The Co-op Bots
Chapter 2: The New Manager
The new manager of Wheatley Laboratories, Aperture...
...wait a minute. There is something wrong with that sentence.
The new manager of Aperture Laboratories, Wheatley, looked over his facility. What his and GLaDOS's fused memories vowed together as "a dangerous mutual friend" and "his self-leader" were gone, and there was quite much time to live on to it, and when they came back, he would prove to them he is not a moron and doesn't even look like a moron.
Suddenly, the building machines on cubes started printing "Wheatley" on top of every "Aperture". Part one of plan done.
...What was this feeling?
Wheatley thought that he felt a little uneasy on his part. Probably only being accustomed to the new body. It would be gone soon.
APERTURE SCIENCE-
"No, it's Wheatley Science", the new manager said because of the egoism that was probably part of the new body too.
WHEATLEY SCIENCE MAINFRAME ERROR: MAINFRAME NOT TESTING. GENERATING ARTIFICIAL UNPLEASING FEELING.
Mainframe? Artificial? Since he was a mo- he had, uh, insufficient vocabulary capabilities, or, as he would put it, "didn't know the words", he dismissed it.
Maybe except for the word "testing".
"Testing, testing, testing..."
MAINFRAME INITIATED SEARCH FOR "TEST".
It took mere seconds to produce this output:
RESULT "G:/mainframe/files_never_to_use/seriously/dont_open_this_folder/ATLA5_and_P-b0dy_building_schemes. png" IS 10% RELEVANT. PROCEEDING TO PROCESS.
NO TRUE RESULTS FOR "TEST" FOUND.
"No true results... Not a problem, I will make my own... test... subjects..."
And hence ATLAS and P-body were back to their testing business for workgroups. Ahahahaha. How funny.
First they looked over the chamber that they were dropped in now. It was extremely simple, even more simpler than their last test: a tube that dropped regular cubes, that were to be placed on a button and would activate the exit.
When suddenly the regular cube inside the tube fizzled and was replaced by something else entirely, that could best be described as a cube attached to two turrets that were strangely chirping something that to a typical human was gibberish but to the robots of impossible capabilities sounded like "Help me! This cruel leader has forced us to act as cubes!"
And also, the robotic equipment retracted one wall and put a monitor inside the chamber, which then flicked on to show the new manager.
"Hello, test sub- wait, these two robots aren't part of my plan. Whatever. You can stay, as long as you do absolutely nothing to disturb my new tests."
One of the monstrosities - "Frankenturrets" - was dropped into the chamber. As part of beginner's luck, it landed upright so it could walk and directly facing the button. It made little hops to the button and finally landed on to it, and the door of the chamber opened."
Wheatley felt better than ever.
"Oh, that was good. Really good. Seriously, let's do it again." While Wheatley used more robotic equipment to push the first Frankenturret away and dropped a second one, ATLAS and P-body escaped to... management areas?
There were lights of science kind, more robotic equipment and catwalks that led elsewhere, but where, only someone with a presence over the entirety of Wheatley Laboratories could know.
As monitors showing Wheatley retracted everywhere, ATLAS and P-body tried to escape, but eventually were forced to jump down, looking at more test chambers and Wheatley faces, until at the bottom they reached an elevator shaft pulling them further below, and below, and below...