Chell vs GLaDOS, GLaDOS has the chance to kill Chell.
((I just suddenly hit on how to fill this ask...It won't be too much of a versus, but still..))
The woman stood in the spotlight's circle, leaning hard on her cane. Tiny tremors wracked her frame, and her eyes darted about with uneasy fear of the dark. She retained her stoic expression - the one GLaDOS knew so well.
The AI knew that only went skin deep. Study of the sweat on the young woman's forehead, the slight grimaces of pain whenever she moved, told her all she needed to know.
A flashback flickered through one memory bank - of an old man asking his closest companion, his assistant for decades, for more pain pills as he bent grimaced over his desk.
She had hoped it wouldn't come to this. That Chell's exposure to the moon poison in the conversion gel - as well as all the other toxins in Aperture - hadn't amounted to enough in her youthful, resilient body.
That Chell would stay away from Aperture as she had told her. She couldn't risk harming the one person she'd finally come to care about after years of solid, logical reasons to distrust, even despise humans, thanks to those who had made her.
And yet, at the same time, she'd listened to the quiet voice that had said "Don't do anything. Let her have her sad short life. She tried to murder you, twice. Is this any way to treat a killer? No. She's getting precisely what she deserves."
That voice had seen her through every single threat that had tried to kill her. That voice had whispered behind the Cores' yammering. That voice had suggested the ways to stay still alive, however brutal or subtle.
And now, here they were staring at one another again - a yellow optic boring into two steely gray eyes.
Except this time, Chell's time had run out. GLaDOS' calculations had been right. She'd been exposed to enough of the toxins to come down with Cave's sickness. The nervous paranoia telegraphed itself through every tense flicker of emotion across her face. The tiny dark voice that had whispered of neurotoxin, of human killers, of revenge, had seen its plan through.
Chell would surely die, and it would be by the AI's hand of doing absolutely nothing. All GLaDOS had to do was simply look at those pleading gray eyes, and say "No."
She would have what she had wanted - all threats to her continued existence eliminated. She would never again fear the lunatic returning to cause yet more suffering on top of what she had already experienced.
Chell regarded her quietly. GLaDOS noted the woman still hadn't spoken a word. Well, that was nothing new. She had long learned to not expect a single verbal response from her now.
To her surprise, the woman's dry, cracked lips opened slightly. They moved slowly, clearly unused to this demand from her.
The AI craned herself forward.
A tiny sound came from those lips.
They formed a single word.
GLaDOS stared stonily at her for several long moments, her mind turning this way and that - the two strongest voices of her personality at heated battle with one another.
The slight whirring of her movements of her body in its idle mode - reminiscent of a human's breathing - echoed hauntingly in the chamber as the only noise present.
Chell blinked at the long pause, then let out a tired sigh that spoke volumes of her weakening struggle against this illness.
"That's what you want," she whispered slowly. "Isn't it?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," the AI smoothly replied, her voice shockingly loud in the chamber.
Chell would have none of it. She shook her head angrily.
"I killed you," Chell replied, her voice still achingly faint. "Twice."
"That is part of it, yes," GLaDOS replied coolly.
"Then just get it over with," Chell muttered. "Not like I have anywhere else to go."
That pulled GLaDOS out of her stony gaze with a slight jerk.
"I'd have thought you would find civilization quite easily, and blend in well topside. I'm sure they could use a new killer."
Chell's expression darkened as tears welled in her eyes. She vehemently shook her head.
"I never did," she bitterly whispered. "Day I walked in, I was different. Fitting in? Ha. That's for babies. I was never that young."
Chell took several steps forwards, her cane pecking at the chamber's floor with soft banging echoes.
"It got ugly. Town tried to make me fit in. Some fools died. I'm still here...and for what?"
GLaDOS mentally cringed. So it had come to that. Chell had become as rejected by humanity as she was. They'd tried to force her into their idea of conformity, and judging from the flash in those gray eyes, that had gone about as well as neurotoxin in an Enrichment Center. She knew where that road led all too well.
No wonder the woman had come here, against the AI's express instructions. Where else could she explain her situation in so few words, and be completely understood?
The disease had likely helped things along, if Cave's Lemon Rant had been anything to go by for the state of mind of an afflicted person.
She regarded the woman before her, emotions roaring noisily in her mind.
"So what do you want from me?" she finally asked.
"What can you do?" Chell simply asked, her voice still as weak and hoarse as before.
GLaDOS' head finally drooped, her gaze dropping to the chamber's floor.
So it had come to this. The one human who had ever succeeded in standing up to her, was now the one human who understood what she had endured.
And she could kill her, just as simply as saying "no."
"I can...do a few things," the AI finally said, looking up to regard Chell steadily. "From Caroline's knowledge gleaned of Mr. Johnson's disease after the autopsy, she estimated the poison had a window of opportunity where it could be flushed from the body. That window would allow a relatively resilient, healthy human to recover, given sufficient medical treatment."
Chell's eyes popped wide open at that.
"We'll discuss the particulars later. I estimate you may still have a chance," the AI replied quietly.
She paused several beats, then went on.
"I will require one condition in exchange for the amount of effort I'm about to undertake."
"Name it," Chell grated out.
"Testing," was all the AI needed by way of explanation.
"You mean...I'd have a home," the woman translated.
"You'd have a home," GLaDOS answered slowly. Best not to give her any indication that the decision was made a good while beforehand.
