(AN: This is a replacement for the glaring error in my original prologue.)

AN: Well, hello readers! I'm back, with another story that I own none of besides the plot :'( Well, this one has been a long time coming, and my writer's block hasn't helped in the least. I *have* to give credit to Emerald Em for such brilliant support and ideas. Practically my unofficial Beta, but really the person responsible for encouraging me to get this posted :3 And go read Em's stories! Brilliant stuff right there! But no spoilers from me :P

Summary: While GLaDOS grapples with her inner demons and some rather unsettling elements of her re-integration with Caroline, Chell is facing up to demons of her own. Five years on from going their seperate ways, Fate deals them a new hand, bringing their worlds together once more.

~!~

"Can't I just-"

The sharp bzzt of electricity interrupted, cutting off the clipped British voice for a few moments. Then it returned, annoying as ever.

"Love, please, gimme one day off!" He got out quickly. Another surge through the thin wires, just enough to prickle at his skin and make the human yelp. Not enough to genuinely hurt him, or cause lasting damage. Unfortunately. But he got the message, and relocated himself from the doorway to the waiting treadmill, being especially careful not to knock off any of the sticky-dots attached variously to his exposed skin, or to break any of the wires connected to the aforementioned sticky-dots.

He was watched through the lenses of several cameras around the room, the feeds all tracing back to one massive databank and the super-powerful AI responsible for them. She chuckled, watching the feeds on three different monitors and reviewing his profile on a fourth.

Name: Flint Wheatley.

Age: 27.

Occupation: Formerly -Aperture Science Computer Programmer. Currently- Aperture Science Test Subject, and the Aperture Science Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System's plaything.

Watching the monitors had become a habit, instead of simply examining the camera data GLaDOS had taken to the huge display screens left hanging around after Wheatley's brief stint as Aperture's (irresponsible and idiotic) master. By the time she'd acknowleged doing that, she had simply dismissed the human-like action with a shrug of her seven ton chassis. Caroline was reintegrated with her systems thanks to the Dangerous, Mute Lunatic taking her on a tour of Old Aperture, and GLaDOS was slowly getting used to all the new motions and reactions.

"Moron, you do recall the data point regarding the upkeep necessary for a physically healthy human body, don't you?" She purred a nanosecond after activating her comm speakers in the room.

"Yeah... but I wish... isn't rest in... in there too?" Wheatley panted, laboring on the treadmill. GLaDOS increased its' speed fractionally, entirely spitefully. He wouldn't notice right now, but in ten minutes he'd be exhausted.

"Yes, and rest is included in your schedule." She replied pleasently. "You know the part where you lie down, shut your eyes, and remain still until I wake you up? That is defined as 'rest', 'sleep', 'relaxation'-"

"You... overgrown... calculator." Wheatley huffed between breaths, cutting her off.

GLaDOS physically froze still, she could feel the 'human' reaction of irrational rage curling through her circuits like an acidic power surge. Then she began to tremble, unconsciously shaking in her ceiling mountings, her optic turning dark orange out of fury.

"Why you little-"

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

Her protocols interrupted with a blaring alarm, a demand that her core operating software would not allow her to ignore in any form. GLaDOS spun, looking around her chamber for the reason, producing a noise like a panting of breath from her speakers thanks -once more- to Caroline. She had to override a few minor firewalls to make the alarm stop, and then there was beautiful silence. She could feel the disturbance in her facility, moreso than an examination of any data or video would explain to her.

Turbine failure. Again.

"Moron, this is your fault." She growled aloud, ignoring the monitors in favor of attending the problem.

She switched over the water pumps, vented the damaged cells into the backup turbines, and that would keep the reactors safe for the time being. But the real problem was the turbines. This was the eighth set in five years. Way too many. Science had validated the working life of the machinery, the assorted components, the materials... but they were still breaking. Still ruined. The set she was now examining was fractionally twisted, the blades warped just enough to throw off the pressure of the water flow. More than enough to obliterate Aperture from existence if left unchecked.

Reasurred, GLaDOS put her secondary processors to work on troubleshooting, then she faced the monitors again.

Monitors which were blank.

"Moron!" She yelled, reconnecting the video feeds from the cameras in the chambers set aside for his housing and training. They showed dusty, empty offices. "Moron?"

GLaDOS physically turned, almost expecting him to run into her chamber with an ASHPD just like the Dangerous, Mute Lunatic had done so long ago. Her body curled back, up towards the ceiling, like a feline cowering into a shadow.

A quiet internal notification was all it took to make her jump. GLaDOS gave a yelp and almost smacked her Core faceplate into her lowest heat-sink ring. Then she checked the note -she'd found the problem with the turbines. Well, now that she knew what it was, it could wait.

She growled to herself and went looking for Wheatley, examining each and every single camera feed she could find, the traditional, AI way: by tapping the camera hard-drives directly. She zipped through them to no avail -the facility was empty, she was alone with her reactors and housekeeping duties. Then she came across a set of cameras whose hard-drives she couldn't tap into. And she received a nasty surge when she tried to hack them. Out of frustration she submitted an ordinary viewing request, and was surprised when it was acknowleged. The feed was sent to her main monitors, showing a camera viewpoint that, at present, was focused on her from the doorway of her chamber. There was another, too, which showed the view from her own optic and which she thought was decidedly creepy to look at but left displayed for the sake of Science.

"Okay..." Her voice echoed slightly. It was a live feed. GLaDOS' optic narrowed as she thought, then she requested the data for these cameras that had been recorded just before the turbine alarm had gone off.

The view changed. For one, her chassis hung limp from the ceiling mounts, and two, the optic-view camera feed was a distorted mess. The sensor readings told her that her optic aperture had been closed, so the feed should have been blank nothing, but GLaDOS could make out fractions of images throughout the garbled visual playback. And her chassis twitched onscreen, accompanied by a few mumbles and, once, a growled 'moron!'.

"I was... asleep?" GLaDOS said aloud, skipping ahead to the last couple of minutes of footage. She watched herself jerk suddenly when the turbine warning alarm went off, GLaDOS' onscreen self yelled 'calculator!' and then she froze still. The present GLaDOS distinctly recalled the next few moments of looking around the room, curled up near the ceiling, when she hadn't been able to find Wheatley, and as she skipped ahead she caught up to the current time.

But she distinctly recalled putting the moron to work on the treadmill, she thought. Then, however, she realised she couldn't remember any of what should have preceeded that happening. No getting him back from space, no putting his Core self into a fleshy human body, no making of or providing him with clothes and no previous tests, or even the act of building the training and living area in the first place. There wasn't a single bit of evidence that any of that had ever ocurred. No camera footage, no file notes, and the proposed living and training area didn't exist in the facility at all.

She disabled the feed, leaving the black-box-save feature to its own devices while she glared at the black monitors.

"I am a computer. I am a machine." GLaDOS recited. "I am the Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System, I am GLaDOS. How, in the name of all things Science, was I sleeping?" She exclaimed.

~!~

AN: Tah-dah! A prologue! Now, don't go clicking on the 'review' button all at once and overload the poor server! However, there will be cake! :P And I'll try to respond to reviews where I can :3 Next chapter, we'll be taking a look at how Chell's life has progressed. :D

(AN: This is a replacement for my glaring error in the original prologue.)