Katt Podima (ApSciKatt)

Former test subject and now Librarian for Aperture.

Background
Katherine Podima was born in Summerlin, Nevada, a suburb of Las Vegas. Father did work for the military base just outside of the city; his specialty being physics. Parents divorced when Katt was 8 and she spent every summer break with her father. Katt’s mother lived off of the settlement money and spent her time “socializing” with the Vegas nightlife. Katt’s father died in an accident while visiting a contractor in New Mexico when she was 16. The life insurance money was larger than Katt and her mother expected. Katt, having a strenuous relationship with her mother, took enough of the money to go to school in Virginia, where she graduated with a liberal arts degree. She never contacted her mother again.

Personality
Katt is soft spoken and shy, especially around new people, due to a lack of self confidence. She's nervous and prone to being frightened. However, once she relaxes and gets used to being around people, Katt is very friendly and willing to help anyone in need.

Katt is prone to bottling up certain feeling, especially that of anger. There are few things that would set her off, the most important being any threats to people she holds dear. And in a place like Aperture, she holds her friends very close to her heart.

After the ordeal with Mark9 and shortly thereafter, the situation with the Library, it seems that Katt's outlook has changed irrevocably. Some of her fears about Aperture have disappeared and she found that she wasn't as helpless as she thought she was.

Relationships

 * A couple with Craig Wright (See In Aperture).


 * Best friends with Morgan Descartes.

In Aperture
Katt went to a job fair and was attracted to Aperture’s offer. But instead of waiting in line for an internship, she went for the much shorter “test subject” line. After being led away for an “interview” and signing a contract, Katt wakes up in the relaxation center, very confused. Shehad no idea what Aperture had in store for her.

Craig Wright
In her first few days in Aperture, she met the librarian, a man named Craig Wright. Katt found herself visiting the library more and more often, talking to Craig. It was the only after a run-in with a Black Mesa spy and spending the night with him in the library did she start to realize her feelings for him.

Both of them knew how dangerous it was for a test subject to be in this sort of relationship with an employee, but they were willing to risk it. That is when Katt discovered Craig's past; that he worked on the Personality Cores and had his mind duplicated into one when he was placed into cryogenic storage for fifty years. Craig recently escaped from the cryogenic storage, taking the job in the library.

The Core Transfer
Katt was caught up the core transfer experiment, placed in a core. Naturally, knowing what happened to Craig, she panicked, finding that he had been transfered as well and making himself corrupt.

They were both returned to their human bodies eventually, but they both harvested resentment towards the system for putting them into the cores. Both had become mentally unstable, to the point where Craig attacks a test subject. Katt, now very unwilling to test, stays in the library, taking care of Craig who had been stabbed by a crazed doctor in the infirmary. It is not until they're both called to plead their cases in front of GLaDOS that they settle down and things come back to some normalcy.

Destroying Aperture
As part of a test, Katt and Morgan are ordered to go down to the older parts of Aperture. There they find numerous nuclear missiles. Katt, thinking it was what they needed to do, pushes a button to start the countdown to launch. They are told to either send them to destroy a location out in the world or risk the missiles exploding in Aperture. They don't choose a place in time and barely escape the explosion, discovering that the explosions had destroyed most of Aperture and knocked GLaDOS offline.

Feeling guilty and extremely responsible, they employ the help of Owain to try to bring GLaDOS back online. They work to dig the chassis out of the debris and are about to leave when numerous turrets appear all around, however, they do not shoot but ask if they were the ones fixing the system. Two of the turrets become attached to Katt and Morgan, eventually overcoming their initial (and justified) fears about the turrets.

Thanks to Owain's help, the system comes back online and GLaDOS lets Katt and Morgan leave, since they helped try to fix the facility. The two turrets they had befriended go missing, however Katt finds one in a test chamber, rescuing it and names it Terrance.

From Test Subject to Employee
One morning, Katt wakes up hearing a struggle in the library. She rushes out to find a group of men surrounding an unconscious Craig. She is knocked out herself trying to save him, only to wake up to find them all gone. In searching for a clue to where he might have gone, she finds an order of termination for Craig on the desk, stating that due to his unstable nature, he has been fired as librarian and taken to cryogenics until further notice. Katt sits at the desk, hurt and in shock. To her surprise, the buried computer beeps and turning the monitor on, she finds that it’s ready to accept the name of the new librarian. Not sure that another person would be coming, she enters her own name. In a rush to get another librarian, the system accepts her without knowing she was a test subject as well. The chip in Katt’s head is reprogrammed, however do to the conflicting statuses, the system is confused, causing Katt to be confused herself.

It is unclear if the system eventually accepting her in between GLaDOS going offline and Mark9 appearing caused disruption in the employee system. Numerous people were reassigned during this time, causing confusion and perhaps a few deaths.

Mark9
Mark9 appeared soon after Katt became the librarian. To her surprise, while exploring the library’s computer system, she discovers an option for an augmented reality module. The module allows users to be placed directly into the book. At first, Katt was a merely an observer to the story, but as time went on she found herself using it more and more to the point where she could not tell the difference between reality and the module. She sacrificed food and sleep for the escape.

One day, Morgan appeared in the library. This was the first time Katt had seen her friend since Craig’s disappearance. What Katt doesn’t realize is that this Morgan is just a projection created by Mark9, who is using the module to manipulate Katt’s perceptions. Time goes on and Katt still uses the module, but things start to become strange. She’s no longer an observer, but part of the story. While in the Pride and Prejudice module, the story changes, allowing her to interact with a character that is not in the story; Nathaniel. At this point, Katt has lost grip almost entirely, thinking she really is in Victorian England. She even lets slip her full name, something that she has very rarely done. It is then the secret is revealed that the module had been controlled and that Morgan is real. Mark9 tells her that Katt is the one that has allowed him to figure out how to cause people to not to be able to see reality, to cause hallucinations. Before leaving, Mark9 reveals that Mark2 had been part of the library and is the source of the module.

Katt panics at this point, leaving the library and running into Trix Hunter. Trix tells Katt about Mark9, asking about anything going on that would be strange. Katt tells Trix about the hallucinations and makes the connection between them. Katt agrees to help Trix find more information about Mark9. She returns to the library and begins to search the library’s archives, discovering information about Marks 1-6, and a reference to another file for 7-9, in Old Aperture. With this information, she contacts Trix and they decide to venture down to Old Aperture with Jonathan Wheatley, Ruby Silverlake , Insane Wheatley , Evil Wheatley , Chell and Polaris.

On their way, they discover that Riley Danger had been captured by Medical Core and changed into a monster. Ruby and Insane Wheatley leave the group to help Riley and the rest venture onwards. After a few run-ins with various horrors in Aperture, they discover the Oracle Turret, who gives some cryptic information in regards to Morgan and her supposed connection with Mark9. Unable to decipher most of what the turret says, they move on.

They discover the files they were looking for, including a list of names of casualties who worked on the Mark9 project. Katt is the only one who sees their own names on the list, causing panic. Taking their findings, the group leaves Old Aperture, in which Mark9 finds out about their ventures. He calls for a meeting for everyone who doubts his new position as head of Aperture.

At the meeting, Katt makes the connection to what Mark9 was telling everyone and the information she had found. She confronts Mark9, claiming that his plan is to eventually take in everyone and make them part of his system, just like everyone who had worked on the project. It is then that Mark9 reveals Morgan, the real Morgan this time, who is in the system with Mark9. Seeing her friend in trouble, Katt becomes determined to help her; seeing that she had just lost Craig, she does not want to lose anyone else. {C}She finds Morgan in a coma in the infirmary and was able to communicate briefly with her. Katt discovers that one of the keys to defeating Mark9 is to find the radio Morgan had dropped near Mark9's prison. She inlists the help of Wheatley to find the radio. While visiting Morgan, Cory attacks the infirmary, destroying it almost completely. Everyone is moved to the Auxillery Medical ward (MedAux), located in the children's wing.

In the meantime, she catches up with Trix, Rick Danger, Insane Wheatley and Lee who had ventured back down to Old Aperture to try and find another way to stop Mark9. On the way down, both Katt and Lee become infected by a fungus that threatens to take over their lungs, so they both retreat back to the infirmary.

While there, Ben, the current embodiment of Mark9 appears as Trix and her party were working to defeat him. Mark9 enters the room where Katt, Morgan and Justin were staying, shooting Justin twice and proceeding to threaten Morgan. As he is taking her body away, Lee appears to stop him, providing enough of a distraction for Katt to knock him in the back of his head, causing him to drop Morgan, but shoot Lee in the head. Lee is rushed off and Morgan wakes up.

Both Morgan and Katt spend several days in MedAux, recovering. (NOTE: It is at this point where the Twitter canon and Tumblr canon split. Please see the Tumblr canon section for more details)

The Library
Due to Katt's repeated and extended absence from the library, she began to get more and more anxious about being away. She has dreams while in MedAux about the library, dreams that turn out to be true. Her connection to the library was allowing her to know instinctively if there was someone in there or if it was in danger. Without its librarian, however, the Library’s System gets agitated and longs for someone to feed it information. When a Test Subject, John Smith, enters without permission and with the System in a distressed state, it believes the subject is there to steal books. This causes Katt to leave MedAux in a hurry, knowing that the subject is in danger. She arrives in time to get John out before anything happens, only to face the System alone. The Library’s defenses in the form of cables and wires from under the desk lash out and trap Katt, giving her a shock as punishment for leaving it for so long. The System’s presence in Katt’s mind gets to be too much and she gives in, letting it control her.

Katt is very reluctant and tries to fight the control in vain. John Smith returns to the library despite the warnings and signs of danger. The Library, desperate for information traps John, using a probe to read and store his memories. Due to his threats, the Library decides to kill him, only to be stopped last minute by Katt. John is dumped outside of Med Aux. Struggling to regain control, Katt is able to contact Ruby, telling her to take her away from the library and away from its influence. Once they are away, Katt tells Ruby everything, including the fact that she believes to have killed a Test Subject. Ruby helps Katt, showing that she does have the strength to not let the Library control her; showing her by doing what Ruby knows best, fighting. After a few rounds, Katt feels as though she is ready to take it on again, determined not to let it take her over.

Arriving back, Katt struggles to regain control. She is able to keep it under the conditions that she does her job as librarian; primarily keeping its archives up to date. She will not allow the Library to repeat what it had done in the past, that is, take the information directly from the people. Instead, Katt sends out a request to all departments, asking for them to archive all their research. In response, she gets very few items fit for the system, only agitating the Library System more. She is also mocked repeatedly. In order to understand what is going on and why the library has this influence on her, Katt turns to a journal of a former librarian. She discovers that the Library System is a rudamentary AI created around the time of the GLaDOS and Mark9 projects and was in fact, part of the Mark9 initial tests. According to the scientists on the Mark9 project, and Mark programming was removed, however due to the evidence presented, it's clear that the Library System is actually Mark2.

Unable to provide what the Library needs, and noticing how helpless Katt is after repeated threats, it regains control over her. The Library keeps control until The Fact Sphere, now an android, appears. At first, the Library, and the small part of Katt still aware, mistakes him for Craig. The Library, angry of being reminded of her former jailer, struggles to keep control over the emotional Katt, who conversely is reminded of her lost lover. When Fact slips, telling her to “not to let it control you”, then flees, Katt is able to regain herself, enough to chase him. When she catches up to him and pleads, it seems there was still a small part of Craig in the android.* After a brief reunion, Craig helps Katt eject the malicious AI program into a disk, removing the security protocols and any sentience. Before being removed, the AI takes with it all the information it gained on Katt’s personality, copying into the disk for itself. Finally herself again, Katt says goodbye to Craig, who leaves her to dispose of the disk. Not wanting it to fall into the wrong hands, Katt scratches the disk, then drops it into the incinerator.

It is then that Katt realizes that she needs to change the face of the library. It hasn’t been kept up with the rest of Aperture’s technology and for too long it had been a place of fear and resentment. With no way to defend herself and a dwindling collection due to repeated attacks, Katt decides to submit a proposal for a new circulation system, new security system and for the entire library to become a center for not only literature, but research, art and music.

*This is an apparent continuity error can be explained by the fact that The Fact Sphere received his android body after Craig had been put into cryogenic storage. It is assumed that in order to have a complete integration into the new android body, the engineers had to re-map Craig’s brain in order to make the android, hence his recognition of Katt.

The Library Core
See Library Core.

Tumblr Canon
