Chapter 3: Guidance While Asleep

"Stay back! I won't hesitant to fight! Actually I can't move or anything, but that's beside the point!" Wheatley semi-yelled at the human, however, the human put a finger to his lips and pointed at Amber, who moved a bit in her sleep.

"Shhh, I'm not here to harm you or the girl, but simply help you help her escape," The human said. As the human came into the light, Wheatley got a better look at him. He wore a white lab coat, his hair was messy and he had a beard. A pink companion cube was strapped to his back.

The man stopped moving towards them and started talking. "Yes, I know it's dangerous to be out in the hallway, but these two need our help. I know it's also dangerous to help a personality sphere because he might be his eye and ears. Look, I'm not going to argue with you anymore, I'm helping them," said the man. Wheatley was looking around for who he was talking to.

"Um, who are you talking to?" Wheatley asked.

"Huh? Oh, no one. Anyway, let me introduce myself. I'm Doug Rattman," said Doug.

"I'm um, Wheatley, and she's Amber," Wheatley said.

Doug nodded his head, "Let me ask you something, what did A.A.C.E's optic look like?" asked Doug.

"Um, there was a diagonal split with one side being red and the other side being cold light blue," Wheatley replied.

"Oh no," Doug said, backing up a bit.

"Is something wrong with that?" Wheatley asked.

"A.A.C.E has a corrupted side, like all A.I's. But his side was different, we couldn't stop it. So, every once in a while we would remove some corrupted files in him, but with the facility being abandoned for so long no one has been able to remove his corrupted files," Doug explained.

"As a core he wouldn't be able to do much, but now that he is in control of the facility…" Doug trailed off, he was backing off more.

"Hey! Where are you going?" Wheatley asked.

"We have to leave this facility NOW!" Doug yelled.

"Why?"

"Because he'll recycle all of the cores and kill all the humans, including us!" Doug was backing up faster now.

"If we don't leave now, we won't ever be able to leave. He's a smart core, his corrupted side will know how to stay in power and how to not mess up," Doug said.

"When she wakes up, lead her to the escape lifts, and don't let her spend too long in this facility. It can be a fatal mistake," Doug explained, he turned around, and ran down the hallway, turning a corner and disappearing from sight.

Wheatley began thinking on what Doug said. "Don't let her spend too long in this facility. It can be a fatal mistake." "Is A.A.C.E really that dangerous?" Wheatley asked to no one. Then, Wheatley heard a cart being pushed down a hallway; he looked down the corridor to see a Party Associate A.I pushing a cart, filled to the brim with personality cores. The A.I was created to direct subjects at the end of testing to a party room for their party. It was strange and almost creepy looking. The A.I was entirely purple; it walked on two legs, much like a human. The Party Associate's head was that of a personality core, it had a purple flag on the back as well. Its eye was also purple.

The Party Associate pushed the cart to a chute that resided in the wall; it was built for employees to through their trash down to the incinerator. The Party Associate opened the chute, and, one by one, threw the cores down the chute, to their deaths. Then the Party Associate looked over at them, it stopped what it was doing and began walking towards them.

"Um, Amber…NOW WOULD BE THE TIME TO WAKE UP!" Wheatley yelled as loud as he could. Amber stirred from her sleep, she sleepily opened her eyes. When they fell upon the approaching A.I her eyes shot open and she quickly stood up. There was a broom closet across from them, Amber ran in there with the portal gun in her hands, which was holding Wheatley. She opened and closed the door; of course there was no lock on the inside. Amber looked around; she could hear the heavy footsteps of the approaching A.I. Amber then looked up and saw a vent, with access!

Amber set Wheatley and the portal gun atop of the shelf; she then climbed up the shelf where the grate to the vent was. The vent was not screwed in, it just sat there, and she pushed it out of the way and put Wheatley and the portal gun in the vent. Amber heard the A.I at the door. "Thank you for assuming the party escort submission position." Amber heard it say. Before it could open the door she lifted herself up into the vents, grabbed the portal gun and Wheatley, and began crawling through the vents. As she was crawling she heard the Party Associate open the door.

So, A.A.C.E was using the Party Associate to collect and incinerate other cores, and it also seems that A.A.C.E gave it the task to locate Wheatley and herself and possibly, bring them back to the central A.I chamber. She kept in mind to avoid the Party Associate at all times.

Amber was so deep in thought she didn't hear the vent creak and groan under her. Only when the bottom of the vent collapsed and she fell out did she come out of her thoughts.

"AH!" Amber yelled as she fell onto the cold hard floor, she accidentally let go of the gun, which let go of Wheatley, who started rolling around. "Owwwww," Wheatley groaned in pain. Amber slowly got up and looked around the room, they were in a security room, and one wall was filled with monitors that had different camera feeds playing. One monitor showed the Central A.I and A.A.C.E. It seems he was cleaning the place up and talking to the Party Associate.

Amber, being curious, turned on the volume for that camera, "YOU WORTHLESS PIECE OF MECHANICAL TRASH!" A.A.C.E yelled over the speakers. "AH!" Wheatley screamed, not expecting A.A.C.E to yell. "I give you a simple task to locate them and bring them, and yet you fail," A.A.C.E said to the Party Associate, who was clearly shaken and scared of the hostile and aggressive A.I. "Find them and bring them to me or I'll throw you down the incinerator along with THE OTHER CORES!" The Party Associate nodded, still very scared, turned and walked out quickly to find Amber and Wheatley. A.A.C.E then looked at the camera and smiled, "I know you two are there and are watching," A.A.C.E said. Amber looked around the room and saw a camera staring at her. "Don't worry, I'll make sure both of your deaths are…painful and slow, hahaha," A.A.C.E laughed in his corrupted voice. Amber went over to the keyboard and quickly disabled the camera in the room. "Oh, you think you are smart? You're talking to a supercomputer here, I'm much smarter than your simple brain, I WILL find and kill you, don't worry about that." The screen then said "NO SIGNAL"; in fact, every screen said "NO SIGNAL". Then the lights flickered and turned off as the room began to shake. Amber then felt the room move; she opened the door to a shocking sight. The whole room they were in was moving away from the corridor, as the corridor got farther she felt the room turn. When the room did a full 180 degree turn she saw something even more shocking, the central A.I chamber. However it was different, the corridor connecting to the chamber was in the process of being deconstructed, and two massive claws were mounted on either side of where the corridor still sat. On the wall opposite of the claws sat two more claws. The claws on the outer wall were giving the claws on the outside walls of the central A.I chamber boxes, these boxes where then put into a tube with a lid, when the lid opened Amber could see flames.

A wall that made part of the central A.I chamber opened to show the corrupted A.I staring at them. "Like what I've done to the place? I think it feels more…at home for me, for you, it'll feel like the end of your useless life," A.A.C.E tauntingly said, "Now, let's get down to business shall we? Running off when someone wants to kill you isn't very nice." "Killing someone isn't very nice!" Amber yelled at the A.I, "Oh, I love it when you yell, I also love it when you think you are stronger than me, when in fact, I can think of 100,000 ways to kill you right now," A.A.C.E replied.

Amber was shocked, to say the least, but when the room violently stopped moving, causing both Amber and Wheatley to fly out and into the A.I chamber, she was afraid for her life. In front of her was a massive corrupted A.I who wanted both of them DEAD. She remembered GLaDOS trying to kill everyone with her neurotoxin, and while that was scary back then, A.A.C.E seemed to be more powerful and much scarier than her. Heck, he made the Party Associate tremble, speaking of which, where did it go?

"Um…A.A.C.E," Amber began, "If you knew where we were, why did you send the Party Associate after us?" "Oh, well, I had to make him think he was doing something correct, when in fact, when he left the room I trapped him and slowly crushed him," A.A.C.E said with a smile, "I'll never forget how he screamed and struggled as the spikes impaled and broke his purple casing, I'll also never forget when he gave up and the crusher completely crushed him."

Amber's eyes were wide as she heard and saw the evil A.I smile and remember when he killed the Party Associate, "You're a MONSTER!" Amber screamed. "Aww, thank you, that the best compliment I've heard all day," A.A.C.E replied, still smiling.

Amber had a feeling she did not like. She felt that the end was near