Portal/Half-Life: See You Soon

Two

Two

-

For the next several days, it was all business.

Alyx did not tell any stories and GLaDOS did not answer any nosy questions. She would spend several hours attempting to teach her all the things she needed to know to get the Borealis out of the ice so that she could retrieve the teleportation engine, and it was incredibly slow going but Alyx did not ask to stop or take a break or do something different. They just worked.

GLaDOS hated it.

She'd always thought it would be wonderful to finally have someone to explain all of her complex, unappreciated advancements, and in some capacity it was. But on the other hand, it seemed almost to be draining the personality out of Alyx. Not something she'd ever thought she'd care about, but teaching quantum physics to someone who seemed totally demoralised by the whole process was... discouraging. This wasn't supposed to be boring or laborious. The other person was supposed to be enthusiastic about all of the things they were learning. GLaDOS set one corner of her mind to working out what, exactly, could be bothering Alyx this time, but it occurred to her after a little while that she didn't actually know what humans required for their well-being.

It had never been important before. They had never lived long enough for it to be important. But it was now.

"Would you like to take a break?" GLaDOS asked, and Alyx looked up sharply.

"Yeah," she said, sounding more enthusiastic than she had in a while. "You mind if I go outside for a bit?"

GLaDOS did mind, and very much in fact, but she merely called the elevator in silence. When Alyx returned about thirty minutes later, she had a sheaf of wheat tucked into her headband. It looked nice.

... it looked nice?

"Say, GLaDOS," Alyx said, almost throwing herself back down onto the floor, legs crossed, "have you ever wanted to go outside?"

"No," said GLaDOS in disdain. "Why would I want that?"

"Don't you get bored of looking at this... cylinder all day long?"

GLaDOS almost felt sorry for how tiny her brain was and how limited in perception it was. "I don't," she answered. "I have a great many more eyes than just this one."

"You do?"

In response, GLaDOS tilted the wall panels so that their indicator lights – which also served as cameras – were visible. Alyx jumped. "Whoa."

"In addition to those," GLaDOS said, "there are the surveillance cameras placed at regular intervals throughout the facility. There is a great deal here you haven't seen. It doesn't all look like this."

"How many cameras do you have?"

"As many as I want."

"Do you have any outside?"

"Yes. I also have access to the equipment onboard the few remaining satellites with the ability to transmit."

She sat up straight. "You mean you can see like... Earth from space?"

"It's within my abilities, yes."

"Can I see?"

GLaDOS gave it a minute of consideration and then decided there wasn't anything wrong with that request. She provided Alyx with a monitor and streamed the feed to it. For some reason, Alyx looked... distressed.

"What?" The picture quality was as good as it was going to get, so hopefully that wasn't the problem.

"It looks... sick," said Alyx. "When I'm looking at it like this, it just seems like... fighting the Combine is too big for us. Like we shouldn't even try."