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[stealthvirus.livejournal.com]

WHO: Ghost (stealthvirus), GLaDOS (out_of_beta)
WHERE: Mostly the arrival tower/porter area.
WHEN: Saturday night, 10 PM.
WARNINGS: No.
SUMMARY: Ghost wants to check out the porter some more, GLaDOS assists.
FORMAT: Quickparawhatever.


Since, apparently, the tower lacked any real security, Ghost had no trouble slipping back inside. He'd told GLaDOS to simply come to the tower whenever she was ready; he couldn't think of a reason to meet up somewhere beforehand. Maybe after their experiment, but not before. The idea of attempting a connection with the porter and figuring out its blueprint was much too intriguing. That wasn't to say he wasn't just as anxious to meet GLaDOS herself. The program had told him she'd been turned organic by this thing he was approaching, and he wanted to see the results. Naturally.

So as he ascended the building through the wall itself, clutching a small, self-built laptop that ran only the most basic, rawly-coded operating system, Ghost felt something that was usually alien to him: a strange, uncertain optimism. She was supposed to be a teammate as far as Osborn went, but. He'd never encountered something matching her description.

Ghost was completely silent as he drifted into the porter room, glancing at the machine as he began to set up the test-laptop in front of it, preparing to connect.

Comments

IGNORE THIS TL;DR. my other tags will be SHORTER orz.

[out-of-beta.livejournal.com]

10.04 PM.

The cab that GLaDOS took to the power tower pulled up to the curb slowly with the high-pitched whinnying of breaks, a noise which disturbed GLaDOS enough to cause her mouth to frown unhappily. Up front, beside the driver, a machine tickered out a receipt and, when prompted for payment, GLaDOS did not reach for the wallet she did not own. Instead she simply placed her hand onto the card swipe provided for individuals with credit cards; accessing the Network, she idly moved around some monetary funds before the device began to print out the receipt. Peeved at the lack of tip, the driver cursed at her as she got out of the car, but she mostly ignored him.

"HAVE A NICE DAY," she said, in her singsong voice. "Fuck off," the driver said back and then sped off away.

The inside of the building was familiar, even though GLaDOS did not make a habit of going there. She had been there once before to obtain a second communicator so finding the room where the porter was located posed no difficult. She had brought simply her handheld communications device and nothing else. GLaDOS did not require hardwire, afterall; with her, there was simply biology and all the Porter had made possible for her mind to accomplish.

When she reached the room, she paused in the doorway. Her feet -- oddly enough -- were bare to optimize her mobility while she still was in the process of relearning how to walk. Still, they made a soft padding sound which drifts into the room, preceding her.

A curious "HELLO" echoed quietly as she peered inside.

IT'S ALL GOOD

[stealthvirus.livejournal.com]

Ghost turned, glancing first over his shoulder at the noise before rising fully, intending to give her a proper greeting. He was never much one for social graces, but this was different. Much different.

A connecting cable was inserted into the side of the laptop, screen opened and running a simple prompt. Ghost abandoned the machine momentarily, facing GLaDOS and staring in her direction for a moment before beginning to float toward her, only inches off the ground.

"... Glad you could make it," came the voice, hollow and ethereal yet trapped inside the helmet he wore. "I was just getting started."

[out-of-beta.livejournal.com]

GLaDOS's head tilted to one side, her mouth opening slightly as she let out an audible breath. She had come across humans whose outward appearances ran the gamut of color, shapes and sizes and was even familiar with the occasional metahuman whose physiology differed greatly from the expected standards. All of the inorganics she knew had either been given completely human bodies or had biomechanical origins based in human anatomy. Everyone she had come across before was, in the most tangible ways, human.

But there was something about Ghost that was distinctly inhuman. Something in his levitation, the lack of visible skin, the red glow from the optics set into what could only be called the 'face' of his mask. All of these things (oddly enough) reminded GLaDOS of herself (http://www.freewebs.com/megamindstorm101/glados.jpg).

Stepping out to meet him as he drifted forward, her expression brightened into an odd grin. When she spoke her voice -- though human -- modulated back and forth in its singsong way.

"HELLO GHOST," she said and then lifted one hand to wave it back and forth at the wrist in his direction. "I AM THE GENERIC LIFEFORM and DISC OPERATING SYSTEM, ACRONYM GLaDOS. I AM GLAD TO SEE THAT YOU HAVE NOT YET BEEN PREMATURELY OFFLINED BY THE PORTER AS A RESULT OF OUR PLANNED INSUBORDINATION."

[stealthvirus.livejournal.com]

It was incredible; a computer that had been remodeled into... a human, for whatever reason. Ghost was far more excited about her presence than he was letting off, mainly because he wanted to reserve those questions and comments for someplace outside of the porter's eyes or ears. Which he was sure existed.

A small laugh was his first reply to her statement. "Hehh. I haven't hooked her up yet--" he turned airily back toward the laptop, diminutive in the shadow of the porter, "But I'm about to."

He returned to hover above the computer, grabbing the end of the cable lightly as he glanced up at the porter. There were wires by the dozens in plain sight, all sizes, and he was going to rip one out to replace with his own.

"That is, if you have nothing you want to add before I do, GLaDOS."

[out-of-beta.livejournal.com]

GLaDOS watched with silent interest as Ghost turned and began to list away from her towards the Porter once again. He seemed to taper off into the intangible (an equally curious phenomena), substance rising from a wisp of something like smoke. She followed him as he went before her attention dropped to the computer that sat (its processor fan humming very faintly) on the floor. Bending at the waist she studied it for a moment, wishing perhaps that she had a power capability much more like John's. Sight instead of touch seemed much more efficient.

Easing down onto her knees in front of it, she extended a finger. "IS THIS YOURS GHOST? DID YOU MAKE IT??" she asked, her voice twittering.

Opening her hand, she pressed a palm and its splayed fingers against the laptop's screen and, with the quick unfocusing of her eyes, was able to push her way through Ghost's primitive yet effective codework. Her mouth formed a smirk.

"YES," she said, answering her own question. More often than not she could tell. "IT IS YOURS."

[stealthvirus.livejournal.com]

He'd turned again, slightly, to answer her question - but she already knew. A small grin formed, unseen from his helmet. It would fade as he turned back to the porter, his eyes scanning the exposed wires from behind the red lenses. It would be a not-so-delicate procedure, this switch-up. Ghost reached for one abruptly, pulling it from the machine and hastily hooking the laptop's cable into it.

It was still for a few moments, and then the shock came.

Ghost failed to react much to the violent spark that erupted from his laptop, used to his intangibility enough that he rarely flinched anymore. Instead, he attempted to focus on the screen, which had gone haywire with seemingly randomized code, filling up the black space with stark white numbers and letters.

"Hehh. She doesn't like us." But he left the laptop connected, staring intently at the glitching mess upon the screen.

[out-of-beta.livejournal.com]

GLaDOS wasn't nearly as lucky as Ghost was when it came to the spark. Two bright white arcs of electricity forked towards the both of them and while his intangibility mitigated whatever shock came from it, GLaDOS was hit with the full force of it -- enough to knock her back off her knees in a half-scramble. Pushing herself away from the source, her Emotion Core spiked red with activity and for a moment GLaDOS was incapable of speech. Her mouth pulled into a sneer as she snarled out sound animalistic noises. She clutched her hand -- which had served as the anchor point for the electricity -- to her chest, looking very much like a wounded animal.

"SHE DOESN'T LIKE ANYBODY. BECAUSE NOBODY LIKES HER. BECAUSE SHE IS SO UNLIKABLE," GLaDOS snapped pettily at the offending laptop.

[stealthvirus.livejournal.com]

"--Are you all right?" It seemed stupid to ask, as GLaDOS had clearly received a less than optimal response from the laptop. But Ghost was troubled by her reaction, and he hovered over to her, his head tilted in inquiry.

The laptop itself remained in a state of frenzied input, the feedback from the displeased porter continuing to rapidly fill the once-blank prompt into binary oblivion. But the fare of the laptop wasn't much concern; there were a lot more where it had come from.

[out-of-beta.livejournal.com]

GLaDOS hissed again at the screen -- the inside of her brain buzzing as her CURIOSITY attempted to override the dominance of her current ANGER. Her eyes moved back and forth in an attempt to read the output, but the code was moving too fast. The temptation to reach out and attempt a direct connection was strong, but her palm hurt, the skin beginning to blister slightly.

Eventually she was able to speak, crawling forward again, peering intently at the overwhelmed laptop.

"THE DERMIS TO THE HUMAN BODY IS EXTREMELY DELICATE," she observed with a frown. "WHY YOUR SPECIES HAS NOT YET EVOLVED A MORE RESILIENT OUTER MEMBRANE I DO NOT UNDERSTAND."

Reaching out with her other hand she very carefully attempted to touch the spacebar of the laptop. Another small spark jumped and GLaDOS recoiled, looking up at Ghost. It was unclear if she was irritated or amused; the possibility of both at the same time did not exist for her. It was either one of the other -- on or off, just like binary.

"SOMEONE DOESN'T LIKE US BEING HERE GHOST."

[stealthvirus.livejournal.com]

"Nn. That's why I don't spend a lot of time in it, so to speak." He eyed her hand, first the injured one and then one that extended toward his laptop. "Care--"

With the spark, he moved to the side and positioned himself before the screen, staring at the code again before ripping out the connector cable, hitting a few keys. Attempting to save the input onto the harddrive for later inspection.

"... She is hostile. I think we should go, for now. I could analyze this stuff for hours."

Ghost bundled up the laptop almost as if it were a baby, closing the cover carefully and checking it for signs of damage. The wire plug-in looked singed, but hopefully the entire thing wasn't fried.