CHAPTER THREE:

THE STALEMATE

There was no doubt that as far as bad ideas went, this one had been a disaster. It made sense at the time, of course (then again all of his ideas generally made good sense at the start), but, honestly, how else were they to escape? The lift was the only way out, and the only way to control the lift was to control Her. Ergo, plug him into the mainframe, and push the button.

Simple. Tidy. Effective. Then theory was put into practice and it all went to hell.

But, man alive, those first few moments of being in Her body had been brilliant. For the first time in his life, his programming didn't seem quite so directionless, even with the myriad possibilities that were suddenly at his virtual fingertips, begging to be explored and investigated and – important point, this – improved upon.

And it wasn't as though he hadn't been completely unprepared for the experience. He'd done his reading. He knew the drill: Great power, great responsibility; the two went hand-in-hand, or so said Vol…Er. Hmm. Vol-something. Voldermort? Voltage? Volvo?

Well, piddling philosophers aside, he was the core of the hour, and rightfully so, thank you. True, escape had been at the top of his to-do list for quite some time, but as soon as he was connected to Her mainframe, he couldn't remember what was so bloody interesting about the surface anyway. Why not hang around a few minutes longer? They were supposed to be partners, after all, and any self-respecting partner wouldn't have stood by wearing a sour grapes expression as he juggled storage cubes and spoke Spanish – fluent Spanish, mind you, not just the textbook phrases he'd memorized in the oft-chance he ever managed to actually visit South America, wherever that was.

But as the megalomania ebbed, and as his programming and subroutines normalized, Wheatley was finding it increasingly difficult to justify his behavior over the past few hours. He'd been awful on all counts – butchering turrets and storage cubes, throwing temper tantrums, mangling the facility…But worst of all was how he'd treated the woman who was currently sprawled unconscious on the floor in front of him.

He'd never experienced guilt before. The damage he'd sustained made it entirely possible that what his diagnostics were classifying as 'guilt' was in fact nothing more than a bunch of misfiring circuits. After being crushed, attacked by birds, and getting zapped by a cranky nanobot, it was hard to keep track of what was what. But he was pretty sure it was guilt.

For one, that nasty sensation grew worse whenever his optic landed on the sorry sight of his partner. And a sorry sight she was – scrapes, bruises, and burns covered every inch of her, and any remaining skin that wasn't in some state of distress was plastered with half-washed off mobility gel.

Had she looked this terrible before he'd taken control of the facility? How much of this was his fault?

She looked bloody awful the first time you laid an eye on her, he reminded himself. Bleary-eyed and brain damaged, stumbling around, jumping instead of talking. But she didn't look this bad. As if every last bit of spark in her had been permanently snuffed out. Yet even unconscious, she was still maintaining a sturdy grip on his handle, as if daring anyone to come between them.

He raised his pupil, peering over her shoulder to look at the massive chassis that hung looming a few yards away. Its occupant was busy at work, studying the two robots he'd found earlier.

Stupid cow, he thought to himself. Stupid…cow-y cow.

Almost as if She heard him, She pivoted, and for a moment the scornful yellow optic met his.

Alarmed, Wheatley's pupil shrank to a pinpoint, and he used his free handle to scoot himself a few inches closer to his partner – to protect her, he rationalized. Granted, the method of how to go about this protection business was still up for debate. He was currently drawing a massive blank in the brainstorming department, but still, he was at least trying. Besides, his native programming didn't sport much in the way of Defeating a Mad AI With a Grudge Bigger Than Her Arse, or How To Escape With No Legs While Dragging An Unconscious Human Who Might Also Possibly Be Brain Damaged.

"Interesting," She remarked, watching him clumsily hop-drag himself nearer to his friend. "You're not only a moron, you're also a coward. In some circles, that would be considered overachieving."

Wheatley had a brilliant retort poised on the tip of his vocal modulator, which he promptly forgot when She glided to where he and his partner lay, taking a closer look at the latter.

"Are...are you going to kill us?"

The words were out before he'd realized it, and he hastily tried to recover, babbling, "Sorry! R-rhetorical question, that – sorry, just slipped out. You'll be killing me, not her. Hah, quite clear on that point – crystal. Comprende. Mucho comprende, transmission one hundred percent received…"

The yellow optic focused back on him.

"Somehow I really, really doubt that."

She turned away, going back to the robots. The taller of the two offered him a friendly wave, oblivious to the one hundred and one ways to die that awaited it.

Wheatley forced a weak laugh in reply for appearances' sake, but also because he wanted to put on a brave front. No time like the present to start turning over a new leaf. Or any other variety of foliage. Also, no time like the present to scoot a tiny bit closer to the only thing in the room that afforded him some measure of shielding, i.e., his friend. Go team!

Not much of a team, though, he reflected, taking stock of a particularly nasty-looking scrape on her cheek. Teammates didn't get delusions of grandeur and smash each other into pits. Or go after them with mashy spike plates. Or spinny blade walls.

Wheatley's lid drooped, and he looked down at the floor.

Yeah. This was definitely guilt.


"Hallo! What's your name?"

Her voice was stuck. Mired in her throat, like a car in mud. She wanted to go home, where her words flowed freely.

"Chell?" came the voice again, as if reading it from something. "Okay! Put 'er there, partner."

She looked up, and then up some more into a cheerful pair of blue eyes. The knot in her throat started to ease the tiniest bit.

"Can I tell you something?" the voice asked, its eyes crinkling with eagerness over what it wanted to share.

She nodded. The voice continued to speak excitedly, but she noticed something was happening to the eyes – their blueness intensified to a brilliant turquoise, and slowly merged until there was nothing remotely human about them anymore. She was staring up at a single blue orb. It was swinging around, attached to something suspended high above, and still talking.

"This body is amazing, seriously! I can't get over how small you are!"

Chell looked down, somehow not surprised to find she had re-inhabited the body of her five-year-old self. A construction paper name tag with 'CHELL' written on it hung around her neck.

She took it in hand, studying it, realizing too late that the tone of the orb's voice had changed. Mere seconds ago the voice had been friendly, but now she heard nothing but malice in its words, and so she kept her eyes glued to the floor in hopes it would leave her alone.

It didn't.

"You know what you are?" it asked her, leaning down close. "Selfish. I've done nothing but sacrifice to get us here! What have you sacrificed? NOTHING. Zero. All you've done is boss me around. Well, now who's the boss? Who's the boss? It's me."

She was in danger, she realized. Instinctively she tried to call out for her dad, but the knot in her throat was tightening once more, squeezing her vocal cords together until she couldn't breathe. In her head she began screaming for help, knowing all the while that no one can hear a voice that is silent.


Woozy and exhausted, Chell awoke from the dream and opened her eyes, feeling a surge of adrenaline when she saw two robots peering back at her. They seemed to pose no threat, merely curiosity, and her attention soon zeroed in on the enormous robot suspended behind the pair, who was watching her with a single golden optic.

"Oh…thank God you're all right," She said as Chell struggled to her feet. "You know, being Caroline taught me a valuable lesson…"

Chell listened, keeping half-an ear on what She was saying, which sounded second cousin to a confession. She was busy taking stock of her surroundings, trying to assess how long she'd been unconscious. The chamber had changed – the hole in the ceiling had been repaired, or transferred, or taunted back into existence or God knows what else. Something had placed her into a lift. Her portal gun was gone, but she saw another in the hands of the orange-eyed robot, which was hefting it curiously as if it had been given a new toy.

"You know what my days used to be like? I just tested. Nobody murdered me…"

Wheatley. Where was Wheatley?

Still only half-listening, Chell spotted him in the corner, tossed aside like garbage. He was watching her; his optic widened and then shrank, darting in the opposite direction when he realized she had seen him.

"…You dangerous, mute lunatic. So you know what? You win. Just go."

The lift started to rise.

"It's been fun. Don't come back."

She's…letting me go? Just like that? Chell froze, waiting for the catch – for a sentry turret to appear out of nowhere, firing, or for the lift to give way, or lead her up into room filled with flames.

As the lift continued to rise, something ignited in her chest, an unfamiliar, dangerous sensation. Images began flashing through her head, thoughts and dreams that she never permitted herself to entertain, because of all the endless variety of deadly things that lurked in the testing tracks, the most fatal element was hope.

She focused her gaze elsewhere, uninterested, and the tiny spark in Chell's heart flickered and grew.

What would the surface look like? How would it feel to have the luxury of lying on the ground and staring up at the sky? To feel the sun on her face, and not the mocking sunshine that emanated from the hard-light bridges? To smell fresh air, and take a long, luxurious breath that was untainted by the scents of metal and sulfur and conversion gel?

Then her eyes fell back on the lone identity core in the corner. He peeked at her, then once again ducked his focus away. The sunshine-tinted images in her mind fled back into the tightly-locked box in her heart, and her eyes narrowed.

She was angry at him. She was beyond angry. On Chell's personal bar of all things pissed, Wheatley wasn't just at the top, he was through the roof, into the stratosphere and in a category by himself with hoard of mashy spike plates aimed straight for him.

Chell was, in fact, so angry that for a moment she even contemplated the possibility of saving him just to enjoy the feeling of abandoning him later. But to do that would make her no better – would make her just as inhuman – as Her. And that wasn't an option.

So she did the unthinkable.

She jumped out of the lift.

"Wh-wh-what are you – what are you doing?"

Chell hit the ground at a run and tackled the orange-eyed robot, who was too surprised to do anything but squawk as she wrested the portal gun away from it. ASHPD acquired, she swerved around the blue-eyed robot, grabbed Wheatley, and continued to sprint.

Panels lifted, blocking the way; still running, Chell lobbed Wheatley into the air, caught one handle over her arm, and hefted the portal gun in both hands, all in one swift movement.

"It's a beautiful day outside. It's too nice to stay indoors and risk your life for a tumor."

She fired twice, once at the floor and then at the ceiling beyond, dropping through the portal, hitting the floor and then running some more, heading in the direction that her instincts indicated was 'away.'

"Left!" Wheatley hollered. "Go left! I know where we are!"

Chell did as instructed, dodging panel after panel. It didn't take her long to realize where he was directing her: his lair, or rather, what remained of it.

After being transferred back into the mainframe, She had wasted no time in repairing the damage to the central chamber, restoring it to its former condition. However, part of Wheatley's lair had been left intact, a memorial of sorts, complete with RIP, Moron spelled out in large, blocky letters on the back wall.

Typical.

But this was one instance in which their opponent's hubris was going to come in very, very handy. Because amidst the scattered debris was the pit Wheatley had never gotten around to repairing – the one he'd punched into the ground during his tantrum – the one that was a miles-deep fall back into the bowels of Aperture.

…The one place Chell knew was out of Her purview.

"By the way. Your freedom was a one-time offer. I thought you'd like to know."

Chell ran straight for the pit, closed her eyes, and jumped.