-Thanks for all the faves and reviews, I'll try and get these up as quickly as I can.-
Chapter Two: Love as a Construct
"There are some things I don't understand, Cube," Doug stated as they walked above a half finished test chamber. "What is it?" she asked. She had stopped singing once they were a distance away from the new murals.
"Well, you said that I had taken medication, when you know I have none left. Also, why did I wake up? Where did the glass over my stasis bed go? And why can I even walk on my leg?" Doug's lifted up his trouser leg to reveal the deep bullet wound. As the hours had passed, the pain had been fading.
Cube sighed, and began to explain. "A loose rock broke the glass. That was probably caused by Chell waking up though, because when you were knocked out after falling down that hole, there was a lot of rumbling and shaking. And your leg… well, duh! It's a stasis bed that heals you so you can test again! It's so advanced, it knew to give you Schizophrenic medication." Doug was overwhelmed by all this information. He thought he understood most of it, but there was one thing…
Something made Doug's thoughts vanish. A light had flickered on in the distance; a rusty claw sped off to the right. It could only mean one thing.
One single computer was still holding on to its power. Doug started hurriedly pressing keys, trying to bring up the cameras. It asked for his login. "I know this, I know this…" he said to himself as he typed it in
Username: drattmann. Password: h0nee
The old computer flickered on to the camera page. Doug quickly found the one that was monitoring GLaDOS' chamber. There she was! Chell was staring up at something. One of the Mark II personality constructs was with her. What was Chell staring at? Doug pressed a key, and his heart sank as the camera zoomed out.
GLaDOS was awake.
The claw Doug had seen earlier reached down and grabbed Chell by the back of her top; another snaked down and grabbed the construct. Both were lifted into the air. Doug didn't know what GLaDOS was saying, but she suddenly crushed the construct and flung it carelessly to the side. She dragged Chell over to the old incinerator, and dropped her down before she could protest.
Doug didn't know what he was doing; suddenly his feet were taking him toward her chamber. Cube was shrieking protests, but he ignored her. All too soon he was outside her door. Only then did he stop and think about what he was doing. He couldn't just storm in there, she'd kill him! But he had to do something.
A faint moan caught his attention. Lying next to the door was the personality construct, almost dead. Doug reached out and picked it up. Its mechanical eye opened; the blue iris shrank in size as it saw the human. Doug nearly dropped it when he realised who it was.
His mind cast back to when he was younger, still working at Aperture. He had been assigned to turn on the intelligence dampening construct which they wanted to test out. He had pressed the switch, and it had immediately started asking questions and saying stupid ideas. And now he was holding the same thing in his hands, its shell broken and its eye cracked.
He quietly took it to one of his smaller dens, located outside Test Chamber 04. It had a small desk with a computer, and a wall where he had drawn on after Chell began testing. The word unreason was written in bright orange letters. He knew straight away Chell had been there, for there were footprints.
Doug set the construct down on the table, and began to try and repair it. It was more difficult than he expected, but he carried on. He couldn't do anything about the dents, and its eye would have to stay cracked, for there weren't any replacement lenses. Every now and then small sparks would burst out of the side. As Doug put the last piece in place, the construct turned to look at him.
"Who are you?" it asked groggily. "I'm Doug Rattmann. I was the one that first activated you, remember?" Doug said. "Oh yes!" it said. "Hello Doug. I'm Wheatley." It said the name with such certainty; Doug didn't bother asking how it had thought of it.
He opened a can of beans and began eating them. He was starving. Wheatley watched him silently. "Why did she hurt me?" he finally asked. Doug looked up. "What exactly happened in there? And how did you get a test subject?" he said between mouthfuls. Wheatley shuddered, and began to tell him.
"I was going through test subjects and I knocked on her door, and we tried to escape. Silent, she was. I dunno why; she just never spoke to me. Probably brain damage. Anyway, she went through some test chambers, and then we got to the one where the Portal Gun was supposed to be. But it wasn't there. So she went over to look, and the whole bloody floor went!" Doug and Cube looked at each other.
"She found a Portal device, though I have no idea why it was there. But we carried on testing, got to a way out, I nearly died… then we had to go through her chamber. She was off to start with. I went into the room and looked for a switch that said 'escape pod'. Couldn't find it. Then we started moving up, and er… well, let's just say big Ol' robot wasn't very happy with that. She started saying, "It's been a long time. How have you been? I've been really busy being dead" and that kind of stuff. Then it turns out this brain damaged person had killed her! Then she tried to bloody crush me! Unbelievable…" Wheatley trailed off.
Doug thought hard. There was a chance Chell was still alive, and she needed to get out. He turned to Wheatley. "I need you to help Chell escape," he told the construct. Wheatley stared at him. "But I –"
"No, this is important," Doug said over him. "Follow her until you can get her out. I'll put you back on your management rail, and then I'll watch her through my hideouts. They'll keep her informed about GLaDOS' real intentions. But she needs you, Wheatley." The blue eye shrunk in size. Doug could tell Wheatley was thinking about it.
"All right," Wheatley said. "I'll do it." Doug smiled and picked him up. He moved the desk, grabbed Cube and Wheatley, and lowered himself into the secret passage.
"That worked then," Cube remarked as the two of them went to find the den in the new Test Chamber 06. Doug reached in his pocket and found the radio he had reprogrammed. When it reached his den, it would begin to make strange noises. They could be decoded, but Doug knew that Chell didn't have the equipment to do it. As he placed the radio in the tube that went to the test chamber, he just hoped she would know he was watching over her.
As he opened a can of beans, Cube began to sing.
