Glados lay still, like a spider at the center of her great web, she rested in her nest beneath the streets of Arcadia . The nest lay at the junction of all the major tunnels, where the flow of the upper city reached her through air currents and distant echoes. From here she could sense the pulse of the city's life and hear the whirring of the life support generators that ran to keep the planet habitable.

Rather than one large terraforming facility, Arcadia had over a thousand smaller generators. Yes certainly it was a bitch to get around to all of them and fix them, but at the very least it would be impossible to take them all out all at once. Arcadia had been designed by warriors for warriors, ahd that meant creating a defensible infrastructure that wasn't so prone to sabotage.

Not to mention each generator was heavily guarded and then remotely monitored.

It took a series of five people to open a generator with the proper access codes, or one of the three members of the triumvirate could do it. She supposed director Conn could as well, but he knew almost everything. It may have sounded like overkill, but the thought process remained that it was unlikely someone could corrupt all three generator key admins at once AND the proper offsite monitor.

And then there was her.

Glados didn't HAVE to live in the tunnels, no one made her do it, and no one had ever overtly made her feel unwelcome, but after the Adaptids had closed themselves off for visitors, Glados had cast her lot in with her Father and his people, but that meant she was one of the only ones of her kind, and it was hard not to feel a bit isolated.

Well, that was not counting her first partner, who clung to the underside of her belly with his many legs, but the male adaptids weren't exactly one for stimulating conversation. In fact, they lived their lives mostly comatose until they were actually needed for genetic material, generally speaking adapids society was run primarily by females and the third sex, of which Glados remembered little, and she certainly had her doubts that anyone on Arcadia would be eager to do her a favor and carry an egg sack.

Ending up in the tunnels had sort of been a natural progression for her, and now she was a guardian of the city, basically a myth, and one of Arcadia 's favorite cryptids, if not more friendly than your average cryptid tends to be.

And there she sat, brooding darkly, surrounded by piles of fluffy pillows, stacks of comic books, and other various odds and ends. And the brooding might have continued were it not for the sudden change in smell that reached her nose. Adaptids have an amazing sense of smell, as, the generation before her had communicated primarily by the subtle variation in release of pheromones. Though, Glados could talk, with her human vocal cords, she still maintained her incredible sense of smell.

A single change in the tunnels was enough to alter the entire chemistry of the underground.

She always knew when Adam was coming to visit.

Or Narobi.

Or Sunny.

A single body entering the air flow of the deep tunnels was significant enough to alert her to their presence. She knew everyone, recognized their sent...

But not this time

Whatever it was, the creature was alive, that much she was sure.

And it was human.... Or at least it smelled mostly human.

Glados rose to her feet, lifting her snout to the air which was suddenly filled with the caustic sent of chemicals. Glados was familiar with chemicals, having dabbled in all areas of science in her time, and having run into most of them while working with Narobi, but even if she hadn't been familiar with chemicals, she would have recognized the smell in the air as spray paint, and aerosol propellent.

She lifted slowly to her eight standing legs and scuttled quietly into the tunnels.

Her eyesight was as good as any human's which meant it was shit in the dark, but her sense of smell was good enough to basically map a 3D image of her surroundings almost as strong as sonar. While her human eyes could see nothing, she could sense the tunnels around, her in great detail, up to the point she could just make out the hazy figure in the tunnel ahead, vaguely human shaped as it shed it's scent, through the picture was difficult to distinguish as more aerosol filled the air

Another thing she could smell.

Fear.

Anyone who had spent any sort of time on Arcadia knew the urban legends that surrounded glados, and anyone stupid to walk into the tunnels uninvited was basically playing russian roulette, except instead of holding a gun to their head, it was the likelyhood of shitting their pants.

She scuttled faster.

The user of the spray can was not very precise in their movements, a couple slashes here, a couple slashes there, a Messy circle witch dripped paint towards the floo, something that Glados was going to have to clean up. She rubles softly in annoyance, but despite its softness, the sound carried up the tunnel, bouncing off the walls.

She saw the figure stiffen, and the fear smell increased

Well

Scaring the piss out of stupid people was one of her favorite passtimes, why deny herself the joy.

She relaxed in her stealth, allowing the scattering rush of her legs to echo up the tunnel.

Whoever it was at least had enough control over their sphincter not to soil themselves, as the spray can clattered to the ground, and the tunnels were field with the sound of running footsteps. Glados didn't bother to increase her speed, with her nose as good as it was, she was better than a bloodhound.

The vandal would not last long.

The chemical smell grew stronger as she approached the intersection pausing right next to the source.

Glados reached into her toolbelt and pulled out a flashlight, which she switched on and aimed at the wall.

The red paint was still wet, dripping in gentle rivulets down the steel wall and onto the floor.

The symbol, or tag, the artist had left behind was comprised of a large red circle, and two messy letters.

TD

A shiver ran through her body, though she had no idea why it would have such and effect on her. She could still hear retreating footsteps, and listened as the grate to the deep tunnel opened and closed. The interloaper's smell still lingered.

Their mystery vandal was about to experience real horror.

Glados turned off her flashlight, and followed the smell through the tunnels, quiet and quick and she slipped out into the open night. The maintenance hatch the interloper had used was, a small human sized door, next to the much larger cargo entrance, through which Glados had to pass. The door was an older part of the city, and it didn't surprise her that the locks had never been checked.

She would have to see to that later.

The cargo entrance and small door lay tucked under a small overpass, upon which Glados could hear the rush of traffic in the night.

Strange plants and fungi grew here letting off dim bioluminescent illumination. A few space jellies floated absently, though for the most part this area of the city was untouched, and mostly unkempt. Plant lie had taken over where it could, and, sniffing the air, she could sense the presence of a nest of Jeffery snakes somewhere in the bushes.

She scuttled past, following under the overpass.

The air here smelled like graffiti, and so there were colorful murals on the walls. Rarely did she see any tags, like the one she had seen in the deep tunnel. Arcadia actively encouraged artistic pursuits, even street art, while gang activity was not tolerated, and could result in exile from the planet's surface.

But still there was always someone's annoying kid....

Speaking of which, the smell was still strong, and she followed silently through the shadows, up the block and into a small, residential suburb, where the night orbs glowed a dim sort of blue. Up ahead she spotted them, the dark figure walking down the center of the road.

The fear smell was still strong, and they looked over their shoulder constantly, but Glados kept to the shadows and they saw nothing.

She hoped briefly that their human instincts would be on fire right about now, sensing hr but not seeing her.

She followed them up the block, until they reached one of the houses. They fumbled with the side door for a long moment before finally managing to open it and scramble inside.

Glados heard the lock click.

She scuttled forward, through backyards and over fences.

Dogs barked in the distance, sensing her presence.

She made it over the last fence hunkering up against the side wall of the house and listened.

She was rewarded.

"I'm not doing it again!" Came a voice.

The person who responded came in distant with a mechanical quality, some kind of long distance call, "Don't be a baby"

"I heard her." The voice said, quivering gently

"Urban legend." The voice shot back, "Besides, we don't allow little bitches into the group."

Glados eased up against the wall.

"I'm not a little bich, but I'm not stupid either, I know whta I heard."

The voice snorted, "When True Dark says jump you say how high, now stop your moArcadia g, you're alive aren't you, nothing bad happened."

There was a pause and she could feel the person shaking their head.

"Good, then this is your first step . I will work on getting a vial to you, but Arcadia 's security network is a real bitch, but until then I have some more jobs for you. Prove your loyalty." The caller wasn't that old, maybe in his late teens , and a complete douche to boot, but his words did serve to put lados on edge.

She didn't like where this was going.

The caller hung up, and the person inside took a deep breath. She could hear the distant breathing sounds of others in the house, their smells heavy with sleep. She may not have known exactly what was going on, but she knew she didn't like it.

Scuttling closer to the wall, behind which lay her mystery person's room glados raised up on her rear four legs and rested her other six against the wall.

Time to scare the little bastard straight.

There was a small window in the side of the room, and she was just able to raise herself up high enough to peer inside.

She could see the figure now, sitting on their bed, scrolling through their holofeed.

Perfect.

She set herself up in the window, pulling her gums back to expose her teeth in a terrible grimace. She was primarily a carnivore, so all of her teeth were nice and pointy. She opened her eyes nice and wide, crazy wide, and once she was ready, she rattled her legs against the sie of the house in a sharp scuttling noise,

The person, or teen juped, and turned rapidly towards the window.

The scream was so loud it probably could have shattered glass as they keeled over backwards and scrambled backwards towards the door, screaming, and now crying.

Glados dropped back down rattling her feet against the side of the house a few more times before scuttling away into the bushes cackling herself. Hopefully, a few more encounters like that might scare the little shit straight.

But until then she needed to talk to conn.

Glados didn't like traveling above ground, but she had her own private entrance into the CI building where she was tasked with doing plenty of engineering work.

Conn was waiting for her when the door opened, likely having sensed her coming.

His expression was surprisingly grim.

"What?" She asked, knowing he had already shifted through the relevant images in her head.

His dark eyes bored into her, "True Darkness."

She frowned, "And what is that?"

Conn's ribbons flared, and he reached up to adjust his tie, absently with long spidery fingers, "Nothing good"