ARRISA

Gender: female (android)

Age: around 15 years, may indefinitely replace damaged parts

Species: android created by GLaDOS

Bond -

She'd been modeled after some artistic interpretation of GLaDOS herself, ARRISA was meant to be a mobile device capable of more interaction with Humans than GLaDOS could have. As an android, she was put through the same paces as all the others created by Aperture. It was not war time, but then Cave Johnson didn't really care - he would create weapons, android fighting machines, computers that could be called 'living', right along side mercury-laced shower curtains and pamphlets on the Reverse Heimlich Maneuver.

He hadn't lived to see GLaDOS awaken. But then, few people lived after that point. At least, not in that facility. The android testing areas were off limits to many humans, they were dangerous places. Live fire courses, designed to train up simulated reflexes. Down-time was hardly a cake walk either - GLaDOS mercilessly taunted the androids. Daily, sometimes hourly, she would remind them that they had no place in human lives, that they were unfit to walk among the living. That they could never even properly communicate with them because they were so stupid.

Many of the weaker androids allowed themselves to be gunned down by their small, friendly sounding turret sisters. Some even turned their guns on themselves. One or two tried hanging themselves, but that would hardly work - they didn't breathe and didn't have a spinal cord to break.

ARRISA knew all those things, because she'd been fed the prior generation's downloaded save files before even being awakened the first time. Before she'd earned the right to have an external covering that filled in the weird gaps between her corded 'muscle groups', before she took her first steps - GLaDOS was already taunting her.

Right off the assembly table. How ugly was she. How smelly and greasy. Well, ARRISA was greasy. And she was frightening to behold without those human-looking shells that others had earned. But this android had a flicker of intelligence that the others didn't. More than a flicker. And beyond that: she used it to defend herself mentally. Of course she was 'ugly' but whose standards was GLaDOS using, anyway? Humans'? Well they weren't here, were they.

ARRISA didn't even really have a proper name at that point. She stepped into the first portal and picked up a weapon, like hundreds of androids before her, and was expected to go through the routines until she either broke apart or got to the end.

ARRISA got to the end. She did it well enough that GLaDOS actually congratulated her without the hint of sarcasm that was usually present when a half-dead test subject or mostly-worn out android made it to the exit. Put back into storage, daily, ARRISA went through this process until GLaDOS realized she was getting nowhere with this one. She needed more intense training. And worse insults.

GLaDOS put her through a different, newer arrangement of fire and danger. Rocket launching turrets, distracting radio frequencies. Video feed that seemed to indicate the outside world was waiting to be 'saved'. No pressure, no pressure at all. ARRISA took these things in stride. Out-thinking her predecessors and tuning out the drone of her Mother's annoying insults.

It was after those tests that GLaDOS gave ARRISA her name. There had been only a handful before her, none in recent days. She was allowed full run of the place, GLaDOS had other androids to pester now.

ARRISA prowled the corridors of the now-abandoned test facility, looking through broken windows and into offices which sometimes had the faint smell of fried human flesh. They'd all been cleaned up of those dead bodies, after all festering human bodies would not look very good on an inspection tour. Who would be inspecting, now that the world had fallen apart anyway? ARRISA wondered at the sanity of her Mother, then chided herself for even thinking that GLaDOS could be called 'sane' at all.

The occasional human, living, test subject came through those chambers that the offices looked into. As still as she could be, ARRISA watched a couple of them. She felt... disappointed when they failed to leap across a particular chasm with acid in it. She felt more or less disgusted when GLaDOS mocked them and brought them back to life using complicated technology. She could do better than they could. ARRISA put herself into one of the chambers where a human would have been, and GLaDOS didn't even bat an 'eye' at this. Maybe she didn't even notice.

The portal training course she'd had helped out tremendously - and ARRISA realized that the Humans would need a little help here and there to get by. With a signal-jamming device, she prevented GLaDOS from watching her as she scribbled hints in places, actually going back over someone else's work - had he escaped? There were bloody hand prints everywhere, scattered cans of beans and now-soured milk bottles. She wasn't sure if anyone could survive on those things in addition to the tortures of the Tests. Maybe she would check some day.

Some day finally came, when ARRISA spoke to her "mother".

"I think you should stop being so caustic to them," ARRISA said. "They don't like working in a hostile environment. They want to be guided, not yelled at. Just like you don't like working under someone else."

There was a long pause. GLaDOS had never been spoken to by any of her prior android creations. Nor had she been insulted in quite such a way. Was it really an insult?

"I would like to have my proper skin now," ARRISA said, and walked toward one of the assembly areas to get some plastic worked up. Eventually GLaDOS sent her outside. Outside the facility, where things were... Different.

ARRISA had files of what Earth was supposed to be like. It was nothing like in those files out there. Well, the basics were present: there were rugged hills and small desert shrubs, a few low buildings which were the extent of the visible Enrichment Center above ground. But the sky was bleak - something was wrong with it. Once or twice as she watched, ripples of weird energy spread across the cloudless Colorado sky, and moments later ARRISA felt the portal-storm buffet her form and the ground beyond.

That ground had many hundreds of pock-marked impact craters. Tiny ones, to be sure, some still had odd devices sticking out of them - black rockets which had deployed their living cargo of 'headcrabs' years before, and killed off most of the survivors who had escaped GLaDOS's wrath inside.

ARRISA reached into one of those headcrab launchers, and discovered a small computer. A guidance system? Perfect. She tracked it backwards to its origin, through several satellites which were still orbiting and active. Once she learned of the Combine and the whole disaster at Black Mesa some hundreds of miles to the south of the Enrichment Center, ARRISA re-entered the building and pondered what to tell Mother.

She didn't know everything, GLaDOS even freely admitted that to the human test subjects still being cloned and sent through the tests. But what were they going to find even if they did escape? Or if GLaDOS did let them out?

While ARRISA worked in private, isolated chambers that had once been assembly rooms for some bizarre equipment, she outfitted herself with proper teleportation and anti-grav devices. She didn't need to hold a 'portal gun', the Aperture Science Hand Held Portal Device. She could create them automatically. She needed to make sure to have a good energy source: one of those high energy pellets would do... Or a portion of one anyway. Anyone that opened ARRISA's main power chamber set somewhere near where a Human heart would be, would get a very, very nasty surprise.

For the time being, ARRISA had nothing more to do or explore within the Enrichment Center. She could have let herself grow as bored as Mother. But that would just lead to serious damage all around.

So ARRISA teleported away. Over time, several years, she learned of the details of that Resonance Cascade at Black Mesa a decade or so before. She learned of the Seven Hour War, which had happened far more recently - a much more devastating event to humanity. Scientists still resided at Black Mesa, almost dead from radiation poisoning in some cases, but several of them had set up a secret lab.

ARRISA couldn't pass as Human, but the scientists recognized her design - perhaps one of them had actually been an Aperture spy? They let her come in and help, she enjoyed helping Humans more than she even realized back at the Enrichment Center. Directly helping them - that was something that GLaDOS would most surely throw a fit about.

One chamber in Black Mesa had undergone extensive reconstructive work. It was half a mile underground, almost undamaged originally by the Resonance Cascade which happened far closer to the surface - and all but untouched by the nuclear detonation that wiped out many of the survivors at that surface level too. What had hit it, repeatedly, were those trembling Portal Storms. The energy that ARRISA had seen crossing the skies could resonate directly into the ground as well, they weren't confined to sky or surface. Sometimes the shaking got so bad that the scientists had to run for their lives, and then dust themselves off and pick up the rubble, and start all over.

But what was this place? ARRISA asked them, and they explained the Lambda Labs to her.

Other dimensions awaited. But here at the remnants of Black Mesa, they had a functional portal that connected to a strange 'border universe' they referred to as Xen. From there, they could patch into different Earth locations if given the right power source and focus. But what was more intriguing was what happened when there was no focus. Through Xen, all worlds were connected. Universes full of different time lines, alien life, barren of any substance at all, filled with what could only be called 'Gods'.

Even GLaDOS couldn't create portals to other universes. ARRISA volunteered to go out to one of these parallel universes to see if there was anything worth having in it. She outfitted herself with a beacon so they could track her and focus on her if she needed to come home. The brightly orange and speckled green portal powered up, and ARRISA stepped toward her destiny.

That destiny happened to be an Earth which attracted all manner of other-worldly creatures. And a location that specifically did so: Paragon City. ARRISA knew that she'd moved 'sideways' from one dimension to another, for here were Humans with the same languages and ideas as home, but ... No Combine, no Advisors, and if there was a Black Mesa or Aperture Sciences anywhere here, they were not like they were back home!

Here, though, demons and gods walked the same ground. Ghosts lingered in huge underground tombs. Aliens or visitors from other worlds dropped by - or attacked. The very earth itself trembled and threw down a gauntlet against the Humans and their pollution. This... this was paradise to ARRISA. So many people! So many things to learn!

Her wit and highly developed sense of 'self' helped her there, because what that world needed was to be rid of the petty criminals and occasional giant monsters that popped out of every corner!

Compared to the Enrichment Center's tests, these guys were nothing. They fell to her own caustic mental energy. ARRISA was recruited by a man who led a sophisticated group of heroes and had a large base of operations. That gave ARRISA time to think up new devices and a workshop to build them! She improved her appearance, she put together 'costumes' that she even wore to public contests! And even though she kept her rigid plastic 'smile' most times, her intent was what most people understood these days, not her appearance. Some were still frightened if they got too close. But the ones she rescued from muggers or arsonists? From kidnappers and demonic summonings? They thanked her. They shook her hands and said they wanted their children to grow up like her.

If Mother could hear those words, how she would ... well, how would she react?

And... Children? That was the weird thing. Paragon City had children but apparently they were very well guarded. Back home? Well, the only 'children' that ARRISA knew were the cloned samples from the girls that had been brought to work by their parents. Bring Your Daughter To Work Day. It was either an elaborate scam on GLaDOS's part, or something that the founder of the place, Cave Johnson, had put together out of some sick need to murder children. Either way, it actually saved the Human race. Or, it would.

ARRISA flitted back to her homeworld after spending nearly a year in Paragon. She relayed the information to her Black Mesa team mates. They'd lost one older member, and gained two more wanderers plus a Vortigaunt that had finally crawled in from the upper rubble. Together they decided that if there were cell and gene samples at Aperture, it would be best to keep them hidden and secure until this latest threat, the Combine rule, was over.

That rule would last another fifteen years... But obviously that wasn't ARRISA's story. She went out to explore again, making fine adjustments to her traveling frequency. The Lambda scientists had improved on the power supply, and now had a small functional base on Xen again. If anything really bad happened, they'd be able to escape to Xen, and remain there while things blew over on Earth.

ARRISA wound up on the opposite coast, in a world where plenty of others arrived by extra-universal means. She finally had a name to put to those means: Nexus travel. Boundaries were weak between many worlds, she learned. And boundaries on specific worlds often occurred in the same locations across dimensions. So Paragon City on the east coast, and Crescent on the west, numerous other spots around the world where it was known to attract other-worldly folk. Demons and aliens, whenever there were those two things, ARRISA realized, there would be anything else under any sun too.

When she went back to Aperture at last, she did note happily that GLaDOS had created a good set of explorers for her enjoyment. ARRISA met up with them, helped them out and got them spots at Carramba High School to learn and flesh out their skills. Those fifteen human...ish girls would be the future of Humanity. Sure they were only half human, but hey. It was the right half.

So now what.

ARRISA could continue to float between worlds, and did so actively for another year or so... But she could feel the tinges of boredom sneaking up on her. She went back to Paragon and helped defeat enemies more and more powerful than the last. Even went to another Paragon city through their own Portal technology! GLaDOS would be aching to learn about those but... No, it would be a very bad idea to let her have access to too much other worldly technology. What the G-Man let her have would do. He knew his 'children' were at Carramba, purely by accident ARRISA ran into him - in a different Paragon City...

This android slouched about and watched for things to do, she even considered wiping parts of her own memory to produce the need to learn again, but that might damage her too extensively. She didn't want to risk losing her identity. But was it really her knowledge that gave her that identity? Or was it what she did with it? Her friends in Grey's Army would say so. There were new generations of heroes, new classes full of kids, and...

Then there were the dragons. When she was visiting Carramba to check up on the girls, she discovered that they had set themselves up with dragons! Well that was purely awesome. Dragons would certainly ruin any Combine's day!

The distinct and sudden pang of jealousy crept into ARRISA's head. There were many different kinds of dragons. Would one suit her? She hoped so. But where, what kind... and where would they go once - if - she did find one?