Portal: Advent

Indiana

Characters: GLaDOS, Doug Rattmann, Wheatley, Chell

Synopsis: Even war is postponed at times like these.

i. Wheatley

Sometimes he wondered if he'd rather be back up there.

He'd been retrieved a while back for reasons She hadn't bothered explaining (though of course he didn't expect Her to), along with the other cores he'd been flung out of the portal with. Also a handful of electronics he had no idea of the function of, even after inspecting them out of boredom for quite a long time.

He spent all of his time doing not much of anything. He had no access to anything, and while he of course did not hope She would actually start torturing him as She'd threatened, he couldn't help but wonder if this was the torture. To wander through the empty, echoing passages forever. It was… it was almost as bad as watching the battery indicator on his HUD slowly head down to empty. And that'd been pretty bad.

He hated the idea that She had been telling the truth, all that time ago, but he had had this one idea that was getting harder and harder to ignore the more he tried to ignore it. It was a terrible idea, an awful idea, the worst idea in the history of horrendously bad ideas, but he was going to end up doing it anyway. He simply couldn't resist.

There was a little calendar on his HUD, and coming up soon was a day marked with a tiny little red dot. He knew that meant it was important. He wasn't sure why, but if the dot was red it must be bloody important, right? Perhaps there was something he needed to do that day. Some essential task he needed to complete, lest the actual torture take place. Trouble was, he couldn't access the calendar. It was just a spot, an annoying little red thing smack in front of his face, and yet it felt more and more urgent by the day, to figure out what that thing meant. And he was going to have to pay for it, he knew. But he was going to have to ask Her.

He did his best to talk himself out of it. She hated him, hated the sight and the sound and the existence of the idea of him. And yet if She had set this task to him, he had to carry it out, right? Maybe She was testing him. Maybe She was giving him another chance. That was a little harder to swallow, so to speak, but it was something.

In the end, though, that's not why he did it.

Wheatley had spent much of his life trying to make something of himself. Not a big something. Just… something. Okay, yes. A big something. But that wasn't likely, even less so now than it had been then. And here he was, moping around the facility, seemingly doomed to wander the empty rails until he fell off and plummeted into the murky shadows permeating the place. He wasn't a brave sort, not really, but he was starting to get angry enough to do something terribly foolish. He was sick of wand'ring round the facility endlessly. He was tired of the not-torture. He was sick and tired of not knowing and the never-ending nothing of his life. He was going to go to Her, and he was going to ask Her what the dot was about, and if She tortured him, well, who cared, really? At least if She threw him in the incinerator he'd have a change of scenery. Honestly being stuck in a fire might be better than being stuck in the dark, at this point. And She thought he was a moron and an idiot no matter what he did. It was better to take his punishment like an adult instead of skulking around in the gloom in the hopes that She'd leave him alone forever. He knew he was being stupid, and he was honestly wondering what had changed in him that made him want to abandon safety for certain doom. The chassis, probably. He'd been fairly content with this nothingness before. But now that he'd seen everything the facility held… he could no longer stand the life he'd once had. It wasn't enough. He was a little afraid of the thought, but he was almost sure he'd be willing to actually die, rather than go on barely living forever. At least he'd know he'd tried, right? He'd tried to do something with what was left of his life, instead of wait? And… and who knew. Maybe She'd respect what he was trying to do. Slim to none, of course, but maybe. Just maybe. If he was lucky. Which he often wasn't.

So when the day came, that day that the little red dot indicated, he screwed up the courage he'd been gathering and headed off. He knew from his wanderings where She was, and though before he'd made sure to know of the area in order to keep away from it, it was fortunate that he did know for this new reason. He was still scared, still terribly frightened of what might happen, but he had nothing left to lose, other than his life. And if the Incident had taught him anything, it was that wandering around in circles was not living. It was slowly dying.

Still, he decided when he got in the approximate area, there was no need to rush it. She wasn't going anywhere. He'd just take his time, and be calm, and wait. Wait for the window of opportunity, the perfect one needed to make his move.

Soon.

Author's note

This was the original draft for the contest TalesofAperture is having, but while I like where it's going and how it ends, it didn't feel right. When I write for contests I try to write something funny, because I don't usually, and I decided to write this just because and do something else for the contest.

The synopsis comes from the fact that, during World War I, there were often truces between the Germans and the soldiers on the other side. On Christmas, the Germans and the British played football, as well as hung out with the Canadian soldiers instead of shooting them. The next year was not so friendly because the higher-ups didn't want them fraternising, but it happened.