Title: Night of the Living Wheatley - Chapter 3
Rating: T-M for the gore to come.
Warnings/Pairings: Original Character, some implicated Chell/Wheatley, ah, later some horror and gore and I think that's it.
Summary: Based on rubitinmyeyes' art of an 'evil/dark' Wheatley: Contrite Wheatley makes it back to earth, where he finds a hostile Chell and an outcast Scientist willing to help him. Of course, the results were disastrous the first time Wheatley got a little agency and power…you can bet the little moron's learned nothing. I was a little nervous about the extent to which I employ original characters in this chapter but I did ask ConquerorWurm her opinion and I trust it.
Chapter 3
Wheatley could sense the nervous energy in the air on the Saturday morning. As his host had predicted, the late night rain had washed the evidence of vandalism from the windows.
Matilda emerged from the toilets, dressed in a pair of jeans and another of those over-sized cable jumpers; green this time.
"You still have something in your hair." Wheatley pointed out.
The woman grabbed a pair of scissors from one of her scattered piles of items and chopped out the hardened yolk mess with no apparent vain regard for her appearance. She also somehow extracted a tube of Chapstick from the chaos of spare parts scattered across her house and, barely glancing in the mirror, smeared it haphazardly about her mouth and gave her lips a smack. "We've got a lot of work to do today Wheatley. It's going to be dangerous."
Without further discussion she plucked him from the pillow and organized the bed, disentangling the covers he'd watched her toss furiously in all night long. When the simple tidy up was accomplished, she retrieved him once more and shuffled back to sit with her back to the window. Glancing skyward briefly she held him close to her body with her knees drawn up and his optic pointing towards her face. She spoke in that low hushed tone once more.
"I have to get my spare parts from the landfill and they watch me. However I have to bring you. It won't be an issue, I'll fit you in my carpet bag. I always use it and if I cover you up, they won't see you. You must be quiet. Totally quiet. Do you understand? I need you along though. You see, a robot should be able to choose what it looks like as a human."
Wheatley rocked his optic back and forth into his casing in his approximation of a nod. "Righty-ho, I promise, you won't hear a peep out of me luv." He could feel her hands shaking with terror and the shallow, nervous gasps of her breath on the underside of his hull as he was pressed against her diaphragm. The second part of her sentence was still troubling him though; he didn't know what she meant by it but he understood the command of silence and how important it was for her well-being and of course, his future.
The personality sphere found himself packed into a large but old carpet bag. He could blearily see out of the thinning weave, but as she turned in the mirror to scrutinize the bag he realized he could not see his reflection, not even the glare of his optic through the fibrous mass.
Satisfied, Matilda set him down with a gentle clunk and peered in. "How would you like to look?" she asked.
"I don't understand what you mean Lady. I mean, I want to look like a human, I guess, isn't that the idea?"
"Don't you have some thoughts on what makes an attractive human? I ah…could bring you some magazines."
"I want to be bloody massive."
Matilda's face coloured significantly. "In what way?"
"Well tall I expect. Is that a problem with humans?"
If it were possible the woman's cheeks darkened in colour further at the innocent reply. "Not in the slightest…I think it would work out quite well with you and Ms. Chell if you were perhaps ah…180 centimeters?"
"How tall is that?"
"Well ah I'm one sixty-seven."
The core processed this. "Bigger."
"Ah, one…ninety?"
There was a slight pause. "Two hundred."
Matilda gave her head a little shake to clear it but nodded affirmatively. "Alright, but it shall take me longer. More of you to build"
The little robot's body gave a slight tremble of anticipation. "Always been tiny little Wheatley. I rather enjoyed being massive."
The woman's face pressed close. "Well soon you'll be, ah, what was it? Massive."
"Bloody massive."
Matilda chuckled and zipped up the bag. "Hush now."
Wheatley bounced along without seeing where he was going. Every so often he received a soft pat to his hull through the bulk of the bag, his host and helper reassuring him of her continued presence.
His receptors picked up a certain nasty pervading odour in the air when they stopped, then some more jouncing along and the odour changed to something cloying and stale but not entirely unlike Matilda's house. Every so often the bag would open and pieces of metal would be inserted.
Sometimes Matilda would lean close to the bag. "How about this?" she would ask softly. He nodded his optic when the pieces were decidedly longer or thicker, shook his head when they were less impressive. Slowly she began to get the idea and produced pieces less frequently but more in line with what he'd told her that he liked. It added up.
Matilda hefted the bag of metal scraps and the spherical ball onto her shoulder with a groan.
"Lady!"
Matilda dropped the bag in a shock, unzipping it and pretending to paw through it as though she forgot something.
"Are you mad!" she hissed in the first anger the Personality core had ever experienced from her. Her face was a careful mask of nonchalance but her whisper held venom that GLaDOS would have been proud of. "I told you specifically not to talk!"
"I heard your shoulder crack!" Wheatley hissed back, admirably making an attempt not to speak aloud. His throaty whisper carried nonetheless. Wheatley was not designed for proper silence.
"Shhh!"
"Ms. Worth,"
Matilda looked up in utter horror as a man who looked every inch a stereotype lumberjack ambled towards her. His girth and size would have dwarfed a grown man and the woman quaking before him was a practically wanted criminal. "Something the matter Ms. Worth?" he asked again in a most unfriendly tone. "Let me see your bag."
Wheatley had the good sense to swiftly swivel his optic right around into the back of his hull and Matilda held her breath as the man dug through the bag. From the junk yard overseers perspective the bag was full of a a smattering of scrap metal, one of which was in an odd spherical shape but nothing he felt compelled to call the woman on.
"Get on lass!" the Commandant barked, shoving the bag in her arms and his ego stroked by the way the she ducked her head and cringed under his glare.
Matilda barely had enough room to breathe in the vehicle and Wheatley noticed. He'd come to think of the woman as another machine. A sad, restrained to a human form hull of a machine. He knocked himself against the side of the bag.
"Matilda!"
The woman sat up straight. It was the first time the robot had ever addressed her by her proper name instead of 'lady'.
"Wheatley? Ooh I'm mad at you! You nearly blew it on the first day!" she huffed at him.
"You can't help me if you die." He insisted. A small part of him also insisted that this train of thought was wrong. Like in the chassis. He did want to speak to Chell again, apologize. Like he had while he was floating through space. His host he knew was not well.
"Can I take you to dinner?".
"You can't pay for me Wheatley. Even if you were human you haven't any cash!"
"Would you go? I don't want you to die."
"Well, alright. We'll go."
Matilda smiled, her resolve in helping the robot strengthening. Wheatley for his part was just glad the woman was around to help him another day.
After the Friday evening she'd experienced, Chell's perception of human interaction was on a downward spiral. She'd promised Arthur however so she put on the only nice ensemble she owned and went to meet him at Bella Italia.. He bought her a glass of red wine and she could admit that the olives and bread with vinegar was lovely.
"Chell, you're the second I've told. Parents of course were first but I met a lovely girl in the city – Natalie. She's going to be my wife!" he raised his hand to display the gold band on his finger.
Suddenly all of Chell's fears about the evening dissipated. She wasn't vain but she had a certain well-kept fear that the gentleman across from her still carried a torch after she'd turned him down. Upon learning he'd truly moved forward she started to enjoy the evening.
"That is wonderful Arthur." She smiled. "We can keep in touch I hope. About books?"
"In writing." The man affirmed and added "With a pen. No email."
The waiter came and delivered their orders, then went to attend to the newly arrived customer.
When Matilda Worth walked in, Chell barely noted her presence. Arthur was too smart to question it even though no one had seen the woman in a restaurant in most people's living memory.
"May I see the ring?" Chell asked, extending her hand across the table.
Arthur subjected his hand to the scrutiny.
"It's nice." Chell said and she meant it.
"Oh Chell, isn't that Matilda Worth? In a real restaurant? That woman barely leaves the house. What would she be doing here!"
It occurred to Chell that it was a strange thing to see the woman out and about. Perhaps she'd taken the advice to heart and dismantled Wheatley. It was certainly an optimistic reason for her to have left her place.
"Come on, that poor woman doesn't have a friend in the world. Let's talk to her."
Chell gingerly followed him across the restaurant.
"Hello Matilda!" Arther smiled and sat across from her. "Lovely sweater!"
The woman picked in embarrassment the jumper but was all too obviously grateful for the compliment and she smiled warmly. "Thank you!"
Chell was rather embarrassed as well. "I'm sorry I was short with you the other day."
"That's okay. Are you here together?"
"It's a date!" Arther joked, eliciting a smile from Chell and Matilda alike.
"Join us would you?"
Matilda looked from Arthur to Chell in trepidation but upon seeing both man and woman smiling kindly at her she almost got up so fast she forgot her cane and caught herself on the side of the booth before she toppled to the floor. "Thankyou!" she babbled. "I'll just get the waiter to store my bag!"
Wheatley was trounced off to a dark store cupboard.
His optic narrowed in a slit through the blackness of the storage closet. He'd seen enough. This man was after Chell and he was working his voodoo magic on his host Matilda as well. Jealousy was burning in the little core. No one would steal Chell…and no one would jeapordize his chances at reconciling with the former test subject. The man, 'Arthur' had to go. Maybe Matilda as well. It would be a kindness maybe, separating the woman from her cruel forced attachment to the charisma of that smooth operator.
