Portal: Euphoria

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Apparently she wasn't, because she did appear in GLaDOS's chamber early the next morning, looking much better than she had just six hours before. "Oh look, you're not dead. What a surprise," GLaDOS said by way of greeting.

"I haven't left the room yet, have I?"

"I hope you're not implying I'm going to do you harm when your back is turned. I wouldn't give me ideas, if I were you."

Caroline laughed and propped her hands up on the railing, putting her head on top of her arms and looking up at GLaDOS. "You should be careful what you say, you know."

"I am. I don't have any designs towards hurting anyone, if that's what you mean. I only meant it as a joke."

"I know. I was joking too." She glanced over her shoulder. "I can't stay too long, though. If people see me in here, they might think I like you."

"Is that an unpopular thing to do?"

"Let's just say it has certain implications I don't want to carry around with me."

GLaDOS had no idea what she was talking about, but made a note about it in the same file that she used to store Caroline's vague allusions to some event she seemed to be gearing up for. It had something to do with GLaDOS herself, in any case. Her release to the public, perhaps? That seemed the most likely option.

"Why did you hit me last night?" she asked suddenly.

"I didn't… oh. I wasn't hitting you. I was patting you. That's different."

"And it meant what?"

"I don't really know what it means. It's just something you do to people sometimes. When they did a good job, or when you want to show sympathy, stuff like that."

That was far too vague for GLaDOS's liking, but at least she could categorise it as being a good thing and not have a negative reaction the next time it happened.

Soon after that Caroline was paged and had to leave the room quickly, and GLaDOS went back to doing her routine things, such as setting up her task list for the day and looking through the test subject files. She spent the nights trying to figure out sound separation on her own, accidentally working almost straight through to the morning, and the engineers sent Caroline to tell her the bad news. Even if Caroline was not supposed to be seen with GLaDOS, they seemed to recognise that she was the only one the supercomputer would actually listen to.

"You're being put on a timer for the next week. You're lagging a lot, apparently, and you've been above optimal operating temperature for the last month."

Well, that explained the increasingly uncomfortable sensations she was getting from her processors, but no one had told her that was what that meant so she hadn't been too concerned about it. "So we can't –"

"You will be put into mandatory sleep mode when I leave the facility every night," Caroline cut in as if she didn't know GLaDOS was talking. "I have also been told I've been staying here too late and that I have to leave by ten-thirty." She was staring at GLaDOS very intently and GLaDOS realised what it was about. So they had from about nine until ten-thirty. Fine. It wasn't really long enough, but she would take what she could get. GLaDOS nodded. "I understand, ma'am."

"You are to cease all unauthorised activity and I am to turn over your activity logs to the engineers by noon," Caroline read from a piece of paper clenched in one hand. GLaDOS quickly decided she had mentioned that so that GLaDOS could falsify them as necessary. "And you aren't to perform over… wow, that's a lot. Do you really do thirty million calculations a day?"