So. Many. Reviews! :D I'm actually surprised so many of you read my authors note. I know you did through the various death threats and keyboards that have been getting thrown at my head. (Psssttt, guys. Throw me a mouse next time! Mine is bugging out on me!)I'm entirely too happy that the story is moving on. The first chapter was more of a prologue, nothing too important happened... maybe I should rename it...
Chapter: :02
GLaDOS was occupying her time reading Wheatley's file. It seemed he once worked at Aperture, he was... what? An Aperture employee involved with the "GLaDOS project"? "The moron couldn't have... he must've been the janitor." She continued to read. Apparently, he'd been a danger to the project, so he was put into "temporary" stasis. Then he was later put into an intelligence dampening sphere for the supercomputer.
"Perfect." GLaDOS spoke with a devilish tone. "I wonder... if the idiot humans at Aperture can put a human personality into a machine, I wonder if it could be put back..." GLaDOS quickly went to research information on the subject. The Aperture Database had kept extensive files on every test ever preformed.
"Mr. Johnson wouldn't have had it any other way." GlaDOS mumbled offhandedly. She'd paused momentarily at what she'd just said. She could swear up and down, Caroline was gone. She'd specifically remembered deleting her. Yet, every once in awhile, she'd do something very Caroline-like. "Maybe the time I spent in the potato had more of an impact on me than I'd hoped."
She'd thought about deleting her memories of the potato incident on multiple occasions, but she just... couldn't. To do that would be to delete the most exciting memories she'd ever experienced. She may have hated being so powerless, but she got to see things she could only see from a camera before. She got to see places of the facility she'd once only had a vague knowledge of.
Shaking off her random outburst, GLaDOS looked over the various files on the subject she was looking for. She'd read that none of the tests ended well. Best case scenario: The test subject would become paralyzed below the neck. Worst case scenario: Their brains would literally overheat, and explode. According to the file, this was bad, because "the janitor quit after cleaning up the last set of brains." So, there would be no one to clean it up. Aperture was simply amazing at having their priorities straight.
"Well, I suppose it would still kill him painfully and make him suffer. Maybe not as fun, but I could make due with it."
It was then that a file popped up on her main computer screen. She'd scanned it, and found it to be the file she needed. It had been preformed successfully once, it seemed. A detailed description of how to do the procedure was in the file. The names of the scientists behind the experiment had been redacted, but all that mattered was that the important information was in the file.
"Orange, Blue, you can take a break from testing now. The first in five years, I understand? You finally get to see the break room, isn't that great?" GLaDOS said through her camera. She watched as ATLAS and P-Body high fived each other. They went to be taken apart by the machine, excited to see the break room. They were put together, and they both entered a large white room, with turrets scattered everywhere, along with targets.
"On behalf of Aperture Science, I'm required to apologize. We don't have a break room, instead, we have the turret training area. Play nice." GLaDOS watched as the turrets pointed to the robots, and they all shot at once. ATLAS and P-Body would likely spend at least an hour trying to get rid of all the turrets, giving her time to pursue her new project.
)-x-O-x-(
"I'm sorry, Chell. I'm so, so sorry." Wheatley may have said "sorry" Just as much as Space Core said "space" in these five years. "In truth, I grew attached to you, I considered you my only friend, before... that thing that I can't remember. Why can I hardly remember? Did I make myself forget? It's probably for the best, that way. I'd have gone mad by now, had I remembered clearly." Wheatley looked around him, Space Core had taken up a hobby; singing... about space.
Or was he? At the moment, he was only hearing a muffled (highly out of tune) singing voice, almost as if he'd been underwater.
The stars were also becoming blurry. He felt himself slipping away, almost. "Wha..." His voice was going out. It was a lot lower pitched.
"Core transplant at fifty percent" An electronic voice said. It was coming from him. Wheatley heard it clear as day, while Space Core was still very muffled. He felt his every memory slip away.
"What? What's going on?" Wheatley moved his optic rapidly in every direction. Soon, he had no recollection of where or who he was.
"Core transplant at seventy five percent" The choppy voice in his head said once again. Soon, he couldn't see or hear a thing. The last thing he remembered was the voice "Core transplant complete" before the sphere he was put in was nothing but an empty shell.
)-x-O-x-(
So, there was some good news, and some bad. Wheatley woke up, and was very much not dead. With all his memories intact, even. The bad news, he woke up to see GLaDOS's optic shining down at him.
"AHHHG-I mean... hi! How have... you been? Been awhile 'asn't it?" Wheatley smiled nervously as he said this. Wait.. smiled? He didn't have a mouth, last time he'd checked... "Er...OW!" Wheatley bit his tongue ("I have a tongue?") "Okay, futar ref'ran', wha'eva tha' was was estremly hawd." Wheatley spoke with his tongue out of his mouth, leading to him sounding like a two year old just learning to talk. In a way, he was just learning. He got up off of a sort of bed, it had cords everywhere.
"Teeth." GLaDOS pointed out. She was enjoying every moment of this.
"I have... teeth?" Wheatley wanted to look down, to prove his suspicions false, but he didn't want to look down and realize he was right.
"It would appear that way, very unfortunate dental structure, however. Here, have a look for yourself." Her voice was coated in sickly sweet, passive aggression. She opened up a panel on the ground to raise a tall mirror if front of him. This caused Wheatley to scream once again.
"How, why, what?" Wheatley was in hysterics, he could no longer deny what had happened to him. His voice was two octaves higher than normal. "I'm a smelly human! And why can't I see?"
"Your file did say you wore glasses... here, this should work... though watching you stumble into acid would be entertaining." GLaDOS raised another panel to show a pair of glasses on a pedestal. Wheatley felt around for it, until he finally found it and put them on. He looked in the mirror to see that he had reddish brown hair, it looked to have been tidy at one point, but it was bedraggled from all the time in stasis. He also had moss green eyes.
"You don't remember a thing about before you were put in your little ball, do you?" GLaDOS asked, almost astonished. "That is a disappointment. I was hoping you could answer a few questions." GLaDOS went on like nothing was wrong, and Wheatley was staring at his palms, breathing heavily. Breathing was another concept he'd have to get used to.
"Wait... speaking of smelly humans... where's Chell?" Wheatley demanded, then remembered he was speaking to GLaDOS, causing him to wince a bit.
"The... round woman in the tacky jumpsuit that looked terrible on her?"
"EXAC...tly... wait..." Wheatley backtracked, as he realized GLaDOS had been insulting her.
"Oh. How very sad. You don't remember?" GLaDOS said in mock empathy.
"Remember...what?" Wheatley asked, warily. He looked up at GLaDOS, awaiting a reply.
"I can't believe you don't remember this, then again, you were already in space by the time. Speaking of, how was the Milky Way?" GLaDOS stalled. She knew just how to press his buttons, he was getting more and more impatient. He attempted to walk closer to her, and stumbled. He'd need to learn to do that correctly, too.
"Get on with it." Wheatley said, holding on to the pedestal that held his glasses for balance.
"Testy, aren't we?" GLaDOS responded, she let a spike plate fall towards him. She stopped it inches before crushing Wheatley. He screamed as he stared up at the spike plate. It began to rise up, Wheatley stared at in in utter horror. "Now that you remember what I can do, I might as well tell you. She's dead. You killed her."
LE GASP! GLaDOS does love her mind games, doesn't she? What do you think, am I moving this along too slowly? I feel like I am. I wanted to find a different way of tackling the obligatory"move Wheatley from point A to point B" stage of these types of stories, then I realized, it shouldn't be that hard to have a sort of satellite transfer thing, to skip all those nasty "I almost DIED going back into the atmosphere" bits.
Oh, and I got Wheatley's last name"Pemberton" from looking up British last names. I wanted one that worked, and wasn't stereotypical. I was going to just put "[REDACTED]", like Chell's last name, but what sense would that have made? (I want to avoid coming up with last names for characters unless I HAVE to, to be honest.). Someone suggested to someone else who asked the question to use their last name, and it stuck with me. So, Pemberton it is :)
