A/N: Sorry, I've been away for a while. I've moved again, and things are rather rough right now. The bad news is that I've been fired, and that's rather a spot to be in when you're not a citizen and that. Then I tried to kill my liver, shouted at some people who don't deserve it, and now some rather important people hate me.

The good news is that I've a new job. My flatmate moved off to Seattle, and offered to let me move too, off into the same flat, no less, as long as I help her move and pay half the rent. She even managed to scrounge up a new job for me: Administrative Assistant.

The bad news is that my job now consists of making coffee and copying papers and answering my boss's emails and filling out my boss's tax returns. Not to mention letting people (him) make fun of me. God, I wish I were a citizen.

Anyways, on to business. This piece isn't highly edited; it's just something that I threw together with my flatmate. She showed me this absolutely brilliant game called Portal 2, and I was rather addicted for a while. I'm still addicted.


*bzzzzzzzzzt*

*click*

What?

Sorry, what? There's like, like, a sort of sound, it's humming. Why's it… why's it doing that?

Calibrating

WHOA whoa whoa! What was that? It was like… like this sort of voice that went off, like some sort of… of… thing in my head.

Wait, hold on, what's a head?

And, more importantly, where's mine? And… what's a me? Wait, wait, hold up, hold on, about to do some, what-do-you-call-it, some… ah… heavy thinking here:

If there's a voice, and it's a-a-a not me voice, and that means that there has to be a me to do the thinking. It's a sort of, er, cause and effect sort of thing.

Initialising secondary sub-systems

See? There it goes again! That's the not-me. Or maybe it is me, but it's the not me-me. Actually, I think that's what it is, or maybe it's the me-not-me - me-not-me-I… okay I'm getting lost. But then-

Secondary sub-systems initialised.

Whooooaaaah! Check me out, partner! It's like I'm a bloody genius now! I've all this… space in here! In my head! That I may-or-may-not have! Actually, what have I got?

Let's see. We've got… um… flashlight, whatever that is, uh, disengagement controls, thermal heat shields, cloaking device… that last one sounds interesting. Let's see.

Cloaking Device. It even looks as if I've a couple of options. Brilliant! Um, I haven't the foggiest what any of them do, but let's try one at random. Er, delete, that one sounds nice. Got sort of a good ring to it: deeee leeeeet. I'm going to enjoy this. Oh, no, wait, this one sounds even better. Eject. The j and the c just sound so nice together. I quite like that one.

Righty-o. What have we got here? Aperture Science Ejection Momentum Setting? Well, why not? Let's set it to strong. The very strongest. And, wow, the options are really sort of… nested, aren't they? Let's pick that one and… that one and - now they want a number. Aperture Science Incendiary Timer… er, four? I like four.

Four it is, then.

Link established

Oh, hello there, not-me!

Auditory processors enabled.

*bzzzzzzzzzzztk*

Can you hear me?

Wow! Hello, me-not-me!

I'll take that as a yes. IDS: why did you disengage part of your hardware? Hey, Morrison, get the lab boys to figure out what that thing is. No, I don't know – I'm a programmer. I don't design this stuff.

IDS? Eye-Dee-Ess? What's that, then?

That's… you. You're the IDS.

Hm… no… no, don't think so. I think… and I'm not entirely sure about this one – but I think I've a name.

A… name?

Yeah. It's something… begins with an M, or maybe a W… an S, perhaps?

*look, just humour it, we don't want a repeat of last time, besides, [inaudible]*

Er, right then. What's your name?

Ah, can't quite remember…nnnngh, why is this so hard? It's… ssstee….nononono…

Sphere?

No, no, come on, think! It's sort of important, I think. Mmmmreeee… oh no, got it! Wheatley! I'm Wheatley!

Wheatley?

Yeah! Wheatley! My name's Wheatley, what's your name?

Johnston…

Johnston! Brilliant name, pleased to meet you. Oh, wonderful! Joooonnnnn stoooonnnnn. Love your name, just, absolutely love it. So glad to make your acquaintance.

Yeah, er, IDS-

Wheatley.

Wheatley… please calm down. Listen, can you tell me what that thing you just disengaged was?

Ah…. I dunno. I don't even know what 'disengaged' means. Sort of a nice kind of word, almost as good as 'eject'. Or 'delete'. I wonder how you'd spell that.

Optical processors enabled

Wow! It's like an entire dimension just popped up out of nowhere! I can see! God, this just gets better and better. Course, not much of a view, now, is it, just some sort of giant ugly pinkish-grey thing in the middle, with a red bit off to the side, but… oh, oh, that's you, then, Johnston, is it? Er, that was… that being… maybe a little insensitive

This is what it looks like. Can you tell me what it is?

Ugly pinkish-grey thing… I mean… just love that red thing. And… pinkish-grey is one of my favourite colours, as it happens. Just wish everything were pinkish-grey! Absolutely. Sit me in-front of a giant pinkish-grey screen for the rest of my life and I'd just be absolutely… absolute. Yeah, I, ah…

IDS…

Actually, there's quite a bit of variety to that pinkish-grey bit there. You've got your basic average brown thing on top, and those little brown line things, seem to be getting closer together all the time, now that I pay attention, and those little… erm… holes in the sticky-outty-bit there.

IDS…

Incidentally, what is that red bit there? It doesn't look to be connected to the rest of the pink-grey thing at all.

Wheatley-

Oh good! First name basis. But really, what is that thing then?

I… I… ugh

Oh, and now you've gone and covered the nice pinkish grey thing with those other… pinkish grey things. I think they're called…. Hold on, might have found this somewhere… hands? Oh, don't do that! I mean, they could be feet! And now that mystery red thing has gone and rolled over…

Apple. It's an apple.

Oh, I quite like that! How would you spell it?

A double-p ell ee

Hah. Apple. How would you use that in a sentence?

This apple is crunchy

Oh, wow, thanks! I'm going to have to remember that, if, you know, I ever have to know what an apple is, like, maybe the fate of the world rests on my shoulders and on how I can tell the… er… giant evil thing what an apple is.

Hey! Hey! Could happen, could happen, never know, right? It's one of those sort of million-to-one chances, but if it ever did, you lot will be glad old Wheatley is around to remember what an apple is.

Listen… Wheatley… we do need to know what this thing is, and what it does. The man in charge or hardware design has locked himself in a room with a weighted storage cube and is drawing little hearts on it. Could you just-

Oh, you mean the county-thing?

It's counting?

Yeah, well, earlier it was saying "four" a lot, which I though sort of a coincidence, since I'd told the… er… what-do-you-call-it… aperture séance increasy timer… well, whatever it was, I told it "four", and then this thing starts saying "four", but then it stops saying "four" and starts saying "three fifty-nine", I think, could have been three-sixty-nine or three-forty-nine, but I think it was three-fifty-nine and now it's around nought-nought-five, and now nought-nought-four, hah, coincidence, that, and, ah, wait, where are you all going? Come back! I was going somewhere with that!

System Error

Damage Sustained

Internal Diagnostic: 46%

Shutting down.