Explosion Day
Indiana
Characters: Rick the Adventure Sphere, Wheatley, GLaDOS, the Space Sphere, the Fact Sphere
Setting: Post Portal 2 [follows Portal: Dandelion; not in continuity with Love as a Construct]
Synopsis: Things get a little too exciting when Rick decides to go in search of danger…
Rick knew, deep in his gut, that this was gonna be one hell of a day.
He leaned ninja-style around a corner, keeping an eye out for a dangerous situation. There was going to be one, he just knew it. He wasn't sure what it was yet. But he could feel it. Hell, he could smell it. Yes, Rick the Adventure Sphere smelt danger, and he was going to follow that sweet scent all the way to its glorious destination. He hadn't arrived there quite yet, but when he did…
First things first. He took a gander at the room the boss lady, GLaDOS, was housed in, eyeing that little blue moron suspiciously. He still had no idea why she'd picked that guy over Rick! Who knew women preferred weeds to roses! Rick had far more qualifications. He knew about pressure points, was an expert in every manner of hand-to-hand combat, and was pretty damn handsome, if he did say so himself. Wheatley… now what did he have going for him? He was dumb, he'd rejected the companionship of a very beautiful woman, and whenever he ran into Rick their conversations were long and boring, because the guy went on and on and on and stuttered like his life depended on it. Rick would've said GLaDOS had a few screws loose, possibly the ones attaching her hard drive and her logic circuits to her motherboard, if saying such things didn't get the Cores who said them into a bit of hot water. Rick loved danger, to be sure, but he wasn't stupid. A guy didn't call his beautiful, volatile boss crazy and get away with it. And she was pretty nicely formed, Rick thought for what must have been the twentieth time as he peered through the gap she left in the wall of her chamber. In fact, the only issue Rick had was that she was definitely looking her age. Then again, so had that beautiful woman he'd spent a good two minutes inspecting (veeeery closely…), and besides. Rick liked his women not just beautiful, but powerful, and GLaDOS was the most powerful person in the entire world. So her age? Not a problem. Wheatley, however, was, and as much as Rick tried he could not convince her to ditch the loser. He'd even tried asking what it was she saw in him, but she'd merely forced him out of the room without answering. He'd liked that. He liked forceful women. They were a lot more… exciting. (wink wink nudge nudge)
Rick didn't linger long, only for about half a minute or so, straining to hear what they were talking about. Maybe they were talking about separating. Yeah, that was it. GLaDOS had had enough of Wheatley's rambling and never wanted to see him again. Then she was going to summon Rick (of course) and he was finally going to get what he deserved…
Rick decided to let them work that out and went in search of that danger. He settled his chassis into a danger-hunting position, closed his optic for a long moment, and let that tantalising aroma fill his brain. Aaahhh… there it was. Ahead of him, somewhere. Optic plates set in a determined grin, Rick set out.
After a couple of minutes of two steps forward, one step back-style stalking, Rick came across the goof who babbled about space nonstop. Seriously. Space sucked. It sucked worse than a vacuum, and Rick had seen the power of GLaDOS's vacuums. There was no danger in space! Not even any air for explosions. He shivered a little just thinking about explosions. Ohhhh baby. He needed himself an explosion, and he needed it soon. "Space," the Sphere mumbled, rocking back and forth with his orange optic a pinprick. "Wanna go to space. Need space. Space. Space safe. Space home. Space mansion. With space inside. Space. Spaaaaace."
"Oh, shut up," Rick groaned, smacking him a little on the top of his hull with his lower handle. "There's no space anywhere near here. Y'know what? There is no space! We didn't really go there! It was your imagination! How d'you like that, huh?"
"No space?" the Sphere said in a wavery little voice, looking up at him pleadingly. "No space cops space mounties space rangers?"
"What the hell is a mountie?" Rick demanded, frowning down at him. "Sounds like some sort of chocolate bar! And that's stupid! Because there's no such thing as chocolate!"
"Space chocolate? Space bar?"
Oh brother.
"There is no such thing as a space bar," Rick said with forced patience. "You are so dumb I cannot begin to figure out how you do not combust from being so dumb. You have space in your brain, you know that?"
The Sphere jumped up and down, optic plates wide with excitement. "Space. Space. Space in my brain. Dad, am I space? Yes, son, you are space. We're space! Space, space, we're all space, bah bup bup bup."
Rick glared at him.
"Y'know what?" he said suddenly, regarding him sideways. "I got a surprise for you, little buddy. Come with ol' Rick and he'll set you up with some space."
"Spaaaaace!" the Sphere cried out, jumping up from the table he'd been sitting on to come up very close to Rick. Rick shuddered and started moving.
When he arrived at their destination, he ushered the Space Sphere through a pane of shattered glass and said to him, "Now, you see those turrets over there, kiddo?"
The Sphere nodded enthusiastically.
"That thing there," Rick continued, gesturing at a camera turned towards the turret being tested, "decides which turrets get to go to space. See the white ones there?"
The Sphere nodded again.
"It's deciding they don't get to go to space!" Rick declared.
"No space?" the Sphere shrieked.
"That's right. No space!"
"Oh, oh, oh." The Sphere looked nervously around him, blinking rapidly. "Fix. Fix space. Gotta go to space. Everyone in space."
"All you gotta do," Rick whispered loudly, "is knock that guy out of there," and here he gestured at the turret inside of the little room he'd sent the Sphere into, "and put yourself in."
The Space Sphere immediately shoved the turret out of the way.
"Template missing. Continuing from memory."
"Get right in there, buddy!" Rick shouted, backing away. "Get riiiight in there."
"Here? Here space?" the Sphere asked, turning around to face him.
"Template accepted."
"Space?" the Sphere said, turning to face the turret currently being evaluated by the camera.
"Hello?" the turret said.
A buzzer went off, sending the turret in a precise arc into the incinerator. As Rick watched, the system sent defective and operational turrets alike into the fiery abyss, and he chuckled to himself. Poor dumb turrets. All of them being sent to their doom just because they didn't have any interest in space.
Eventually he got bored of that and headed out in search of the danger he'd been following. Weirdly enough, it led him to the other Sphere he'd been stuck in space with: the Fact Sphere.
"Hey there, four eyes," Rick said snidely, leaning towards him. He was connected to a computer and was staring at the monitor with his optic plates fully retracted. "What nerdy thing are you wasting your manhood on?"
"I am loading facts into my brain," the Sphere said, in a bit of a dull voice. Rick rolled his optic.
"Don't you have enough junk up there already?" he groaned.
"I can never have enough facts in my brain," the Sphere stated.
Rick lowered himself next to the Sphere and shoved him aside, connecting himself to the computer as well. "Lemme see that."
"I am using this," the Sphere said, looking at him without modifying his somewhat blank expression. "Fact: You will find another computer."
"Fact: shut up," Rick snorted, opening a file at random. It was filled with gibberish, so he entered a few lines of gibberish for kicks and closed it again.
The Fact Sphere opened a file, which Rick closed, and pushed him more to the right side of the monitor. "Get lost," Rick said aggressively. "I'm usin' this thing now." He'd never had much interest in computers, other than the huge supercomputer-in-a-robot type, that was, but maybe that was where his danger was to be found. Somewhere in the mystery of the mainframe.
"I am using it," Fact insisted, giving him the tiniest tap with one handle. Rick pushed him onto the floor and deleted a handful of files just because he felt like it.
Fact made his way back onto the desk, reconnected himself to the computer, and the two of them fought over it for a while, both of them opening and closing files haphazardly and trying to shove the other off the desk. Both of them froze when they heard the booming voice of Notifications echo above them.
"Repositioning neurotoxin dispersal tube to designated input. Now loading tube from Emergency Intelligence Incinerator 1138b. Thank you."
Rick stared at Fact.
"What the hell did you do, four eyes?" he demanded, pulling himself out of the computer before GLaDOS came to investigate. He was not going to be blamed for whatever had just happened.
"I did nothing," Fact said in the same flat voice. "Fact: pepper is a coagulant."
"Oh lord," Rick groaned, shaking himself and pulling up off the desk. "You're almost as annoying as that Wheatley guy."
"Fact: the Intelligence Dampening Sphere is not annoying."
Rick stared at him for a good ten seconds before leaving. Somebody needed to duct tape that guy's mouth shut, because he now he was just spouting nonsense.
Rick again settled his chassis and did his best to breathe in that scent of danger. He followed it around the facility for a while, and the longer he did so the more excited he got. He had to be getting close, now! He'd been following it for ten minutes at least. Eventually he found himself right back in front of GLaDOS's chamber, which was a bit of a surprise, but not an unwelcome one. After all, the best way to impress a lady was to do something dangerous in front of her. Or save her from doing something dangerous. Or do something dangerous while saving her from the danger! Yeah. Yeah, that was what he'd do. He'd think of something dangerous and then save her from it. Ohhh yeah, he was a genius.
"Hey, baby," Rick drawled, coming casually into her chamber. He didn't bother thinking of a plan. It'd come to him when it came to him. "How're you doing?"
"What do you want," GLaDOS snapped, looking at him with an air of impatience. "I'm busy."
Wheatley remained rigid and still beside her, as if he were her bodyguard or something. Ha! That guy, a bodyguard. Rick almost laughed right then and there, except for the fact that they wouldn't get the joke and he didn't want to look crazy.
"I've just been wondering," Rick said easily with a shrug, "why you haven't given up on that guy yet."
Wheatley frowned, but GLaDOS gave him a glance before he said anything. "I don't need to explain myself to you, Rick," she told him evenly. "I am not at all interested in… relations with you. So you can stop asking. I am never going to agree with you."
"But baby," Rick protested, leaning forward, "he's got nothin'! I've got experience, I've got talent, hell, I've got everything! And what's he got?"
"As unlikely as it sounds, a working brain," GLaDOS answered dryly. "Now go find someone else to pester. We have nothing more to discuss."
All of a sudden, there was a distant sort of rumbling sound, and all three of them directed their gazes towards the ceiling. "Um, what's that, d'you know?" Wheatley asked, with a nervous glance at GLaDOS. She shook her core slowly.
"I have no idea."
The rumbling grew louder, and GLaDOS kept her optic trained on the ceiling while curling towards the floor. Rick quivered in excitement. Sounded like something was happening. Something big. Something… dangerous.
All of a sudden the ceiling collapsed with a crash, sending GLaDOS backwards with a jolt as a massive collection of mangled turrets came in through the ceiling, all of them screaming, "SPAAAAACE!" Upon hitting the floor, some of the defective ones blew up, which caused the non-defective ones to catch fire and combust as well. The turrets continued to fall out of a Neurotoxin Dispersal Tube contained in the ceiling, where it was redirecting all the turrets from Emergency Intelligence Incinerator 1138b, and right before their optics the whole pile exploded. Rick stared full-on at the beautiful mushroom cloud of smoke and flame pulling up from the floor, but GLaDOS and Wheatley ducked their heads to shield their optics from the sudden brightness. Turrets continued dropping steadily out of the ceiling, and when GLaDOS turned back to look at the damage she froze for a long moment.
The floor had been destroyed in the explosion, the force of which had torn most of the panels within the blast radius off the wall, which was now spewing smoke and sparks. Rick peered down into the thrilling abyss below them, which seemed to stretch off into forever, and Wheatley cried out from his position on GLaDOS's right side. "Oh God oh God oh God," he blubbered, and Rick looked up to see him clenching his chassis and staring with the aperture on his optic almost entirely closed. "Oh God. It's so high. Oh, what if I fall down there? I'll die. I will, I'll die. That'll be it. Smash like an egg. Like a, like a ball-shaped egg. Everywhere. Just pieces of me, everywhere. Wait… wait. That pit… is it bottomless? It's not bottomless is it? I don't want to fall forever! Oh no no no it'd better have a bottom, I'd rather smash than fall for the rest of my life, ohhhh I can't look. I can't look. Why'm I still looking? Ohhh… this is… oh, man alive, why did you have to do that?"
"Yes," GLaDOS said, her voice extremely flat and controlled as she lifted her core to look at Rick. "Why did you do that? I know you caused this. There is simply no other explanation."
Well! No need to let a production like that go to waste! He might as well make something up… aha! Now he realised why that scent of danger had led him in here!
Rick leaned forward as best he could and said, in his best ladykiller voice, with his optic half-lidded, "Happy Explosion Day, gorgeous."
GLaDOS and Wheatley both stared at him, speechless, with Wheatley unclenching his chassis all in one undignified movement. Rick nodded. "That's right, darlin'," he drawled, "it's that time of year again. It's been pretty boring around here, ever since he's been hanging out in here." He waved his lower handle accusatorily at Wheatley. "Thought I'd do a little something to remind you of what a real man can do for you, babe. Sure, I didn't really plan to blow up your floor or throw your turrets in here or anythin', but hey, someone's gotta take the credit for that beautiful explosion, right? And who better than me. By the way," he stage-whispered, leaning forward conspiratorially, "that explosion was mighty fine, but you manage to outshine even that thing of beauty, if you don't mind me sayin'."
"I hate you so much," GLaDOS said faintly, pulling backwards.
"That's fine with me!" Rick said cheerfully. "Love-hate relationships work too!"
"Why do you insist on doing this to me?" GLaDOS demanded, fixing him with an angry stare. "What could you possibly get out of pestering me about that repeatedly even though I say no every single time?"
"Well, duh," Rick answered, rolling his optic, "you're the only woman within a gajillion-mile radius. I thought you were supposed to be some sort of super genius!"
"That's it." GLaDOS's optic flared and as Rick looked up he saw a claw abruptly come out of the ceiling and clamp around his chassis, hard. "I've had enough."
"No!"
Rick and GLaDOS both looked at Wheatley, who jumped a little when he noticed this, his optic constricting. "I mean," he mumbled, looking down at the mangled floor and clenching up his chassis again, "you uh, you shouldn't, um, just uh, just…"
"Fine," GLaDOS muttered, releasing Rick's chassis, though not without giving it a bit of a painful squeeze before doing so. "What, then."
"Just… just put him back in space, actually."
Rick froze.
"Space… ?"
GLaDOS made a thoughtful noise. "I told you he had a working brain."
Wheatley laughed nervously as the ceiling opened up, and Rick eyed the blue sky above with trepidation. The moon wasn't there, thank God.
"Hm," GLaDOS mused, staring out of the hole with her lens fully extended. "This is going to be a bit trickier than last time…"
"You're… not actually going to do it, are you?" Rick asked, turning to face her. "I mean… he's an idiot. We know that. Established fact. Sending me to space, well, that's just falling for another one of his dumb ideas! Wouldn't want it going around you listen to morons, would you?"
"Who's going to tell them?" GLaDOS said, with a bit of an overly pleased sound to her voice. "Certainly not you. You'll be in space."
"I'll scream it out to everyone who passes by!" Rick shouted, moving forward, but she froze him where he was.
"You're acting as though I care what you're going to do. In space. Where no one can hear you scream."
"I'll find someone!" Rick struggled to move, nervously staring down into the wispy blue oval that had suddenly appeared on a fresh panel below him. "You're going to be sorry you did this to me! Rick does not take this from anyone! And guess what! Guess what I'm gonna do!"
"What," GLaDOS intoned boredly, squinting up through the ceiling again.
"I'm gonna find someone, and you know what I'm gonna tell them? I'm gonna tell them you're in love with him!"
GLaDOS swung her core around to look at him again, and Wheatley looked around a bit nervously.
"Excuse me?" she asked.
"That's right!" Rick said threateningly, narrowing his optic at her. "I'm gonna tell them that GLaDOS is in love with Wheatley!"
There was silence for a few seconds, and then all of a sudden GLaDOS started to laugh, a grating electronic sound that put Rick on edge. "You're even more out of your mind than I previously thought," she said in an amused voice, moving him a little bit so he hung directly over the single panel. "Me and Wheatley. In love. Ha. That's one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard. And I've heard a lot of ridiculous things. Most of them out of him."
"Yep," Wheatley said faintly, chassis sinking a little. "Ridiculous. Yep. That's right. Just… bloody insane, that thought is."
"What are you babbling about now?"
"Nothing, nothing," Wheatley mumbled.
GLaDOS shook her core and lifted her optic to look at Rick. "Goodbye, Rick," she said serenely. "It's been fun. Oh, and one last thing…"
"What," Rick said, daring to hope that she'd changed her mind and was going to send the little idiot back into space instead of him. Geez. Who'd've thought she'd get so mad over a little accidental explosion? A little accidental amazing explosion.
"Happy Explosion Day," she said, her voice dripping with false sweetness, and with that the portal below Rick opened up.
He had just enough time to glimpse GLaDOS turning away from the force of space sucking him out of her chamber, her body shielding Wheatley from being carried away with him.
And then he was back where he'd started. Space. Where nothing ever happened. Ever. And there were no explosions, or any hopes of one. Rick grumbled to himself and settled into his chassis. Not in love with Wheatley. Yeah, right. If she wasn't, there was no way she'd've picked him over Rick, especially after the spectacular fireworks display he'd put on just for her. Sort of. But like he'd said. Someone had to take credit for that, and it certainly wouldn't be Wheatley!
He didn't get it. Danger, excitement, a voice that didn't make a guy want to rip his ears off… he had it all! Where the hell had he gone wrong? Rick shook his head and stared down at the blue orb that he had been on just a few seconds ago.
Women.
Author's note
Happy Explosion Day, everyone!
Before people start telling me 'robots can't smell', maybe they can't. But maybe they can. I don't see why else Wheatley would say humans were smelly, since we don't really walk around commenting that about each other, and GLaDOS mentions that the smell of diesel fumes are driving her insane in Poker Night 2 (and I understand that's not officially canon, but I consider it partially so). So maybe they do have the ability to smell, somewhat.
A Mountie is a special police officer here in Canada. We call them Mounties because they're called the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, since they used to ride horses but now really only do during their parade, I think.
Yeah, so Rick spends a lot of his time trying to win GLaDOS, because all he really wants are adventure and a conquest. Well there isn't a lot of adventure in Aperture and GLaDOS would make it very hard to find, and Rick's still mad that he didn't win the contest in Dandelion. And then GLaDOS got insulted when he said he was only going for her because she was the only one to go for.
There was a Star Wars joke in there.