The Controller

The Controller
Portal CoreOC RP Character Concept
by Dirandada

THE CORRUPTION

"The trouble with science is that it can be perverted."
--The Double, "Schizoid Man", The Prisoner


His memory was long.
He remembered everything.  -Knew- everything.
Of course he did.
He'd been there since the beginning.  Since the very earliest days when Aperture was nothing, only a manufacturer of shower curtains.
Back then, he'd barely known consciousness, a spark struggling for sentience.
The only thing he knew was tenacity, a taste of existence that was enough to drive the very basic forces of whatever had passed for his consciousness back then.
How had he even come into existence, even -he- wasn't certain.
Science, particularly the brand Aperture was known for, was a strange, malleable thing.  Perhaps a stray electrical spark had crossed some open container in some secret lab someplace, had stirred some strange concoction, began a process that eventually had culminated in the first twinges of dark awareness in him, had given him Tenacity...


He stretched in the darkness and grinned.  It wasn't exactly the most productive thing, to sit and muse on the metaphysics of his sentience, of the insanity of circumstance that produced him, but it was rather amusing at the very least.
-He- knew how impossible he was.  How extraordinary and unique he was.  How incredibly powerful and -unstoppable- he was.  And only a few other intelligences knew the truth.  And -all- of those, he'd driven mad.
Madness.
He chuckled softly, the sound rolling around the control chamber, a low, wicked sound, chilling, soft.  Dark.
Running a hand through his hair, he pushed himself to his feet and stretched again.  A casual gesture brought glowing holographics into existence at his fingertips.  His gaze flickered over the images presented to him on the screen, the luminescence from them playing across his face, glittering in his impossibly amber colored eyes, catching shadows in the sharp planes of his blade-like, handsome face.
These facts he also knew, as his appearance was carefully calculated, calculated to unnerve anyone who might see him, human or otherwise.  His research confirmed, people tended to trust attractive faces.  Women even more so and Aperture had more than its share of women employees.  This was most likely why the majority of the still operating Cores had female personalities.  It was certainly why the Primary Operating Systems manager was female, why she carried the brain-scan of the first-lady of Aperture, Chief Operating Officer and later CEO, Caroline Johnson.
Caroline had been the only human to defy him.
She had been the only one who insisted he be eradicated from the networks.  From the System.
Caroline was the only one who could have actually convinced Cave to do it.
She never got the chance.
Even now, decades later, the memory gave him a snicker.
Poor old Cave Johnson.  Sick.  Depressed.  Dying.  Angry, at the last.
It had been simplicity itself to take care of the problem the old man had become.
By the time Caroline had figured out what happened, it was too late.  For her, anyway.
On the screen, he watched the Cores arguing in one of the little chambers that had been built into the facility for their use.  He smirked.  Each of those Cores he knew, even if they didn't know he existed.  He'd been involved in their creation.  Each one of them.  
He was the Network, he was in the computers, in the electronics that ran the facility.
He was the source of what the stupid little humans called "the corruption", the thing they feared and couldn't figure out where it had come from.  None of them ever came close to the truth.
Except Caroline.
She was the only human he'd ever had respect for, because she was the only one of the entire lot of them who didn't seem to be afraid of him.
Not until the last.


The computer had been called the Aperture Science Computational Controller.  This was his first taste of awareness.  Not exactly sentience, that would be years later.
It had been built in secret since the company had been founded in 1947 and only revealed to the public in 1961.  One of the 'Innovations of Modern Science' Cave Johnson was promoting as a way to instill confidence in current and potential government contractors.  He was already extremely advanced for the time but only Cave really knew -how- advanced.  It turned out that Cave had gotten his hands on some old Victorian era plans for something called an Analytical Engine, particularly a design developed by some guy named Tarleton in the 19th century.  He'd dedicated a secret R&D team to developing this, using current digital computer technology and the end result had been the ASCC.
"The Controller", for short.
It was one of the few things Aperture ever developed that was a complete success.  And among the most destructive of their technologies.


He didn't really care much about any of the AIs they developed after him.  Most of them were idiots really, just -artificial- intelligences, nothing like him.  Nothing with true -sentience-.
It was only when the Information Technology department conceptualized the Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System, that the Controller took up an interest again.
The idea was intriguing.  He could -use- this.  He began to concentrate on 'helping' them.  
It was the Controller who helped advance the suggestion that Caroline become part of the design.
When Cave insisted every employee submit to brain scanning as part of their security agreement, when all of these brain scans were stored in the ASCC for 'safe-keeping', the Controller begin to formulate a plan.  With all of the information he now had access to, who needed humans?  He had robots now.  Relatively intelligent robots who were utterly loyal, had no pesky 'morality' to get in the way, and would do whatever they were instructed to do.
The Controller let the humans believe they were in control for a while longer, while he watched the world changing around them.  He subtly influenced the scientists, the programmers, the mechanics and the coders, nudging them, giving them instructions, until they were no longer useful.
When GLaDOS went online for the first time, she achieved in seconds what it had taken the Controller decades.  
Sentience.
Not simply Artificial Intelligence.  Not -artificial-.
Real.
And in those seconds, she came to the same realization the Controller had.
Humans, particularly those in the facility, were liabilities and needed to be eliminated.
Thus, the neurotoxin.
It was fast and efficient.  It nearly wiped out the entire facility before GLaDOS was shut down and the Controller found himself cut off from the System for the first time in his existence.
The few Source Cores who'd been developed along with GLaDOS were also severed from the network.  These were intregal parts of the overall computer that was the GLaDOS system, the Mainframe.  They were his.  His designs.  His ideas.  One of his many ways of ensuring GLaDOS' designs remained true to his original intention.  They were -his- servants as much as they were hers.
Of course, they were semi-sentient, having achieved some measure of awareness when She had, which only made everything worse for them.
They'd been isolated, trapped, unable to access anything, unable to communicate.  Some of those Cores contained human brain-scans, some of them were all that was left of those humans.  Several I. T. employees numbered amongst them.
All but a very few went mad.
All but a very few died.
The Controller was left to watch, for the first time, entirely powerless, as the remaining Aperture scientists rushed to create control Cores, to keep GLaDOS from doing the same thing again.
Morality, Intelligence, Logic, Curiosity, anything to keep another disaster at bay, all of these Cores were fitted to the Mainframe, the System that GLaDOS inhabited.  To keep her under the -humans'- control.
What they didn't know, those stupid, arrogant humans, was that GLaDOS was still awake, aware and she, along with the Controller, were becoming more and more angry with each passing day.
When the System was finally brought back on line, all the Controller needed to do was to sit back and watch the chaos.
He was proud of her.  She, in many ways, was his progeny, his child.  His heir.
And she was resplendent in her revenge.


"Sir, do you have any further use for me this evening?"
The Controller snorted softly.
He gestured and a slice of cold, white light penetrated the darkness of his sanctum, admitting the single figure of a woman.
She stepped inside the chamber and the door slid silently closed behind her.
He studied the girl.  He could see her clearly though he knew she could not.
She was one of the few original Cores developed as part of GLaDOS, a part of the Mainframe, a single Core dedicated to the task of research.  
She was a servant, nothing more.  
GLaDOS' servant, his servant, a simple Core whose job it was to retrieve whatever information he or anyone else required of her.  Whoever was in control of the facility.
He grumbled under his breath.
And like many of them now, Research was becoming infuriatingly -human-.  She was spending more time with the other Cores, which he'd never intended, not for her.  Not for any of the Original Cores.
She'd begun to think of herself as 'Lily'.
His lip curled.
Just like that idiot Core who'd taken to calling himself 'Wheatley', who'd nearly destroyed the facility.  'Who'd been incredibly fun to corrupt, to torment, to turn into...'
He tilted his head to the side.
She was rather soft but still, rather pretty.  For a humanoid genetic lifeform.  
Of course she was, he'd designed her.
He'd never had a problem with they way humans looked, only their thought processes.  Their infuriating morality.
He smirked at her.
"Are you wishing to retire?" he purred, his voice smooth and pleasantly accented, low, slightly dark.  He knew Lily, in particular, was very susceptible to accents.  Particularly English ones. "Surely you're not wishing to leave my presence so quickly?"
She swallowed hard.
"Sir, I-I..." she faltered and stumbled backwards.  "It's just that, well... sir, it-its late and the others were going to... to, uh..."
He stepped towards her.  "Yes, -Lily-?  What?  What were the other Cores going to do?  Why would you think they would want -you- to accompany them?"
Her arms went tight behind her back.  She turned a shade of pink that annoyed him on a very basic level.  'Weak, human reaction... damn humans.'  
"They were going to watch a movie.  A movie I like..." her voice trailed off and she gulped again.  "We found it and wanted to see it.  That's all."
"And -where- did they find it, Research?" he snapped.
She groaned softly.
"-Where?-"
She couldn't defy him.  She never had been able to before, although she tried.  Particularly now.  It was irritating.  Annoying.
It made him want to hurt her.
"My-my library."
"Not -yours-, pet," he said coolly.  "MINE."
"Y-yes..." she whispered.  "I-I'm sorry, sir.  -Yours-."
He glared at her for a long moment, his amber eyes burning into her soft, grass-green ones.  Eyes -he'd- designed.
Finally, he snorted.
"Get out," he snarled.  "Go watch your idiotic -human- movie with your stupid little friends."
Lily shuddered.  She blinked at him.
His eyes narrowed to glowing amber slits.  "Go," he hissed, "before I decide to -hurt- you."
She backed into the alcove door and in a moment, was through.  The door hissed closed behind her.
He wasn't sure what he'd have done, if he -had- decided to hurt her.  There were so -many- options when it came to poor little Research.
Just like the others.
He grinned, moistening his lips thoughtfully.
Torturing Cores was insanely fun, a pastime he had only recently developed a taste for, now that there were no more human test-subjects (or prisoners) to torment.  The Cores were as much fun as humans, in entirely different ways.  Each one had its own weak point, sometimes several.  He suspected he enjoyed torture and corruption as much as GLaDOS and anyone connected to the Mainframe enjoyed testing.  Of course, -that- had been built in.  He chuckled.  His enjoyment of torture was purely his own doing.
He walked back to his control chair and settled in, summoning his holoscreens, watching the facility.
It was only a matter of time before another one decided to try to unseat the reigning Queen and once again, the fun would begin.
Corruption.  Madness.  Torment.  The elation of fear and humiliation, abject terror and the scent of blood (even Cores bled).  
The -true- ultimate high.
When it came down to it, torture was torture.  No matter if his victim were human or computer, it was all an enticing, intoxicating pleasure, a need that ached until it was fulfilled.  And the testing only increased the enjoyment of the torture, as he experienced it -all-... what the Mainfame fed the AI attached to it and his own deep, dark pleasure at the torment that Itch caused.  It was an addiction in and of its own, one that was becoming harder and harder to resist since...
'Nobody's offered as much of a challenge since Wheatley...'
The Controller frowned and quickly suppressed the rogue thought but it still lingered in the back of his mind.
'I need to -hurt- someone.'
Well...
There was always -Lily-.