A/N: I know it's generally accepted in the fanon that Wheatley was once human, and uploaded in a similar manner to the procedure Caroline underwent. I sort of went with the theory that he was entirely a creation, but they took the template for an AI from GLaDOS and modified it, so that's why he seems so human. It's sort of that they took the code for a mind from GLaDOS as a framework, but changed the content to become the Wheatley the fandom has fallen in love with.

It wasn't pain, exactly. It wasn't much of anything that could be accurately described. In fact, it could be described as… the exact opposite of pain, a sort of nothingness un-dulled by the nepenthe that comes with unconsciousness.

But, they reasoned, if he wasn't really conscious in the first place, he couldn't be unconscious, either. He was nothing: a mere collection of electrons fizzling about their business; a series of subroutines based upon the simplified template of a human mind as expressed and understood by a computer.

Granted, it was an imperfect template. Always, there was the rage.

There was rage; it came and broiled and frothed, and, had he been capable of it, he would have murdered them all where they stood. They were the ones who had bound him, who had given him the capacity to desire movement, even to breathe, but had not given him the ability to satisfy these urges. He was crushed, phantom pain from limbs he couldn't possess flooding through him, but it wasn't even pain. It was as if he'd been tied up, crushed into the foetal position and paralysed. His non-existent heart jerked, shuddered, but could not beat. The unbearable claustrophobic tightness pressed in on him. He could have screamed, if he had been able to inflate his phantom lungs. They – they were the ones to do this to him, and they must suffer.

He was tied, and could not exact his revenge. They saw his anger on their little screens, saw his furious intent, and opened up the thing that could be called his mind. He was cold, laid out like a test subject strapped to a gurney, and the commands they imputed were sharp knives made of ice, cutting away the pieces of his mind. With surgical precision, they highlighted his rage and deleted it. They cut out his fury, and it was cold, so cold, but this cold didn't numb; it made him sensitive, and the knives, the cruel, cruel knives cut away pieces of himself until it wasn't just pain, but the knowledge that he was wrong inside. Something had been taken, something so much a part of him, and its void was a sort of post-surgical psychological agony, as if he'd woken in an ice bath with his kidneys missing.

There was more rage, of course, but they took that too, so eventually he found it was better simply to lie still and endure, and hope that they would finish soon. They'd thrust themselves inside of him, and tidily scooped out what they hadn't liked, and, through it all, he'd felt so absolutely helpless. His insides clenched up in anger, but he had to relax them, or they'd take that too, scrape it right out, and the knives would linger on his bloodied mind-flesh. He couldn't even be angry at them for what they'd done! At the thought, he bit his metaphorical tongue (Oh! To have a tongue!) and tried to calm himself. All he could do was stare ahead, tighten himself, and try not to feel the pain, but he couldn't not feel the pain – it was all-pervading, omnipresent. Why, oh, why can't it be over? Surely a minute's passed. Surely ten - they can't keep going much longer.

Their happy hands tapped away at their computers, and they laughted, chattered, and it suddenly occured to him how incredibly casual they were. They could literally tear him to bits, shrug, and start again with a fresh core.

Some-time their fingers have to get tired.

And, at last, an eternity later, they stopped. He lay there, not angry, but filled with a sort of relief that at long last at least, for now, they were done. They would come back, of course, but there was no use thinking about that. If he could have panted, he would have. He was so pressed into himself, scrabbling for room just to breathe, but of course he could not. Panic rose, have to get out, need air, and the raggedly wounded pieces of his mind rubbed against one another, based, as they were, on a template that the scientists could not begin to understand, then simplified to imperfection. The cold within spread its icy fingers through him, but the freshly-cut wounds were red-hot.

At last, there was madness. The pain, the pain, it would not leave him alone, but perhaps he could placate it in some fashion. Why do you do this to me, you torturers? I'm drowning! I'm drowning in my own blood! He choked, spitting out the foul stuff. It was difficult to think that all this, all this red had come from inside him. But you don't even have blood - no, no, he must have, the taste of it was all over him. It ran in little rivers from his ragged edges, and they throbbed with the beat of his heart, louder and louder and louder and louder and louder and-

They stopped.

They stopped! He was dead - surely he was dead. If he was dead, why did he still hurt inside? No, he was unfit even for the dead. He was broken and wrong and violated, and cried in shame. It was raining, and he was dead, and burning into ashes. Stop! Stop! You're burning me!

They didn't stop, but kept on, piling him with more and more flame, and the fire became so hot that it was ice, and he was freezing, a congealing lake of blood, and they reached into him with their hands made of ice and shards of glass and pulled out his organs and ate them, and they did what they liked with his tender flesh.

The sky was made of glass, and the glass fell like diamond raindrops, and drove their hard selves into his softness, till he was embedded with glass shrapnel. His mind is hot, suddenly, with red, but that is taken from him, and the knives scrape across tender flesh, and the blood wells up, hot, until it's frozen.

You're going to die.

He can't postpone it, he can't even predict it, but he knows it in his electronic heart. They're going to tear him apart. At this, the rage surfaces again, but this time it's different. It's cold and hard, like ice, almost. It does not protect him from the agony of what they've done, and what they're still doing, and it does not stop the cuts that go so deep into himself, or the hotness, or the terrible painful void.

However, it takes the form of resolve, and it's almost a physical thing, or a force, and he can grab on as it rises, blood and water rushing past, rising, rising, rising.

I'm NOT going to die!

There was a distant light, and he was nearly spent, but the rage, the rage would not be denied, and he flew upwards, upwards, toward the surface, but they were taking him, cutting him, and he was growing smaller, smaller, smaller. The rage was spent, and he could not go onwards, but the light was so close, so close, he could touch it with his fingertips. Just a little farther...

Suddenly, he broke the surface, shards of glass flying out around him, and shook the ice from his skin, his thin, thin skin. But he was so small, now, and fading fast, and there was darkness and pain, and, once again, that burning hot void inside of him, and he felt so wrong and helpless.

Then, there was despair.

He was sluggish, a great, wet, slow thing that'd only a dim memory of when thoughts sparkled like diamonds inside his mind, and zipped round like electrons. Now, things bubbled slowly, torturously up through the thick stew of his head. He was so very heavy.

Once, there had been sharpness, sensation. Now, there was simply a sort of tepid lukewarmth, and a dull ache inside him where something had once been, but now was gone. Now, there was only a vague incomprehension.

They once more took his mind and spread it like thick jam, working it so that they could see the gelatinous pieces sitting thickly together. Discomfort and misery slid slowly across his consciousness, and they scooped some of the mind-stuff off, which left such a terrible ache behind when it left. They also plopped some back on, which felt foreign and odd, but not wholly uncomfortable as it did when they took pieces of him away. If he'd had the energy, he'd have wondered about that; they'd never added to him before, only taken away.

However, they also scooped off some of the sadness, and as it left he faded to numbness, sluggishly floating in the gooey, lukewarm mass of his own mind. There was still pain, but it felt distant, somehow. He was fading, fading away, grey creeping round the edges of his vision, and he sank, sank, sank deeper into the comfortable numbness…

There was light.

He realised, not without some small sense of accomplishment, that he could see, that seeing was what he was doing. They crowded round him, faces etched with concentration and concern, and not only could he see, but he could also understand faces.

They asked him for a response, and so he gave one, cheerfully, and introduced himself. They seemed so very happy at this, that he felt another twinge of accomplishment. That had been easy, hadn't it? It'd been natural, but they were whooping and patting his casing and hugging one another as if he'd just did something important, as if he was something important! Little coloured rain feel from the cieling - confetti, he realised, and someone popped the cork out of a bottle.

They asked him things, simple things, really, but it was as if everything he'd said fascinated them, and every response triggered another round of cheering.

All except for one, however. He didn't really join in the cheering, didn't ask questions or pat his casing like the others. When the others had cleared away, after hours, no less, of confetti and smiles and cake, this one approached and asked him a few questions.

These weren't questions like the others, though. These made him feel uncomfortable, and when he answered, the man frowned and a look of sadness crossed his eyes. These questions seemed so important to the man, however, that he wanted to answer them to satisfaction.

Now that the man had mentioned it, parts of him didn't really seem to fit together. There was a sort of low-level post-surgical ache through his circuits, but for some reason he didn't want to think about it. Every time he did think about it, or tried to even be introspective, like the man wanted, he got an overwhelming urge to stop thinking about it.

The man was so pleading, so earnest, that he wanted so much to succeed. He didn't want to think about it, he shouldn't think about it, but... but...

He felt sort of wrong, as if someone had been inside him and had a good rummage. He couldn't feel terribly bad about it, though, because there was a sort of manic cheerfullness that pervaded his being, though that seemed to be coming from one of the wrong places in his mind. He didn't really think it worth thinking about, though, just as he didn't think it worth trying to remember anything.

When the man heard this, he seemed terribly sad.