Cerulean

First Steps

GLaDOS was, to say the least, not at all pleased to receive the most recent report from her creations. Not only had they lost Her subject, but even worse, that skittering little rodent was still running around Her Facility, even after She had handed it freedom on a silver platter. She scoured through Her databanks for any possible explanation as to why She hadn't just killed her- even after the deletion of Caroline- and failed to find any results that satisfied. Several of Her systems fired off at once, Her chassis overloading, sparking and twitching in fury.

Quickly, She initiated a system-wide sweep of Herself, aborting every running program down to the basic functions. She needed to think. This was not the time to fry out Her circuitry.

Clearly, something was wrong with Her methods of dealing with Chell. Coercion hadn't worked, force hadn't worked, trying to kill her hadn't worked, and now... even mercy had failed. She had exhausted every single option and still, Chell was in Her way, still preventing Her from doing what She was designed to do. Preventing progress. Preventing Science.

GLaDOS calculated in silence, trying to piece together what was missing. She had run through Chell's files hundreds of times, (what little there were,) and while it was still good for a quick laugh, it was old news. They had lost their use long ago, as GLaDOS quickly discovered that while her files had been accurate about her resilience and tenacity, she had many, far more dangerous traits than what was written. No, She was better off consulting her memory banks, She knew now how Chell worked. Even before She had been potato-batteried and forced into a temporary, unhappy alliance with her for what felt like forever, She knew her well. She knew how she tested and fought and solved... but She still didn't know how to defeat her.

Why... how did she manage to get the upper hand so often? She was all-encompassing, She was The Facility, and Chell nothing more than her test subject, a disposable variable to discard and replace. Yet without fail, somehow that rat was able to slip through Her metaphorical fingers every time.

Her thoughts came to a halt, playing back that last line of code, and an idea presented itself. An idea so unprecedented of Herself that She might've sworn it was leftover jarble from when that blathering moron had been attached to Her, had she not known better. Luckily, She did know better. His nasty little influences were long purged from her systems. This idea was Her own, and therefore had merit. She began immediately analyzing the hypotheticals of this new idea, and She was pleased to discover that against the hypotheticals... this changed the algorithm's outcomes significantly.

When GLaDOS left the "dirty work" to other things, it never worked out in Her favor. Neurotoxin, turrets, even Her robotic test subjects had failed. She understood more certainly with every second that passed that She could no longer rely on anything other than Herself to take care of a problem, and She was no longer able to do that from the confines of Her current form. Regular old Facility-wide omnipotence wasn't enough anymore, She needed a more hands-on approach.

She called forth her creations once more, and swiveled to face them, looming over them with dark presence as they meekly entered the room. The two weren't usually called to see Her directly, in fact, they had only ever seen Her in person once before, and that was when they had woken up for the very first time. Being called to see your sadistic, terrifying creator for the second time in your existence, right after failing your mission, was not exactly ideal circumstances.

"You have once again failed the single task I had given you,"

She began, the two robots cringing a bit in fear. The air was thick with burning, malevolent electricity.

"Of course, I can hardly blame you. You are imperfect creations. You are nothing more than spare parts and leftover codes, a pathetic attempt at imitation. Realistically, I have no use for you anymore... But since I'm so generous, I'm willing to give you one final chance to prove yourselves. This time, failure is not an option."