Shifting Gold

It was the coldest he had ever been. Space was a cruelty he had born for five years and though time passed, lives changed and that coldness became an insubstantial memory he could still feel it shiver through his frame when he thought about it too long or the memory itself seemed far too close.

Coming back to Earth wasn't something he had thought could happen; say, three years ago when he was circling it from thousands of miles up, but life, he decided, had a way of surprising you.

He had returned to Earth by the simple certainty of physics. At first he had been too far away for the Earth's gravity to really pull him in, but after so many course alterations (all of which were instigated by rocks of unfair proportions) he found himself spinning closer and closer.

Wheatley never felt that he was very lucky. Some might say that he was uncommonly lucky; the Earth is, after all, composed mostly of water and the odds of landing in the right place in one piece were decidedly against him. But that was the problem, wasn't it? Fate, it seemed, decided to write its own small print: It would return him to Earth, just not anywhere near Aperture. Not even close. Not the right place at all.

On a landing strip just outside of Darwin he hit the ground hard.

Life had been an exhilarating journey after that. He was no longer a core limited to the confines of Aperture and its management rails, but an android with two legs. There was a body transfer, learning to walk, the wonders of the outside world and his shock and amazement that the human race wasn't just alive- it was thriving. They had moved beyond the confines of the solar system and were still building and inventing. All these clever humans were still being with every bit of themselves and on quite nights when the rain was pouring he would think about her out there somewhere; living, growing, being. It made him feel like his circuits were singing even though there was a hard something at the center of it all; heavy and unsatisfying. After all, he didn't really know if GLaDOS had ever let her go and on some of those rainy nights he imagined himself bravely coming to her rescue (because in his daydreams he was always brave) and GLaDOS being so amazed to see him and so taken aback that she could do nothing to prevent his quick and competent hacking. Her firewalls would fall and his quick hands would shut Her down (and clever, he was always clever). Then she would be there; pale and luminous and in his head she had a voice that would cry in delight when she saw him, "Wheatley!" she would say, "Oh Wheatley! You came back for me! You saved me!" and they would ride the lift straight to the sky. In his less lucid visions (the ones that occurred just on the verge of his sleep mode) he would take her hand in his own. It was always warm as sunlight.

He worked for a living, like any other man or machine of the time and saved it as well as he could. Though bad decisions were in his nature it appeared that wasn't very different from any other human. He did his best and he got by.

When the day finally came he boarded a flight to the states with a mantra beating steady in his head: I have to find her. For what purpose exactly he couldn't rightly define. To apologize, yes; to see her and confirm that she was real and whole. But there was something else there too: an anxiety burrowing somewhere at the back of his head that persisted simply because he didn't know. He didn't know what had happened to her or if she ever could forgive him.

Aperture was difficult to find. Records had been lost, cities had been built. Things like Aperture (old and defunct according to modern standards) were remnants of a past so far back that they hardly seemed to matter. He did eventually find it and he searched every city and town in the surrounding area.

"Eight years ago" he would say, "black hair, light eyes. She would have been wearing a jumpsuit. Orange." but no one knew, even in the closest and smallest towns where someone would have noticed a stranger there were only blank stares and apologies. The police hadn't any records. He didn't even know her name; it was a painful realization when it came.

Filled with despair he eventually went to the field; his artificial heart hammering in ways it wasn't designed to as he waded through the golden stalks. He wielded a GPS which he wasn't very good at using, a flashlight because he no longer had one installed and an assortment of other things which he thought might come in handy should Aperture's gaping maw rise up to swallow him whole.

After a few hours in the sun he finally spotted something in the distance. A shed sat tall against the wheat and he knew, without a doubt, that it was the entrance to Aperture. It caused a brief shudder to think of going anywhere near it, but near it he went. He approached it from the back and circled it with wariness and a wide birth. He didn't know what he was looking for, but he came to see it anyways- to confirm in his mind that he was in the right place.

As he circled it there came a resounding crack from somewhere just below his foot. He cautiously lifted it to notice an odd scattering of debris, the wheat stocks growing beneath and over the stuff obscuring their shapes. He gently reached down to push away the scrub and there was no mistaking the once white (now dirty and weathered) shape of the long-fall boots and the dull orange fabric still tucked securely into them. A cracked sliver of bone disappeared amongst the young sprouts of the undergrowth.

He stumbled back.

A dull and sun damaged cube hidden until now by stalks of swaying wheat was all that lay between the boots and the door. It was a mere ten paces; an inexplicable distance.

He wept (a function he had never known existed) and he contemplated the obscenities of life. The fanciful visions he had created of her happy and free crumbled to dust; bitter in his mouth. His shattered illusions were now nothing but a mockery. They laughed at him from somewhere he couldn't reach as he sat amongst the stalks right next to her eight years too late.

Here in the blazing sun and shifting gold he was cold; the coldest he had ever been.

~END~

AN: Thank you for reading my fic! I plan on doing a reading of it as a bit of practice. If you guys are interested then the file will most likely be posted on my Tumblr. You can find it by googling, "NauticalAcronym Tumblr". It may not be up for a bit, but it is a plan in the works.
I hope that you guys review and let me know how you felt about this (very) short story. I myself don't have a clear view on how I feel about it so some feedback would be greatly appreciated. If there are any questions please feel free to fire them my way.
Have a good one!