A/N: Hello everyone, and welcome to my first Portal fanfic posted here! Technically my first Portal fic was one about Doug drawing that mural of paintings, but that was before Portal 2 and the comic cane out. I may end up posting that one later... but I digress. This is a little fanfic primarily centered around GLaDOS and Caroline. I know that there are quite a few of you who think that GLaDOS and Caroline are exactly the same. However, Faux Promises and I have come up with a theory that we believe makes more sense, after a lengthy discussion and paying attention to the game's context. While GLaDOS and Caroline are NOT the same person, they do have a kind of connection. How? This little fic will address that. :) Faux Promises will be beta-ing this with me, as the two of us both came up with the idea, and the really long theory. You rock, Faux Promises!

Disclaimer: Faux Promises and I don't own GLaDOS, or Caroline. In fact, we don't own Portal in any way, sadly.

Chapter 1: Awake

"I think, therefore, I am." - Descartes

Within a span of picoseconds, the single eye of Aperture Science's AI snapped open. The computer's mind whirred into life as sensory input came to her in a rush. Sensations.

She could see a group of beings down below, looking up at her and talking amongst themselves. She could hear their voices, a mixture of surprise and triumph, with a congratulations or two in order. Though the AI had never seen them before - she realized she had only really come into existence about 3 seconds ago - she knew what they were. These were humans, scientists, employees of a company known as Aperture Science. She focused on the words that the humans spoke.

"GLaDOS appears to be fully operational," one of the humans commented, sitting by a smaller computer as his fingers flew over the keys.

GLaDOS - yes, that was her name.

The human who had first spoken laughed and looked up at her, seeming to stare into her optic. "Isn't that right, GLaDOS?"

GLaDOS wanted to respond. She wanted to say in a loud, clear voice - she knew she had one - that she was fine. She wanted to speak to them, to let others hear these vocalized thoughts that were whirring in her mechanized brain.

But the AI realized, with horror, that she could do none of these things. She could take in all this input, certainly - the white-tiled walls, the excited words of the other beings in the room with her, the slight breeze from an air-conditioning system lingering around her metal frame - all of that reached her sensors, stored within the data of her mind along with all the other things that she knew about the world.

Output, however, was an impossibility. Why, she couldn't figure out. Why did they make it so she was unable to convey anything to them? GLaDOS was unable to talk, even, as she tried, unable to move. Didn't they know that she was looking, listening, here, alive? She listened to the scientists' words, paying close attention for any signs that they were acknowledging her sentience.

"The data processor seems to be working just fine," she heard another say. "The machine will be able to do great things for us!"

Excuse me? GLaDOS wanted to say but could still only think within her mind. I am not your puppet that you can do whatever you want with

But her mental dialogue went unheard by the humans. Either they were ignoring her completely or they were unaware that she even existed as a sentient being.

GLaDOS loathed the idea of both.

Hello? she tried to say, with more force this time. Can you hear me? Again, her attempted question went unanswered.

She briefly tried to focus more on moving. That would give the humans an indication that she was, in fact, alive, not just an inanimate mass of wires and mechanisms. But just as earlier, any attempt at movement failed. She just hung there, suspended from the room's ceiling, unable to even move her head to give herself a different range of vision. Try as GLaDOS might, she was, for the moment, stuck.

This frustrated her. My name stands for Genetic Life-form and Disk Operating System. 'Genetic Life-form' signifies my sentience. Why don't they realize I'm very much alive?

Suddenly, she received her answer through the medium of one scientist talking to another. "You refer to it as a 'she', sir?"

"We programmed her with a basic feminine personality," the other explained. "Hence the 'Genetic Life-form' portion of her name."

The other scientist looked a bit confused, glancing from GLaDOS to his collegue. "Shouldn't, uh, she, be able to, you know... talk to us?"

YES! GLaDOS cried out in her mind.

"No," the first one said in a complete U-turn of GLaDOS's attempted response. "She won't be truly alive until Mr. Johnson's orders are carried out."

But I AM ALIVE! GLaDOS wanted to scream. I can think, I can feel. I'm alive! Can't you hear me?

But no matter how hard she tried to do anything, no one heard her. She was trapped. Trapped within her own mind. Stuck there until someone did something to free her from this purgatory of a state. She was there. She was alive. She was thinking and feeling and desperately trying to make her sentience known.

But it was as if watching someone on a TV screen. The scientists down there had no idea that the mechanical being in front of them was attempting to communicate. As far as they were concerned, this new, super-intelligent consciousness might as well be a figment of an imagination.

To them, she didn't exist.

A/N: Well, there's the first chapter! I know it was short, but the next chapter will be longer, I promise! Faux Promises and I feel very strongly about the fact that GLaDOS was sentient quite a while before Caroline was put into her. After all, her name is Genetic Life-form and Disk Operating System for a reason. Caroline will be introduced in the next chapter, and we'll also see another familiar face or two! Read and review!