Flaw in My Code (Portal 2)[REWRITE IN PROGRESS]

[Chapter 9: Inhumane]

"Come on, Penn. I work with these machines. They aren't... Well, they don't seem practical."

"It's alright, Henry, really. I mean, I've always wanted to take a more hands-on approach with the company, and if I can be of any use in aiding science--"

"Stop it, Pendleton. You're starting to sound like Caroline."

Caroline passed slowly by the breakroom, listening in on Henry and Pendleton's conversation as she took a cup of coffee to Mr. Johnson's office. She knew she shouldn't have been eavesdropping, but their banter sparked her interest.

"And what's the problem with that, hm? She's a smart cookie. And all... scientific. I should like to sound like her." Pendleton said casually as his footsteps trailed nearer to the door.

Caroline whistled and continued walking as the door swung open, as if she didn't hear anything. "Ah, Carol! What're you up to?" Penn called after her. She stopped and turned around slowly, smiling. "Good morning, Pendleton. Just running this coffee to Johnson's office." He nodded, though something in his expression seemed suspicious as he pursed his lips and fixed his glasses. "Yeah? You, uhm... You do that, then."

Caroline turned back around slowly, but not a few steps were taken when she whirled back around. "Wait," She called to Penn, who had started to walk in the other direction. "That conversation with Henry, I heard it." He blinked rapidly at her, tilting his head. "Ah- oh, that? Yeah, that... You see," He looked ready to explain himself, when Henry walked out of the room, clearing his throat. "Pendleton, they need you in Chamber 17, by the way."

Penn sighed and shrugged at Caroline, turning on the heel of his shoe to walk back down the empty office hall. She frowned for a moment, before turning her focus back to the task at hand: Getting the coffee to Mr. Johnson before he got angry.

Caroline made it down the hall, poking her head into the room with a big smile on her face, but when she examined the room, she found that it was empty. Her smile faded as she looked around, walking in slowly to set the mug down on Cave's desk. "Mr. Johnson! Your coffee!" She called, before backing out of the room. As she backed out, she felt a body behind her.

"Hello there." Cave chuckled from behind her as she spun around to dust herself off awkwardly and blushed. "I'm so sorry, sir! Did I step on your foot? I think I stepped on your foot-"

"My foot is fine, Caroline." He smiled and offered his hand. "Come with me. I want you to see something." Caroline just stared at him and declined his hand, walking past him and chirping, "Lead the way, sir."

Cave gave her a nod and stepped in front of her, walking along. "As you know, the engineers have been hard at work with our genetic lifeforms, yes?"

"It's artificial intelligence, sir, I don't know if 'genetic lifeform' is an accurate,"

"Yes, well, we've finally signed up a few volunteers!" Caroline skipped to keep pace with the CEO. "Volunteers for... the AIs?" Cave nodded eagerly. "Yes! We've got a woman now named Veronica Neo on a disc." He replied, almost casually. "So, you did it? You put a human's consciousness into a computer..."

Cave held up a finger to point into a lab window as they passed by. "And, in a core." Caroline tilted her head, her pace slowing as they walked past. Inside, she saw what Cave was motioning to. The scientists were working on the wiring to a spherical robot. A light flickered from the eye of the core, as it began to twitch.

"Is it conscious?" Caroline whispered. Cave nodded. "Yes! Or... it should be. That right there, is our first ever, Aperture Science personality sphere!" Caroline tilted her head as he went onto explain. "It's got personality, as the name implies, but it isn't the kind of Artificial Intelligence that we're shooting for. You can interact with it, talk to it, and it will talk back. Just like you're talking to a person! We're working out the kinks, of course, but pretty soon, we'll have some marketable friends!"

"Mr. Johnson," Caroline began. "You can't take peoples' lives to... sell off their personalities in the form of robots." Cave shrugged. "Alright, maybe we wont sell them, but... They're good experiments. The lab boys plan on making a bunch more, to perfect them, before we can move on to the big guns." He winked before patting Caroline on the shoulder.

Caroline placed her palm to the window as she watched the bot inside twitch and Cave walked away. "I just hope they're not going to waste these poor people..." She muttered to herself.

One of the lab boys waved enthusiastically to Caroline from inside the lab, waving his hand at her as if to say, "come in." She turned to the door of the lab and opened it slowly. As soon as she cracked it open she heard a few voices from inside.

A few of them were from the lab boys having a quiet conversation, but the most notable one, was a female's. She sounded very robotic; and very scared.

One of the men at the table was leaning over the personality sphere, murmuring comfortingly as the eye darted around and it began to speak.

"Where am I? What's going on? Who are you?" The robotic voice shrieked. Caroline frowned, knowing that the voice she was hearing once belonged to a human who was now on a disc, in the unfinished body of a robot.

"Ouch- Ow-!" She began to panic as they drilled something into the back of the bot. Caroline stepped closer to stand behind one of her colleagues. "You programmed them to feel pain...?"

He turned around, a smile plastered onto his face. "It's all simulated." Caroline shook her head. "Devin, can I... talk to you? Over there?" Devin, whom she was standing behind, beamed and nodded, walking her over to the side of the room.

"Is this... humane?" She whispered, glancing over at the confused personality sphere as she tried to jerk away from the tools. Devin sighed, his big smile fading. "I don't know, Carol. I don't think it is, but it's not like Cave will let us speak up about it. Pretty soon this place will be full of these spheres. Then what?" He went on ranting. "How many of us do you think will lose our jobs?"

"I don't know, Devin." Caroline shrugged. "Lately, it sounds like Mr. Johnson's ready to put himself on a computer. He's miserable." She murmured. "I know he's not the... best... man... but I feel bad for him. He's miserable."

Devin nodded. "I can hear him coughing plain across the building sometimes. I can tell it's pretty bad." Caroline snickered. "That man won't let himself die before his mainframe is done, though." She had a light smile.  Though she knew it was no laughing matter, she always had a chuckle over the determined of that man.

She just hoped it would pay off for him.

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Boopadoopboopboopbadoop
Caroline watch

I know probably no one's reading these anymore but shhhhh its self indulgent. I wanna write about Caroline and GLaDOS sometimes.

Although, I'm not entirely sure where it's going next.