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I couldn't wait too much longer so here, have some Wheatley. Now stuff actually starts happening. If I don't decide to be dumb I'll update this pretty often. So enjoy chapter two!
The first thing Chell saw when she came to her senses was blue.
It felt like she was staring into an endless ocean, or a clear sky. It was pure blue, too bright even. Like the pools that children rush into before putting on sunblock, despite the mother's protests. Or the butterflies that come out in the spring and hide away for the winter.
As she became more and more aware, she noticed that that she wasn't at the beach, or looking up. And that the pools of bright blue she saw were in fact, eyes. Eyes hidden behind a dark frame of large glasses. Eyes that looked really concerned. She examined further. Below these eyes she noticed a slightly angled nose right above a mouth, which seemed to be moving pretty fast. She wondered briefly why. Were they directed at her? Why would they be directed at her? That was dumb.
Then as she looked higher she saw yellow. Bright, bright yellow. Reflecting all of the sun's intensity onto her face. She almost squinted at the brightness, but then she realized she was looking at hair.
Then she started to listen. It was muffled at first, like a car blasting music in the distance, but it became clearer and clearer until—
"… And then you just stepped out! In the middle of all of these massive moving… things! Machines! Like nothing in Aperture that I've seen! I thought you were going mad. Actually, that brain damage might just be kicking in. You should probably get that checked, by the way. Not that it's a real big problem, just might get in your way at times. Like maybe, right now. But those monster machines, they…"
Wow, those were a lot of words. Chell wondered if she could sleep now. Sleep sounded really great right now. She relaxed and began to close her eyes…
"Chell! Chell?! No, don't do that! Don't go into the light! You can't go into the light! Chell, please, come on!"
That voice. That accent. It was so disturbingly familiar. So incredibly confusing. How did she know, how did she know…
Her eyes snapped open. What was going on?
"Who are you? How do you know my name?"
"You're awake! Well, of course you're awake. But you're conscious! I knew that wouldn't mess you up too bad, just as planned! Wait, no, you're talking! Ah, well, I, uh, that did go exactly as planned! I planned that perfectly."
Chell responded to this by raising an eyebrow.
" Oh, right, um. You don't remember me? You know, Wheatley? The Wheatley who helped you in Aperture. Might have saved you some times there. You know me, right? Uh, no you don't remember me, do you. All right, I may have to fill you in on a few things. I assure you, this was part of the plan too! It will come back to me eventually, I'm sure of it."
"My head's fine, if that's what you're implying. "
At this point he started chattering on about brain damage and exposure, and Chell started to hear something else. It sounded almost like a soft whisper nudging the back of her head. Then it grew louder and louder until—
"Get the hell off the streets, you lunatics!" Shouted a man, looking very frustrated as he made some obscene gestures.
Street?
She looked around, and surely enough, there was a street. And cars. And she just so happened to be lying on the street. The stranger—Wheatley, was it? – looked around quite anxiously as he began to explain something to her. She brought herself up to her elbows and stared at him blankly for a few seconds until he hit the brake in that winding sentence and stared back wide-eyed.
"What?" He sputtered out.
"Wheatley. We're in the middle of a street."
"Well, yes. I thought you were aware that some of those other filth—humans. Some other humans were alerting us about that. Not too sure what it could possibly mean, though."
She stared at him, bewildered, until a horn snapped her out of that trance and she gripped his hand tight enough to cut off any blood flow there could be there. Pulling tightly, she lunged for the sidewalk and heard the car speed away hurriedly.
Then she faced the man with the bright blue eyes. He stood well around a foot taller than her, wearing some clothes that suggested that he might have not been as abnormal as she thought. He wore a blue button-up which seemed to match his eyes, with some navy blue pants and neatly tied-up shoes. Crazy or not, at that moment Chell felt nothing but anger towards this guy.
"What the hell is going on?" She demanded with a glare.
"Whoa there! Calm down, luv. Everything is fine! See, thanks to that excellent quick thinking you did just there, we're perfectly fine! Nice job on that, by the way. Those machine-beasts can't get us now, right?" The last word brought a worried, questioning smile to his face.
"Not right! Not right at all! Who are you? How do you know me? Why did you knock me down in the middle of a street?!"
"I was right! I was right all along. Oh, no. Ohhh, no. This can't be good. I knew it would have some effect. I told you, serious brain damage! And wasn't little old Wheatley right? Of course! Morons, they called me. Well, who's the moron now?! Not—"
"Sorry to interrupt your little rant there, but what? Brain damage? What does that have to do with me? Are you calling me crazy?"
"What? No! Of course I'm not. You're not crazy at all. You're fine, perfectly fine. Just a bit, well, brain damaged." He watched her face grow more and more stern with every word. "Okay, look. You're probably really confused right now. And that's okay! That's completely normal, you should expect confusion!"
"Normal?"
"But I assure you, you'll remember what I'm talking about soon enough! Trust me, I know it."
"Brain damaged?"
"Well, to put it into better words, it's just a bit of cogn—"
"No! I think I'm the one who should be calling you brain-damaged! You knock me into the street, almost get me killed, knock me out, and now you're calling me brain-damaged? And telling me that I have some sort of problem? I don't think so. How dare you! You're such a moron!" She was jabbing at his chest now, fuming with all of her rage.
And Wheatley seemed speechless.
As Chell saw the look on his face, she felt her anger slowly ebb away into guilt. Something that she rarely had to deal with. He looked so shocked, so hurt. Chell wasn't a sensitive little nerve, but this seemed to strike her in the right spots.
But why? He was some random stranger she had never seen in her life. And yet, she felt like she had been holding this in, for someone specific. For doing something that did make that someone a moron. A huge moron. And here she was, taking it out on some poor man who seemed to be trying to do nothing but help.
"Then, I guess She was right, wasn't She?" he muttered. "About me being a moron. I guess you didn't forget everything."He turned away a bit. "Then again, I guess I deserved that. I mean, if I wasn't such a moron, I wouldn't have done those things to you. I should have thought twice. But what would I know! I'm just a bloody moron."
"Wait, Wheatley, I'm—"
"I did want to apologize for that, by the way. It was terrible. Being alone for so long, I deserved it, but I felt so, well, terrible. I was worse than She was towards you. I had it coming, didn't I?"
With a last glance to her, his bright eyes seeming dull, he turned away from her and walked off, ignoring her protests.
To Chell, everything he said seemed so true. Maybe she was brain-damaged. That would explain just about everything.
