Near the School Gate, Friday Afternoon

[gladigotburned]

This was the absolute last thing GLaDOS wanted to do: be outside, in this form, on a day when it seemed like everyone had gotten Intelligence Dampening Cores attached to them somehow. (She wouldn't rule out suspecting Wheatley of this somehow, either.) This was what she got for not shutting Atlas down while she tested a few attempted upgrades to

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[dollpocalypse]

Christopher, who now had a shiny blue ball tucked into his pocket to try to play catch with later, was really a pretty big fan of the birds. But then he heard a tiny voice coming from where they'd congregated, and that was a cause for concern.

"'Scuse me, friends," he said cheerfully, edging his way into the crowd of dodos to see what they were all looking at. "A potato, huh? You guys must be pretty hungry, I bet. Too bad I didn't bring bread for you like that other fella did for the ducks yesterday."

Yep. He was talking to the dodos.

[gladigotburned]

"Who is that? I know that voice," GLaDOS called, not that she could see a thing at the moment with her optical sensor creating a circular indentation in the ground. "Get me out of here, would you?"

And that was about when one of the dodos decided to try the eating thing, if the startled electronic squawking was any indication.

"I. Am. Not. For. Eating, you feathered murderer!"

[dollpocalypse]

Aww, if Topher was his normal self, he'd almost be flattered that GLaDOS recognized his voice. And even more flattered that she seemed to think that he was capable of rescuing anyone, ever. Regular Topher wasn't here, though, so what she got instead was the fiftified Christopher. He... wasn't quite as smart.

"Golly, a talking potato!"

Yep.

He scooped her up and away from the evil birds, tilting his head curiously. "I guess it must be some kind of speaker!" He cleared his throat and tried talking into the optical sensor, because clearly that was a microphone of some sort. "Hello? Hello?"

[gladigotburned]

Look, it was desperation. At the moment, anyone with appendages capable of waving and scaring birds away would do.

"Oh, it's you," GLaDOS said with some measure of relief that she'd later attempt to delete from her memory banks. "More unsaturated than usual, but still. You're disturbingly over-eager. You wouldn't mind putting that to use and getting me the hell away from these evil -- OW!"

One of the dodos had just successfully nipped a chunk out of the potato.

"Why couldn't you just stay extinct?!?"

[dollpocalypse]

"Gosh, that's not polite at all!" Christopher chided that particular dodo, taking a few steps away to get some distance from them, at least. Then, speaking slowly and enunciating clearly into what was still definitely an optical sensor and not a microphone, he asked GLaDOS, "Are -- you -- hurt? How -- can -- I -- help?"

He had no idea what was going on here. In case that was unclear.

But he had a baseball bat in his gym bag if worse came to worst, so... that was something?

[gladigotburned]

"Do I look like I can come up with an elaborate plan without frying myself right now? Just get the evil avian spawn away from me," GLaDOS yelped. "They're killers, don't you know that? Hungry -- OW -- killers! Just get me out of here, but if you kill them first I won't complain."

She wasn't even lying. She didn't have enough voltage for that.

[dollpocalypse]

"I don't think I can kill something that isn't a spider," Christopher admitted. "What do you say we just skedaddle outta here?"

He was kind of starting to do just that, in fact. Those birds looked mean.

[gladigotburned]

"You try getting eaten by a bird sometime. You'd get over that hangup amazingly fast."

It really was like everyone in town was stuck with Intelligence Dampening Cores.

"You know, I'd be enjoying the fact that my intellectual superiority to all of you is even clearer than usual if I wasn't forced to double as a dodo snack. Are you really sure you don't want to hurt them? As revenge?"

Her revenge. Pssht, details.

[dollpocalypse]

"I'm not sure I need to get revenge, ma'am," Chris pointed out, sounding more polite than his non-fiftified self had ever been in his entire life. "You sound awful cranky. I don't s'pose if you're a potato you can really go for an egg cream, can you?"

[gladigotburned]

". . . do I look like I have a mouth?" GLaDOS asked, definitely complaining now. "Of course I'm cranky. I'm a potato. Besides, you should probably kill them before they kill you. Because they will."

[dollpocalypse]

"Gosh, I'm sure they won't do that," he countered. "You look like food, but I'm--"

Ow. That was his leg, jerkface dodo who just tried to bite him. Why would you do that?

"Let's lay a patch, doll," he informed GLaDOS, tucking the potato against his chest. And with that, he commenced jogging toward the nearest staircase leading to freedom.

[gladigotburned]

Well, fine. As long as she got away from the birds GLaDOS wouldn't complain too much.

She was trying to save all her voltage for remembering this, so she could maybe hold it against him later.