in reply. A moment later, the two set out, more or less stumbling their way through the darkness. The clatter of objects crashing into the ground and the slight, mechanical-sounding hisses and whirs of the eyes' owners could be heard within the room, out the nearby corridor and beyond. Anyone nearby would have been able to hear it, and may have chosen to investigate the peculiar sounds… but there was simply no one there. Nobody heard the noise, nobody knew of the intruders… and nobody could have predicted what they did next.

And thus, the chapter comes to an end. As I said, it wasn't particularly long, but I'd say little is still better than nothing. I've pretty much been out of ideas for a long time on this fic, until recently when I finally thought of how to proceed. A few days of writing here and there in free moments, and here we are. Whether I manage to continue updating properly (or at all) remains to be seen, but at least it's progress. If there were any odd inconsistencies in the above chapter, I'm a bit out of phase with this thing after the time that's passed, but I hope I did well enough.