route_1065 | There are things Evronians are simply not supposed to do.

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There are things Evronians are simply not supposed to do.

Who: Gorthan (

neurotoxined).
Where: Goldenrod City.
When: After the Rocket chaos is over.
Summary: When Gorthan had asked GLaDOS out on a date, there were several things he wasn't counting on happening.
Rating: PG at most?
Log:

A reminder for next time.

Before setting up this kind of appointment, make perfectly sure that no battles against a Legendary Pokémon are scheduled to occur in the meantime.

"Behee?" the extraterrestrial Pokémon tipped its large head inquisitively to one side, staring at its trainer with glowing green eyes as it floated alongside him.

Gorthan shook his head. "This isn't what I was originally going for, is all." As he walked down the Goldenrod base's underground corridors, the Evronian-turned-human still showed a definite limp, something which his use of an old-fashioned wooden walking stick only attempted to hide. He was dressed with a casual elegance, black slacks and a light green dress shirt.

Indeed, there were many things Gorthan did not even imagine would happen when he had first asked his first female coworker on a date. He wasn't counting on ending up with a bad leg, for one, one that would likely take over a week to heal. And then there was the way he felt inside, after watching all those images of flooded cities and people and Pokémon in danger. Emptiness. Regret. If he knew that, unlike almost every Evronian ever, he had a soul, why did he keep thinking it was a good idea to silence it and keep forging on, leaving nothing but destruction and sadness in his wake? And the irony of it was that, apparently, he had received a promotion; that tonight, he actually had something to celebrate, in spite of his mood.

He briefly wondered if there was any way Caroline would ever share these concerns of his. Probably not, he concluded; but women and the many layers of their selves were still a mystery to him, and he was open to being surprised.

"Nonetheless, it should prove a rather interesting experience." Gorthan flashed a small smile at his Beheeyem as he came to a stop in front of the exit that separated the Rocket base from the world outside.

He hoped that Caroline, as someone who, like him, had suddenly found herself in Johto with a body that wasn't hers, shared his excitement at least in part. More than anything romantic, he reckoned, tonight was an opportunity for him - and perhaps for them both - to pretend they were people. In every sense of the expression.

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It was rare that GLaDOS ventured outside of the labs, and rarer still that she was seen outside of her usual Team Rocket attire; she had traded the miniskirt for the men's uniform ages ago, simply because it was highly impractical for anyone to be Doing Science in a skirt that was more of a censor bar than an actually functional garment, but other than that her outfit had basically consisted of said uniform under one of the long white labcoats of the science division, her hair tied up and secured with what was usually about a million pens shoved in it, in lieu of hairsticks, in an attempt to keep it out of the way of her work.

When it came to this...date...thing, she'd left her hair down, letting it fall in a straight, flat curtain of white down her back; perhaps more surprisingly, however, she had actually gone shopping for once.

The dress was incredibly straightforward, white and sleeveless - a rather simple shell, really, made of reasonably stiff fabric and falling just above knee-length. Beneath that, however, was a tight black shirt, long-sleeved and high in the collar; her legs, too, were covered in black boots long enough to disappear underneath the fabric of the skirt, effectively covering any skin that may have been visible except for her face and her hands, deathly pale in contrast to the dark fabric. She didn't have heels on; it was hard enough to wander around in flats without tripping over herself.

The concept of jewelry had amused her, perhaps more than it should have; she had settled on what amounted to "a brooch for no real reason", fastened to the left side of that white dress, near her chest. It was likewise incredibly simple, a set of colored stones surrounded by small metal flourishes, arranged in a straight line, and the construction of it allowed the stones to be taken out and switched around as she liked (something that had likewise amused her far too much for perhaps far too long); from the outside working one's way in, she currently had purple, yellow, dark blue, red and another, far paler blue.

Needless to say, the choice in colors was a deliberate one, even if they did clash pretty damn badly; she didn't really care about that, however, as they pleased her in the end.

Rotom was, once again, buzzing around her shoulders as she found the exit - this was much more difficult without Wheatley around, primarily because she was used to the core just kind of dragging her around while she shrieked at him without paying much attention to her surroundings; as such, working out where the exit was took perhaps a bit longer than necessary. However, being GLaDOS and therefore anal in ways that most humans couldn't even begin to comprehend, she had figured for this, showing up exactly on time; she couldn't help but smirk to herself as she saw Gorthan, the last few words of something she was muttering to herself (that may or may not have had to do with sending the designer of this building directly to Android Hell, which, by the way, is a Very Real Place) fading away as she approached.

"Gorthan."

That usual cool, detached tone was still present in her voice; she took a long glance at that Beheeyem before returning her attention to the actual person. Rotom's attention remained on the Pokémon, however, doing its best to headtilt at it - the result was just kind of awkwardly drifting sideways before righting itself, but the general sentiment was there. GLaDOS ignored it.

"Where are we going, anyway?"

For a moment, as he watched her approach, Gorthan's thoughts drifted, as they often tended to do. This was one of those moments when he thought that maybe, maybe even people like them had a chance at happiness. Surely Caroline must have had fun picking out those clothes for herself; which, in itself, was precisely most of the point of this adventure. There was so much that could be done in a human's body. So many sensations, experiences, feelings... Gorthan's intention was to make sure that Caroline realized that.

When his attention finally returned to reality, he welcomed Caroline with an appreciative nod and a smile, but soon averted his eyes from her, for fear of staring too much.

"For her own person,
It beggar'd all description: she did lie
In her pavilion, - cloth-of-gold of tissue, -
O'er-picturing that Venus where we see
The fancy out-work nature... Ah, you look stunning, Caroline. I would have brought you flowers, but circumstance conspired."

He swung his walking stick once, alluding to his bad leg.

"As for where we are going, fear not - it is quite near." Or he wouldn't have chosen this particular exit.

He led her out of the base, into the underground tunnels and then up onto the street. Goldenrod's music, lights and sounds welcomed them. They were near the Game Corner, and the restaurant Gorthan was leading her to seemed to be targeted at the classy and affluent individuals whose time and money that particular initiative of Team Rocket's capitalized so much on. But surely, for just one night, they could pretend to be just two more of the blissfully ignorant.

She seemed a bit amused at the quote, at the very least. "Antony and Cleopatra - Act 2, Scene 2; 197 to 201. You have a memory for these things."

However, past that she was content to follow him out, offering no comment on the injury beyond a glance that was probably best described as skeptical; if he wanted to wander around on it, that was his decision, and her attention was quickly given to the...well, the everything outside. Her excursions with Wheatley had always been during the day, and the idiot was currently being kept busy in Kanto with that Descole person; as such, literally all of her spare time had been spent in the lab as of late.

She didn't freeze when they reached the street, but she did pause for a moment, looking around at the lights with all the fascination of a child seeing a carnival for the first time; her gaze paused for a moment on the Game Corner, the lights glinting off those thin-rimmed glasses of hers - it had never seemed all that impressive during the day, just gaudy, but now it was beautiful, and even the sound seemed more magnified in the evening air.

The restaurant as well was a nice one, she had to admit; at the very least, it brought with it all the decorations that a "nice" place usually did. It was obviously targeting the rich; it was a bit too done-up for GLaDOS' personal tastes, but for the sake of an outing, it would be fine.

She supposed, anyway. She didn't have much of a frame of reference.

Out of the corner of his eye, he inspected Caroline's reaction to the city at night. A small smile appeared on his face, and something stirred in his heart at the thought that perhaps she could, indeed, understand how eager he was to experience life as an earthling as much as he could.

He recalled his Beheeyem as soon as they stepped inside - the odd Pokémon was a bit of an attention grabber, something which once would have prompted Gorthan to go on a mostly hypocritical tirade about the low tolerance of earthlings towards alien species and unknown civilizations in general. These days, it was something he had come to accept, and he had also realized that Evronians were pretty much the same way.

"Have you ever been in a place like this?" he asked Caroline, himself unsure whether the question was rhetorical or not. He just knew not to underestimate the knowledge of an artificial being.

She smiled a bit at the question; it wasn't a particularly nice expression, but it wasn't cruel, either - just something to do with her face, really, though it didn't quite reach her eyes. Clearly, she thought the answer to this was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Back in my world, I never left the labs. There were always things to be done. Science to do. The like. I was fine there."

There was also the part where she was hardwired to a massive mainframe that was permanently bolted to the ceiling, but that was completely beside the point, now, wasn't it?

Gorthan listened intently to Caroline's answer. But the very last thing she said made his eyes widen perplexedly. "Are you not fine now?" A clear note of concern was in his tone, impossible to not notice.

They were ushered to a table for two that Gorthan had booked. It was in a rather quiet corner of the restaurant, and right next to a large window that presented a rather nice view of the sea that defined Goldenrod's western borders. "My native world has no oceans like this one. No oceans at all, actually." He briefly commented upon seeing it.

She tipped her head a bit at that. "That isn't what I said. I was fine not going outside there. I'm fine here as well. The circumstances are different, that's all."

However, she was rather content to not push on about it; the table they were shown to had a rather nice view indeed, and her attention was immediately given there rather than at...anything else, really. The comment was admittedly a bit odd, but not one she was surprised by; despite the presence of aliens in her own world as well, she had never really bothered to learn much about their home planets - there wasn't a need for that within the Aperture labs, after all, where their focus was on the here and now, emphasis on the here - but the thought that worlds could exist without water like that was conceivable. Strange, but entirely possible.

"We weren't anywhere near the ocean ourselves. There were a lot of lakes, though, so we were really surrounded by water anyway."

Gorthan took his seat. By now, he had noticed that Caroline had a tendency to say things that were in apparent conflict with each other; even so, the information she had just given him still surprised him.

"How do you know what it was like outside, if you never left the laboratories?"

On their table was a small glass vase with fresh cut flowers. With a slow, casual gesture, he removed one - a large, white daisy - and offered it to her, to witness her reaction. He found it suited her somehow, white and yellow matching her hair and eyes respectively.

The motion out of the corner of her eye caught her attention, getting her to look over as that flower was being offered; for a moment she kind of stared at it as though unsure of what she was supposed to do with it. At the same time, she definitely did understand the concept of gifts, even if she found this one to be a bit strange; she took it and immediately began to play with it, twirling it by the stem between her fingers while she talked.

"Oh - that's easy. Knowing the state the facility is located in would let me know what it's like surrounding it, don't you think? We were on a peninsula in the middle of a bunch of lakes."

"I see. My main laboratories were on one of Evron's satellites, the sixth, to be precise. Though I was planning to relocate them somewhere else, to better protect my work from... outside influence. It is always... quite unfortunate, when politics threaten to get in the way of a job like ours, wouldn't you agree?"

He relaxed into his chair, propping the walking stick against it, noticing just now that he had not felt any pain when he sat down. He was healing well.

As he watched Caroline's reaction to the flower, he smiled and nodded. Change comes from simple things, he mused. It had definitely been that way for him.

"How have you been, Caroline?"

"I don't know about that." The smile she offered was a rather self-satisfied one. "Aperture works on commission for the government. Politics in general tends to benefit us more than it detracts."

But really, that wasn't anything anybody really needed to dwell on; it only benefited when Black Mesa wasn't involved, after all.

"As for myself, I've been fine. Rather busy with work, of course, but aren't we all."

It isn't exactly a question; that smile has shifted into something closer to a smirk. "It's been an interesting while."

"It has." Gorthan agreed. Caroline's odd, cold smiles did not bother him. If anything, they reminded him of Upper Caste Evronians like himself. Truly, the divide between earthlings and Evronians was weaker and flimsier than most people thought...

All Gorthan ordered was a simple salad. As much as he was eager to try new foods that he would have no hope of being able to taste as an Evronian, he favored light meals. In his old body, he had never been a big eater, especially after his mutation.

"A few days ago, I was discussing something with one of the new arrivals. He seems to have a certain fondness for a literary work I myself deem very interesting - Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. Are you familiar with it, by any chance?"

By contrast, GLaDOS was one of those people that had to actively curbstomp the desire to eat all the things when she was given any say in the matter; this was probably thanks to the fact that she still hadn't exactly settled on a schedule when it came to this whole eating and sleeping business - if she wasn't on the verge of passing out due to a lack of it, then clearly it wasn't anything she needed at the moment. She figured she should probably fix that one day; for the time being, however, it was fine - she refrained from ordering half the menu, eventually settling on some...chicken thing that she wasn't familiar with.

She had to admit there was a huge, morbid sense of satisfaction in eating birds.

"Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso. Kind of a strange work to be fond of, but I'm familiar. What about it?"

"Is that all?" Gorthan commented, regarding her order. "Remember, it's my treat. Or are you simply being considerate and concerned about my personal finances?" His tone and manner had a certain teasing playfulness.

"I wish to hear your thoughts on that work. Have you ever had any metaphysical concerns? What you have told me of yourself so far suggested that you have seen people die - have you ever wondered where they go after their passing? If blissful dreams or tormenting nightmares appear before them in their eternal sleep?"

She waved off the first bit of questioning in favor of the second; if she decided she wanted something else after the fact...well, that's why they put humans to work in places like this, wasn't it?

And besides, the second question was much easier in terms of answering, and she saw no reason why that should be odd; her response was prompt, her voice even and detached.

"Of course I've seen people die. Plenty of people don't make it out of testing alive; tests wouldn't be needed if everyone survived, after all. That part isn't really surprising. What is surprising is the part where you're a scientist, but you're still asking me that question."

She was still playing with that flower between her fingers.

"Heaven is like cake, I think." She paused for a moment, then nodded slightly to herself as though reaffirming it before continuing. "Yes, it's a lot like cake. You offer it to people so they do what you want, and after the people have done what you want, they still don't get anything, but they do end up dead and then thrown in the incinerator.

Hell is like that too. You threaten people with sending them there so they'll do what you want, and then they do what you want and they still end up in the incinerator. Alive. Because they were misbehaving enough to be threatened in the first place."

She still hadn't stopped twirling that flower around, though she was leaning forward over the table a bit, her gaze fixed firmly on Gorthan's face. Though her expression hadn't shifted very far, it was undeniable that her usual smirk had twisted slightly. It was crueler, somehow.

"The 'light at the end of the tunnel' phenomena is just the mind trying to comfort the human before they die. Same goes for the sight of dead loved ones. Their brains are panicking; they want something soothing.

Of course, androids and AI don't panic before they die, and we still believe in Android Hell. Believe me, it's real."

That flower finally stopped moving; her gaze was alive.

"It's the incinerator."

She leaned back in her chair then, perfectly relaxed again.

"Do you see what I'm saying?"

She genuinely scared him then, and he averted his eyes, focusing instead on the perfectly white tablecloth where his elbows rested. And yet, he knew that he was in no position to judge people's sanity, or lack thereof. "So you live in a self-contained world, reassuring your test subjects with promises of cake, and controlling them with threats involving an incinerator... where you fear that you, yourself, may end up someday?"

When he lifted his gaze to look at her again, he found he was unable to, and instead focused on the flowers. His large fingers carefully brushed a petal. "What a sad existence... To know Hell, but not its opposite..."

He paused then, and something within him then gave him the strength to look at her directly. His gaze was deep, intense. Truly there was no point in judging her, when the truth was that there was much they had in common. After all, Gorthan was quite sure that, no matter how many deaths she had caused, he had caused more. "Are you not glad it seems to be over?"

GLaDOS simply shrugged at that. "I don't fear it at all. I've had parts of me thrown in there already; I'm still here. It isn't anything to be afraid of, especially if everything else ends up in there."

She didn't shy away from his eye contact any; that smirk was back, though she seemed to have settled quite a bit. "Don't tell me you still fear death."

Like the thought was on par with human children believing that a magical man in a red cloak delivered presents to everyone in the world on the night of December 24th, travelling courtesy of some flying reindeer. Really now.

"And don't you feel sorry for the parts of you that are gone?" The curiosity in his question had a note of urgency. Because there was definitely a part of Gorthan that came and went, and he was never sure if he was better with or without it.

The condescension in her second remark did not go unnoticed, though he showed no reaction to it.

"As one who has lived through a few near-death experiences, I suppose I don't fear death itself as much as I fear not being prepared for it. Even so, fear of death seems to me like a perfectly legitimate preoccupation, especially in those whose consciences are as sullied as mine is. The thought that punishment that could not catch up to us in life will still be administered in the afterlife... it is an ingenious invention that only earthlings could conceive. We Evronians are free from metaphysical concerns, obviously."

"Not being prepared for it..." She tapped her fingertips idly against the table while she contemplated that. "That makes sense, I think. That's closer to how I feel about it, anyway. There's nothing about death that scares me. I just don't like not seeing it coming."

She paused for a moment after that was out there, however; the question regarding whether she felt sorry for those parts of her that were gone...it wasn't something she had really considered before.

She found herself idly playing with that brooch on her dress.

"I don't feel sorry for them." It was a good start, if a bit hesitant; it was true, anyway. "It was just strange. Not having them there anymore."

Gorthan watched the movement of Caroline's hands on her brooch with a certain fascination, before he caught himself staring.

"So you can still feel... whole? Even without them?"

He was forced to pause when their orders came. Once the waiter left, Gorthan seemed in no hurry to start his meal.

"There is a part of myself that I do not always have. And when it is gone... I am not sure I feel complete."

By now, he knew she wouldn't understand. But something deep within him compelled to share his inner conflict. Perhaps the need to attempt to soothe it, somewhat, by revealing it.

"Why wouldn't I?" She was genuinely confused by the question; of course she still felt whole without them. "They were parts, but they had nothing to do with me. They were added after the fact. I really don't care either way. So it's not the same sort of situation to what you're describing, I don't think, though you can go on about it if you want."

"On the countrary, this part of myself, too, is something I received during the course of my life. In fact, it is an environmental mutation. One that is not even native to my species. I was healed of it, once. But I suppose I possessed it long enough to grow addicted to it."

A pause. Yes, perhaps Caroline wasn't the right person to tell this to, if he was looking for empathy. Was he, though? Maybe all he wanted was to tell his story to someone who would, maybe not understand - just listening was more than enough.

"It is something that earthlings call... a conscience."

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There are things Evronians are simply not supposed to do.

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