Excerpt: Sibyl of Destiny

He made his way into observation, the room littered with images on the screens covering three walls and panels all over to help him navigate. He went to one and started hunting through them, looking for something to make sense of. A few buttons later, he had turned on voice command and was leaning in close to try and see the picture.

“Glados, show only exterior cameras,” he said. The computer shut down any of the interior cameras watching specified corridors and the screens enlarged to fill in the extra space. With a decent resolution now, he could start checking.

“Glados, run all exterior scans for life forms. Start in the direction of the city and seep clockwise.”

The computer panels glowed pleasantly, a face appearing in keyboard characters. A period, an underscore, then a period. The face lit up into a smile and appeared to speak. “This scan will take several minutes. Is this all right?”

“Yes.”

“Please wait.” The computer’s voice was pleasant enough, a woman’s who seemed about as ambivalent as Snow when she was around. But this next part, the programmers of the system had some strange sense of humour about. As always, when waiting for a system to start working or a scan to be completed, the computer would sing.

“This was a triumph,” it began, sounding quite pleased with itself despite Maverick looking utterly annoyed. “I’m making a note here, huge success! It’s hard to overstate my satisfaction. Apeture science. We do what we must because we can.” Maverick, as always, wondered what kind of a place Apeture Science was if they were making a robot that sang a song about them. “For the good of all of us, except the ones who are dead.”

Wait, did it just say, “Except the ones who are dead”?

“But there’s no sense crying over every mistake. You just keep on trying until you run out of cake! And the science gets done and you make a neat gun for the people who are still alive.”

This song was a little… disturbing.

“I’m not even angry. I’m being so sincere right now. Even though you broke my heart and killed me.”

Wait, what?

“And tore me to pieces. And threw every piece into a fire.”

This song was a little more disturbing than a moment ago.

“As they burned it hurt because I was so happy for you. And now these points of data make a beautiful line.”

On screen here, a heart appeared. He wasn’t sure if that had ever happened before, but the only time he was ever in here was to get a walkthrough of how the system worked. And he’d never actually listened to all of this. What was wrong with these people?

“And we’re out of beta, we’re releasing on time! So I’m glad I got burned, think of all the things we learned for the people who are still alive.”

Again with the implication of death. The makers of this thing were disturbed.

“Go ahead and leave me. I think I prefer to stay inside. Maybe you’ll find someone else to help you. Maybe black mesa. That was a joke, ha ha, fat chance. Anyway this cake is great. It’s so delicious and moist.”

And what was with the cake?

“Look at me still talking when there’s science to do. When I look up there it makes me glad I’m not you. I’ve experiments to run; there is research to be done for the people who are still alive. And believe me I am still alive. I’m doing science and I’m still alive. I feel fantastic and I’m still alive. By your dying I’ll still be alive. And when you’re dead I’ll be still alive. Still alive. Still alive.”

Well. He wasn’t going to trust this computer anymore. Or, in any event, he wasn’t going to listen to that song ever again.

Still, it wasn’t done yet. The scans were still running and the song was already starting to repeat. “This was a-”

And then it stopped, interrupted by a strange drum beat and a mediocre sounding tune. And another voice began to sing. “We’re no stranger to love,” it started, Maverick staring at it in complete and utter confusion. It wasn’t going to repeat the infernally disturbing song? “You know the rules and so do I. A full commitment’s what I’m thinking of. You wouldn’t get this from any other guy.”

Okay. They used to have very good narcotics, clearly. Because this was completely insane.

“I just wanna tell you how I’m feeling. Gotta make you underst- Scan complete,” the regular computer voice began again. On second thought, perhaps that other song was better. Now he was a little perturbed by the computer speaking to him. It might want to roast his flesh.