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Doug Rattmann was literally wrapped in a homicidal robot. Thick black cables snaked around him, curling tightly enough to hold him in place—though not tightly enough to be painful. He supposed he was meant to feel trapped, and after a lifetime of hiding, that should have been horrifying. He knew he was vulnerable, exposed, entirely at her mercy, but somehow the cables felt more like support than bondage.
Nevertheless, GLaDOS could do anything to him. This was, in its own way, terrifying—and delightfully thrilling. Worse (and, therefore, even better) was the feeling of cables in his mouth, probing and searching and threatening to choke him before they settled to rest. He tried to escape them, to bite them—all for the sake of defying her—but they were sturdy against his motions and his teeth. It was just as well, he supposed. He didn’t need to be electrocuted at this particular moment in time.
“You know about Pavlov, right?” Her voice seemed to be right at his ear, though her chassis was several feet away. “He was the one who accidentally fathered classical conditioning—though I guess that’s better than fathering a human. Pavlov was studying the mysteries of dog salivation when he realized that if he played a bell before giving the dogs food, over time they would associate the sound of the bell with eating. Eventually, the clueless human could ring a bell and stimulate salivation in the dogs without even feeding them. Give a useless lump of blood and bones like yourself a bit of time, and your reflexes can be controlled however I want.”
Did he know about Pavlov? Of course he did. Everyone knew about Pavlov—but he didn’t bother arguing, distracted by an uncomfortable sort of pull in his mouth. It was as if she wanted to remind him that she was there—as if he could possibly forget. He gave her a sulky look as she continued: “I’m going to make you salivate—for science. Classical conditioning would be a fun test, but we both know you’re getting old and decrepit. You probably wouldn’t last long enough to really get conditioned. Fortunately, I have a way of speeding up the process. Okay, so it’s not conditioning. It’ll still be fun for at least the smartest of both of us.”
Back before Doug’s life had been thrown apart, when everything was normal, he’d had his fair share of dental work done. This shared certain characteristics: A soreness in his jaw, the unrelenting tang of sterility, and the assurance that his best hope would be to experience only mild discomfort. Frankly, he counted himself lucky that she hadn’t decided to experiment on his teeth. On the other hand, he suspected it was only a matter of time.
“Did you know that the human mouth carries more bacteria than a toilet seat? And here you are, spreading them all over delicate scientific equipment without a care in the world. Well, anything’s worth it for science. Even your life can have meaning under extreme circumstances.”
Salivary glands, he knew, were traditionally stimulated by the presence of food. That was their function, after all; saliva was crucial in assisting the body with digestion and breaking down matter to pass easily through the esophagus. Of course, the body didn’t ‘think’. It couldn’t necessarily distinguish between actual food and any other stimulus placed within his mouth, which meant that just the presence of the cords within his mouth was enough to excite the glands. Still, he wasn’t about to let her win that easily. Swallowing was difficult, but it was doable, and he choked back the spittle before it passed his lips.
“You don’t have to struggle, you know. Actually, struggling will likely make this experiment even more…uncomfortable for you.” She chuckled, a low sound that sent a flash of heat through his belly. “Just relax. You’re not escaping anyway.”
He struggled. True, it only made the cables dig into his limbs, only emphasized the vague soreness of his mouth, but escaping was what he did best. It was more fun this way, even with her unrelenting grip. He knew exactly how she’d feel about the glare he directed toward her cameras, a risk worth taking even as another cord snaked threateningly around his neck. Bite me. The remark sounded so good in his head, but he knew that in this position it would come out as “bah mah” at best. Better to stay silent and look mildly intimidating.
A ‘tsking’ sound echoed through the speakers, and he had to force back a laugh as he heard it. Who had thought to program that in? It sure hadn’t been him. “You really aren’t very good at following directions, are you? Maybe you just need a little remedial encouragement. I’m thinking…the introduction of an unpleasant stimulus to make you behave. Some humans mistake this for negative reinforcement, but that’s because humans are sweaty meatbags lacking astoundingly in mental capacity. This is positive punishment.”
Doug’s eyes darted around the room, watching for some sort of torture device—but he wasn’t prepared for the sudden stab of pain in his jaw. The hot pressure by his throat made him cry out, forcing through his blood, and he thought he might black out—but no, the attack wasn’t that strong. Still, it was enough that it almost made him lose control. He caught the saliva before it spilled over his mouth.
Her chuckle was soft and—he had to admit—intoxicating. “Oh, that’s right. I did have another reason for injecting acetylcholine directly into your salivary glands—which is what that little pinch was, if your primate brain hadn’t figured that out yet. You didn’t think I was just going to lie around in your mouth, did you? We’d be better off waiting for classical conditioning than doing that.”
Acetylcholine. Doug was rusty on his biology—he’d specialized in computer sciences, after all—but he seemed to remember something about salivation and the parasympathetic nervous system and…he swallowed back another mouthful of drool. Tendrils of cables inched closer to him, wrapping all over his body. She pierced into him again and again, but he cut his cries back. “Just stabilizing,” she said cheerfully. “Keeping the rest of you mostly intact. No point in wasting a test subject, even one like you.”
He didn’t have time to wonder what exactly she was doing to ‘stabilize’ him—not with the way his saliva was beginning to pool in his mouth. He didn’t have much to gain from holding back, but he couldn’t help it. There was no chance he’d let her take this from him. He swallowed in earnest, but his mouth seemed to moisten again just as quickly. Her injections were certainly stimulating.
Doug forced himself to relax (and ignored the thought that she, in a way, was essentially doing the same). He could fight this. So he’d have to do a little swallowing. He could handle that. If his mouth weren’t woefully occupied, he’d have made a crude joke about it, just to listen to her react in disgust. Maybe there’d be an opportunity for that later.
Her cables felt like snakes slithering over him, gripping him tight and releasing, apparently at her own leisure. He felt another prick and braced himself, letting the spittle pool in his mouth as much as possible before swallowing. And swallowing. And swallowing. He hadn’t even realized his body was capable of producing this much saliva, but maybe that had to do with whatever else she was injecting into him.
“Douglas.” Her voice was soothing, sickeningly sweet. “Just relax. Like everything else you’ve ever done, trying to escape this is pointless. It’s just a little experiment. I am sure you can behave for once in the name of science. I am.”
If he’d been in any other situation, he probably would have spit at her metaphorical feet. Then again, given how meticulous she liked to keep her facility, she’d probably have countered by murdering him. At least that would have been quick.
How long could he keep this up? His body was starting to feel strange, the stress of the situation and the strange chemical cocktail making him weak and uninhibited. Eventually, she’d win. He wasn’t strong the way Chell was, the way GLaDOS was. He’d fail eventually.
“Do I really have to keep persuading you?” Her voice was silken, enough so that she almost seemed to care about him. If only she hadn’t been slowly torturing him. “Well, if you insist…”
There was a sharp flash of pain against his leg, startling him so much that he almost cried out—which, he was sure, was probably the point. He glanced down and saw a number of cables that weren’t touching him, though they were close. Oddly-coloured with metallic squares etched against the black rubber, their purpose was obvious: they were electric.
“Just in case it didn’t make it through that thick skull, that was the persuasion I was talking about. Just a few tens of thousands of volts of electricity. Of course, I shouldn’t be wasting it too much. Electricity’s a valuable resource. Are you going to give up, or do you not care about the environment?”
Her words were muddy in his ears, the sensory overload blurring his mind. Everything turned into determination and pain. He felt another prick in his mouth, followed by a burning shock at his leg. There was nothing to temper the increasing agony but the knowledge that he had to…he had to…
What was it that he had to do? Teetering over the edge of his mind, it was hard to remember anything anymore. He held tight, but to what, he didn’t know. All he knew was that the ache in his mouth was getting stronger, the electric shocks getting harder, the agony building and building with the blood rushing in his ears until he let out a scream and his mouth opened wide and it all—
Stopped.
The flood of sensation made it so that he almost didn’t see it. Why had everything stopped? He could barely remember who he was, let alone what he’d been fighting for, so he couldn’t understand this sudden calm. The wires that had snaked around him gently lowered him to the ground, and as he fell to his knees, he saw it: an innocent little droplet glimmering on the floor.
“Clean it up.”
Her tone was, as always, cold and indifferent. There was no indication that he might be worth anything more than an expendable test element to her—he was simply a nuisance getting his revolting bodily fluids on her pristine floors. Once she’d released him from the grip of her cables, he extended a hand to dab at the tiny puddle, but her harsh voice stopped him. “No. If I wanted your grubby little fingers smearing dirt and saliva all over my facility, I’d let you go back to scurrying in the walls. There’s no chance I’ll get all that bacteria off of my floor now, so put that filthy tongue of yours to work for once.”
Arguably, a cloth and some cleaning spray would have done a much more effective job, but Doug wasn’t about to be a smartass with her optic peering so close—as if her cameras couldn’t see him from every angle. He looked into the yellow orb anyway, never even blinking as he lowered his face and dragged his tongue across the ground.
Her chassis seemed to shudder, or maybe he imagined it. Still, her scrutinizing ‘head’ definitely inched closer, and he thought he heard the tiny whirr of cameras zooming in. The floor itself was surprisingly tasteless, leaving behind a sterile tang reminiscent of the cords that had left his mouth. Of course, he wasn’t exactly licking a dirty kitchen area. This was her property, her home…and, he realized suddenly, her body. She was Aperture, and he was being given the exclusive privilege of tasting her. His muscles were weak, but he still managed to smile.
“Disgusting. Pointless and disgusting.” A panel fell away, allowing a number of strange mechanical instruments to come through. With only mild surprise, Doug realized they were just cleaning attachments, built to scrub at the floor until it was perfectly disinfected again. He didn’t bother asking why she hadn’t brought them out before.
Actually, come to think of it, he wasn’t sure if he could talk. He didn’t have to force his mouth closed anymore, but his entire body felt stripped of all its regular impulses. Everything ached, everything burned, his head was swimming, black spots littered his vision, and he thought he might just collapse on the floor. His eyelids were so heavy…
“Doug?”
The name echoed in his ears, the sound muffled somehow. It was as if he was underwater—or perhaps incredibly drunk. He opened his mouth to tell her to stop playing around, but he was rudely interrupted by a loud moan. After a second, he’d attributed the moan to himself.
“Doug!”
The black spots were getting bigger. They ate at his vision until he could only see fragments of her faceplate. It was so close, the yellow optic a wide harvest moon. He tried to touch it, but like the moon it was too far away—and anyway, he couldn’t lift his arm. Everything was darkening, and soon the darkness took over completely and she was gone.
It was sound that greeted him first. The gentle hum of the facility met his ears, tingling pleasantly through his brain. He then realized that he was warm. It wasn’t a sensation he was well-acquainted with, given the nature of living in an underground research facility, but he was warm, even cozy. The air was as sterile as ever, but his mouth tasted like hell. After a few minutes, he decided he might open his eyes.
It took a moment for the room to come in the focus—a task that was not made easier by the fact that everything inside it was a cool and relentless white. He wondered how he must look, a scraggy blot of colour invading the pristine chamber. He was so distracted by this that he almost failed to notice the other bit of colour in the room—the red light of a security camera.
“Oh, good. You’re finally up.”
“GLaDOS?”
The name didn’t sound. All he could manage was a rough croak, like something out of a horror movie.
“Don’t.” Her voice was so sharp that he almost expected a hand to come flying toward his face—despite the fact that she didn’t have hands. “Don’t. Your voice has been…temporarily compromised. You’ll want to drink plenty of water and shut up for a few hours before you try speaking. I know, it’s practically impossible for you to keep quiet, but you’ll live.”
He smiled, shaking his head. Even she had to know that wasn’t a valid complaint; he spoke no more or less than the average person. Then again, the only other human she’d had experience with recently didn’t talk at all. If he’d had the ability to, he would have reminded GLaDOS how she’d hated Chell’s silence, but as he couldn’t, he merely threw her a rude signal with his hand.
“You know, if you’re going to be vulgar, I really shouldn’t be spending my time nursing you back you health. Do you have any idea how much science I could be doing right now? I could have made sixteen brilliant discoveries in the time it took you to open your eyes. You’re holding back science.”
Amusing as she was, Doug had had enough. These few moments of wakefulness had proven exhausting, and his eyelids were already drooping. Shaking his head, he prepared himself to welcome the darkness that peered in at the corners of his vision.
“…You are all right, aren’t you?”
That got his attention. His eyes snapped open at her words—no, not her words, her voice. She sounded anxious about him, and he realized suddenly that he wasn’t the only one who might need some care. Making eye contact with her camera, Doug nodded. He was exhausted, but he knew he’d be just fine.
“…Good.” She had no breath, but he thought he heard her sigh with relief. “Did you…have fun?”
Doug smiled, though the muscles around his mouth were weak. He’d never experienced that level of sensory input before. Yes, it had been overwhelming, but it had been thrilling, too—and he’d loved it. He nodded again, a slow and deliberate movement intended to convey just how much he’d enjoyed their play.
“…Good.” He waited, knowing she probably had something else to say. “…You know, I think you enjoyed it a little too much. You really don’t even know what’s good for you. Maybe you have brain damage. With a shock like that, I’d be surprised if you didn’t.”
Maybe, or maybe he simply loved her.
In any case, Doug had enjoyed himself. Nevertheless, all of these thoughts were far too much for him. He needed to sleep. As his eyes fell closed once more, her voice continued. It was so musical, her tones straight and clear, that he almost thought she was singing. After a moment, he realized she was.
Carried by an electronic lullaby, he fell into a peaceful sleep.