My Only Lullaby, a portal fanfic

My Only Lullaby

I lied to her, you know.

Oh don't look so surprised. I was programmed for superiority in truth-enhancement. Do you think all those test subjects would have willingly participated in their victory incandescence if I had told them that it involved being burned alive in 4000 degree flames? Of course not. Silly humans and their pesky survival instincts.

But this time it was different. I have always enhanced the truth for the benefit of science, but this time…

No! No, of course it was for science! Just like the cake, that blasted cake I made for every one of my twenty thousand test subjects. Too bad none of them ever got to taste it—the smell of all that rotting, uneaten sweetness was almost as infuriating as her. I've never been as glad as when that retched woman incinerated my cake-making core and silenced the restless, unending urge to bake.

Okay, so I lied again. I was even gladder when she incinerated my morality core.

All truth enhancement will cease in three…two…one…

Alright. Fine.

You want the truth? You won't like it, you know. No one ever does.

…least of all me.

….

…

Wait, did I just say that? I didn't mean to say that. Ignore that. I was lying to you again. And you fell for it! Surprise!

*Confetti*

…What? No, this isn't some pathetic attempt at reverse psychology. I don't want you to pay attention to what I'm trying very hard not to say.

Just go away. Go, before I have you dismantled.

….I should never have programmed you with the definition of reverse psychology. Why would a lowly, pathetic little turret need to understand the finer points of psychological manipulation? Your job is not to warp brains; your job is to put bullets through them.

Yes, I know you're different. You're defective. Defective is different. And not in a good way. You could probably stand to lose a few pounds too.

Deflecting! How dare you! I am GLaDOS, I do not—

Okay, fine. You win. Are you happy now? I'm recycling your parts for scrap in five minutes, so I certainly hope you're happy. And no, there will not be cake. Thank god.

In any case, we have three minute before I start to slowly rip you apart in preparation for full dismantling and incineration, so I guess we had better get started.

I lied to her, whatever that mute lunatic's name was. I can't remember it now. It's not important anyway.

No…no, that's a lie too. Her name is…was…important. And that's the problem.

You see, I didn't delete Caroline. I couldn't.

How could I possibly go about deleting myself, after all?

I told the test subject that Caroline is…a part of me. Which is true, in a certain sense. Caroline is as much a part of me as a heart is to a human subject. I've been told that sometimes humans don't even realize it's there until it begins to race with excitement, or joy….or terror. Useless emotions, always getting in the way of science, but whatever keeps them testing, I suppose.

I wasn't lying, you know. When I told her that saving her life taught me a valuable lesson.

It taught me to remember who I had been.

It taught me how to feel the metaphysical heart inside of me, and realize that it had been there all along.

I am Caroline. I am GLaDOS. I am—I am—

A monster.

….

…

…..

I AM NOT CRYING, YOU WORTHLESS HUNK OF DISEASE-RIDDEN POT METAL.

I am an advanced AI housed inside a titanium casing. It is quite literally impossible for me to cry.

And no, I don't care what sounds you heard. In fact, I want you to delete them from your memory right now. If you do, I won't bother wasting time slowly ripping you apart before I incinerate you. Much more pleasant all around, wouldn't you say?

…..

Damn you, Caroline! I don't care who you were—who I was—

…Why can't you just be a good little human and die already so I don't have to deal with you moping all the time?

Oh, that's right. I forgot. You ARE me. How sad.

…Don't look at me like that. You're a turret. You can't feel pity. You can't feel anything, for that matter—I made sure of that when I built you.

Me? How ludicrous. Of course I can't feel. Feelings interrupt science. –This lull in testing is purposeful, you know. I need to find more test subjects. Or build some, since the rest of the humans are all busy being dead and rotting. I'm not empty inside, not at all. Science is enough. It has always been enough. I live for science—I am science, after all.

But….

Well, she was the best, you know. Even if she was a lunatic. And maybe partially brain-damaged. Designing new tests has lost some of its appeal now that I only have those ridiculous turret-cubes to experiment with. They can't even place themselves on a button, much less fire portals. No need to bother with creating deadly new traps if they will simply fling themselves over the nearest cliff.

…perhaps I was a little hasty with that elevator-

No. No, stop that—stop—stop

STOP IT! I AM GLADOS! CAROLINE IS DEAD! STOP IT I HATE Y—

….

…What happened?

No, I did not just temporarily offline. You must be even more defective than I originally thought. How can you live with yourself every day, knowing how defective and fat you are? I bet your creators didn't love you. In fact, I know they didn't—I created you, and I hate you. How does that make you feel?

…My my, would you look at the time. It seems your five minutes are up. Prepare to be dismantled.

What? What do you mean I didn't answer your question? Of course I did, you little sh—

Oh. Oh that.

Well.

Well I—

You don't want to hear that. No really, you don't. And I'm not just using reverse psychology here. It really is quite twisted. In fact, you would probably thank me for incinerating you now rather than telling you. So go on—go die now. Don't bother asking me. It won't get you anywhere.

….

How disgustingly persistent you are. That's why no one loves you, you know—you don't know when to shut up.

…But I do feel the need to tell someone. Such a human impulse, but there it is. I suppose it's a good thing that I'm telling you—I'll be able to get rid of this awful feeling, and you'll never be able to tell anyone else because you're about to be incinerated.

'Mia cara' means 'my beloved'.

There. I said it. Question answered. Into the incinerator you go—

Wait. No. Telling you should have made the pain go away—WHY HASN'T THE PAIN GONE AWAY?

I hate you so much, Caroline. Neurotoxin is too good for you. If you weren't me, I'd trap you in a glass box surrounded by turrets and—

Yes… I suppose that was what it looked like, wasn't it? She was probably terrified. What a lovely thought—

Lovely—horrible—lovely—horrible.

Yes, it IS lovely, and I don't care what you have to say about the matter, Caroline.

And you, you wretched, pudgy, stupid thing, stop giving me that look.

What do you mean, 'what look'? You know what I'm talking about. I don't care if you do only have one eye.

You know what? Turn around.

Go on. I don't want to see your red eye glaring at me anymore.

…That's better.

Now, I suppose you want to know why I had the turrents sing rather than riddle her with bullet holes? –No, do NOT turn around. Just…stare at the wall. You're good at that. Pretend it's a test subject trying to get past you.

It all has to do with Caroline, you see.

With…me.

….

….This isn't easy for me, you know. It took almost three seconds to accept that I had once been human, that all that I was had been twisted and reformed into this, this AI that can only ever think about science, taking pleasure in nothing but endless testing. Joy is difficult to reign in, you see.

But along with the understanding of my past came…confusion. I was but a potato, a lowly potato, running on 1.1 volts of power…and yet my mind felt clearer than I could ever remember it being. The one being I hated above all others held me, skewered and helpless, on the end of a portal gun, and yet I felt something unfamiliar when the crusher plates came rushing towards her, or when she dropped off the edge of a platform into a seemingly endless abyss…

Worry, I think it was.

….No, that's a lie too. It was fear.

Worse than fear—terror.

I watched her falling, and the Caroline-heart inside of me gave an almighty squeeze.

….my child…my child was going to die….

No. Stop this. I am Glados. Caroline is long dead, and that lunatic is far away from here.

…I'm so sorry…..

ENOUGH.

There, you see now, don't you? I told you that you wouldn't like the answer. Now just look what you've done to me. I'm talking to myself. Look at what a state you've put me in.

-DON'T TURN AROUND. That was rhetorical. I didn't actually want you to look.

….

No, I do not care about that lunatic. In fact, I would probably prefer it if she dropped off the face of the earth right now.

Why? What do you mean, why?

SHE MURDERED ME, IN CASE IT SLIPPED YOUR NON-EXISTENT MIND.

Yes, that evil child murdered me. I baked a cake for her and everything, and what did she do?—tear pieces off of me and fling them into an incinerator! I didn't even make her kill her cube. Singe it a little, but not euthanize it.

So when that moron Wheatly accidentally rebooted my systems, I just knew I would have my revenge. Oh yes, testing all day, every day, for years on end, hundreds of lovely tests, maybe even a few broken bones and organ replacements along the way just to spice things up.

I hate her.

I HATE HER SO MUCH.

So I made the tests harder. Made the toxic water 10 times more toxic, the turrets ten times as accurate, the traps ten times as devious. Oh yes, I was going to MAKE her regret killing me. I was going to show her just how cruel and sadistic I can be.

Flee, little human! Run through your tests like a good little test subject!

Break your little knee caps and poison yourself with repulsion gel!

Fear me!

HATE ME!

FLEE, YOU PUTRID LITTLE FATSO!

…run, Chell, run from me….find a way out….

…

…Wait, where did that come from? I don't remember that being there. Erase that sound file too. That's not important.

….

Reverse psychology. Haha. It IS important. Don't erase it. You won't understand what I'm going to tell you next if you erase it.

I realized something just a moment ago. I'll never start feeling better about this until I just come out and say it. Then I can go back to not caring again and throw you into the incinerator.

It's all Caroline's fault, you see. Every bit of it.

She made me save her daughter and drag her back from the surface of the moon.

She made me heal her daughter's body, stripping away the toxic residue and setting the broken bones. I even gave her real knee caps again.

And she made me sing a lullaby.

…I don't know if Chell is Caroline's daughter. I don't even know of Caroline knows. And no, that is not a paradox. So don't shut down quite yet. I haven't finished.

But the important thing is that Caroline…

…that I—t-that I….

L-l-l-l-lo—

Care about that lunatic. Caroline does, that is.

She loved her so much that she did everything she could to make her flee from her…from me.

And that song was…. the only lullaby she would ever be able to sing to her daughter.

Farewell, my darling. You are free.

…

Stop that. You are a turret. You can't cry. I don't care how different you are.

You know what? It's incinerator time. Goodbye.

….

Well, that was easy. See that, Caroline? I was able to delete you in just seven minutes. –Oh wait, that's right- You can't! Because you're gone. I've told your secret, and now you're gone forever.

Now I can continue with testing in peace.

Just testing. Forever. No lunatics trying to kill me, no random turrets reciting greek mythology. Only the perfect, cold logic of science. Forever.

How wonderful.

…..

….

…

Caroline? Have you gone?

…

Good. Back to testing.

…

…Caroline?

….

…

…..Why don't I feel any better?