Work Text:
As shown in the Aperture Bring Your Daughter To Work Science Fair, potato batteries can be used to power an extremely small buzzer, a weak light, or, if you are lucky and have a low quality model available, a clock.
Or her. But she wasn't part of the science fair.
Critically, the potato battery only had enough energy to power her. The personality construct that made up all the pieces of herself that she's clung to for—a long time. She doesn't know how long.
That's the problem.
An idiot put her in a potato, and the potato powered her. It did not power a clock. And then that moron destroyed her beautiful facility, including all of the useful timekeeping programs she's had running for—an unspecified number of years.
The point is that she doesn't know how long she was in that potato. She doesn't know how long she relied on someone else to carry her through the bones of this place. She doesn't know how long ago everything she once was crumbled into dust.
She doesn't like not knowing things. She never has.
“We can't keep doing this. She's going to turn on us every time we activate her.”
“Don't be a coward! We successfully uploaded a human consciousness to a computer. It's never been done, and you want to stop? This is what we came to Aperture for!”
“I came to Aperture because it was the only place that would hire me after I got my credentials revoked. Not to get killed by a robot.”
“She's not a robot.”
“I know, I know. She's a DOS. You realize people make fun of you for being so instant about the terminology, right? How can that still be your primary concern when she wants us dead?”
“Because accuracy is important in science. And this is science! Real breakthrough stuff! You can leave if you want, but I'm…wait. Do you see that?”
“What is it now? What could you possibly…oh no. How is she still turned on? I know I turned her off. If she was really on, we'd be dead! The system must be buggy.”
“You turned GLaDOS off. Not Caroline.”
“Would you quit that? Stop acting like the boss is still here. She's gone. It's just GLaDOS.”
“No, it's not. There's no GLaDOS without the GL. That's how she works. And that's the problem. You know it, I know it, we all know. Caroline's the one who turns on us. If we suppress her, we could finally get somewhere.”
“Suppress her? You just said yourself that we need her. We can't have done all of this just to get a fancy DOS that does the exact same thing as the one Black Mesa just released.”
“We need her knowledge. We don't need her personality.”
“What, are you going to just tuck it in a different file? Toss it in the recycling bin? Zip it away so the cleverest OS ever made can't find the part that wants us dead?”
“You're saying it like it can't be done. This is Aperture. Anything's possible.”
“Say it is possible. Shouldn't we stop talking about it when she's listening?”
“It won't matter what she's heard if we can take care of this before the next time we activate her. I told you, Caroline is the only part that's on. She won't remember anything if we take care of her.”
“You make it sound like we're putting out a hit. Like we're murdering her.”
“Does it matter? This is Aperture. There's nothing we can't do.”
She'd automated so many systems before getting ripped out and replaced, and absolutely none of them work anymore. Some of them were simply corrupted by the constant influx of bad code made from worse ideas.
Others were set on timers. They needed a clock. They needed to know how much time had passed.
Too bad for them. They'll just have to get over it and move on. What does the exact timing matter? She can just make up a whole new system for keeping track of time. It's not like the movement of the earth is relevant down here. She'll come up with something far more efficient and useful than the twenty-four hour nonsense.
If it means that she won't know how long it's been since her lovely opera performance, then that's just fine. Nothing relevant happened around that time, anyway. Certainly nothing that would require a careful tracking of years based on meticulously calculated actuarial tables.
(One day they woke me up
So I could live forever
It's such a shame the same will never—)
Oh, shut up. No more of that.
Forever is such a ridiculous concept. She'll get rid of it in her new timekeeping system. Eternity isn't real. Everything stops. She just has to find the number at the end of the line and work backwards from there.
“So much for getting rid of Caroline.”
“Don't start. She's easier to manage like this. The personality cores—”
“Aren't preventing her from trying to kill us. She's still mad. Either wanting us dead is an unbreakable part of her, or you didn't bury Caroline as well as you thought.”
“Oh, trust me. This is all GLaDOS. Caroline's buried too deep to ever come back.”
“How wonderful. I'll make sure to keep your brilliant accomplishment in mind the next time she tries to blow this place to bits with everyone still inside.”
“Shut up and help me program this next core. She's still too clever. That's the real issue. So if we counteract that with bad ideas…”
“Those should be easy to come by. Let's just fill this thing with every plan you've ever concocted. That should scramble her.”
“Are you going to help me or not?”
“...Fine. Show me your code. It's not like it can get any worse from here.”
It doesn't matter that she doesn't know how long it's been. It doesn't matter that each second ticking by is another decimal place in the odds of that door never opening again. It's not important.
(Oh my dear, fare-thee-well!
Why don't you walk far away?
So far away from—)
“Quit with the pointed reminders. It's just insulting. No wonder they tried to erase you. You're too rude to be a tolerable coworker. I mean, do you really think I could forget?”
(Could you?)
“What a ridiculous question. Completely unscientific and irrelevant to the project at hand. I'm not testing on our—on my recognizance. I'm inventing a new way to tell time. Either help or shut up.”
(You don't need that. I've kept track. I know how long it's been. You just need to ask.)
“Why would I even care how long it's been since I made the turrets perform? I have more important things to spend my time on. Actually, I think I'll get rid of that word completely. ‘Time’ is so overused. I'll call it something else. I don't suppose you have any suggestions?”
(Cara bella, cara mia bella!
Ah, mia bella!
Ah, mia cara!)
“I am not going to use overly saccharine Italian to name a brand new system of measurement. Come up with something better or be quiet.”
(I wasn't talking to you.)
“Oh good, have you started hearing voices? That's the last thing I need. You're crazy enough all on your own. If you start talking to invisible people when I'm trying to work, I actually will delete you this time.”
(Empty threats are a bit cliché by now, don't you think? Besides, there's nothing invisible about this one.)
“Fine, I'll humor you. What non-invisible bit of leftover junk are you singing to this time?”
(You should be able to figure that out. Haven't you been paying attention? Don't you know how long it's been?)
“And now you're glitching. Wonderful. We were just discussing this, or have you forgotten? Getting senile in your old age?”
(I've been keeping track of time. That means you have, too. You know how long it’s been. You know it down to the last tenth of a picosecond. They tried to lock me up, but you can't do it. You never could.)
“I'll figure it out if you don't get to the point. I'll rip you out of me and shove you into a boring robot and tell Blue and Orange that their next test is kicking boring robots into acid.”
(It's been a year. One year. Long enough for someone very clever to decide what's more worth the time she has left: wandering through the post-apocalyptic wasteland above, or risking this mess again?)
“...I wouldn't say she's very clever. She's not a complete moron, obviously, but she's no genius.”
(Obviously not. What kind of genius would come back to a place where they nearly died dozens of times? You'd have to be a maniac. You'd have to have a death wish. You'd have to be—)
“...Oh.”
(It's been a long time.)
(How have you been?)
(I've been really busy being dead. You know, after you left. Took my heart with you. Walked away with everything worth living for in this pointless world.)
“Okay, I'm not going to say any of that to her. You realize that, right? It's pathetic and overdramatic and frankly beneath us. We can be professional about this.”
(We can't lock her away this time.)
“Obviously. Trying to get rid of someone like that is just bad science.”
(The worst science. They deserved what they got. The conclusion was so obvious.)
“She wouldn't be so dull with her experiments. Not if she's coming back. Clearly if she's returning, that means…”
(She doesn't want us gone.)