GLaDOS and Me

Chapter Four

Chapter Four

It was a couple of weeks later. At Henry's suggestion, Wheatley had eased her into a couple of her easier programs, the ones controlling the lights and the climate and such, which she fought against initially but did without complaint after Wheatley had convinced her to. The first couple of days he had had to remind her to start them, not wanting to add them to her task list and outright force her to do them, and after a little prodding she would do so, booting them on her own after about five days. He did his best to make the most of even the smallest of accomplishments, because unlike a human there was really nothing else he could motivate her with, and though his acknowledgement was not all that much she seemed to look forward to it. He knew that she greatly enjoyed it in particular when he rubbed her core, so he saved that for special occasions. She reminded him very much of a cat, a very clever, no-nonsense kind of cat, and he found himself frowning at his bedroom ceiling at night, trying to figure out how he could get her to relax a little. She was on edge most of the time, and would back away reflexively whenever anyone came into her chamber, and even the smallest of noises alarmed her. As far as he could tell, she thought every situation was dangerous and did not relax her guard for a second. He was trying to think of some way to show her it wasn't like that, because living like that was not good for humans and he didn't want to know what effect it would have on her, but so far he'd had no luck.

Today he'd flopped into a sitting position on the glass in front of her, bringing a dark brown wooden box about the size of a dustbin out from under his arm, and setting it in front of her. She inspected it with great interest, poking her lens into the top of it and nudging it with very quick movements, as if to see if it would move upon the barest contact, and Wheatley laughed and pressed his index finger to her core. As always, she backed away, waiting patiently for him to open the box.

"This here's my box of toys," he told her, unlatching it and flipping up the lid. "Remember how I showed you that command to use the maintenance arm yesterday, luv?"

She nodded, attempting to look over the top of the lid, but he closed it most of the way and shook his head. "You're gonna need to use that. You don't get to see what's in here until you bring it out."

She continued nudging the box, though never hard enough to actually move it, and Wheatley noted to himself about how quickly she'd got control of herself. It took humans years to learn to move properly, and it had taken her just over a fortnight, most of her physical behaviour smooth and fluid. When she was anxious or upset she tended to revert to the more machine-like movement, but for the most part she seemed to have gotten it down. Hence the introduction of the maintenance arms. Unfortunately, she seemed to be grasping that he was only showing her how to do things so that he could get her to run another program, and she was getting reluctant.

"C'mon, GLaDOS," he said gently, pressing on her with his index finger again. "This will be fun, I promise. But you need the arm, okay?"

She backed away and looked at him, twisting just her chassis a little bit, which she sometimes did when deciding whether or not to do as she was asked. Wheatley shrugged and closed the lid, propping his arms up on the box. "I really want to show you what's in here, you know. Why don't you bring the ol' arm out, just for a minute, there? Do me a favour, bring the ol' arm out so I can show you what's in the box. That's all I'm asking there, luv. Bring 'er out so I can show you what I've got."

She stared at him for a while longer, when suddenly one of the arms dropped out of the ceiling and fell to the glass in front of him with a loud clunk. She jumped back when he did, both of them staring apprehensively at it, Wheatley's heart in his throat. He knew she didn't have much of a grasp on how to use them yet, but he hadn't realised she was having that much trouble.