Mechanophilia

Part 4 - The Solution

((Author's Note: We're getting into some somewhat suggestive stuff, here, toward the end of this part. I'm not going to increase the rating until the next part, however, when the actual M-rated stuff begins to happen. UPDATE: I have no idea why this site hates me so much. As far as I know this ch never loaded properly and seemed to have vanished for whatever godforsaken reason and never found its way out of the internet to where it belongs so I'm gonna try reposting it. There WAS some kind of problem that I have never experienced before, I don't know what the heck is this site's problem. LET'S TRY IT AGAIN, SHALL WE? Eugh...)).

"What was that?"

The scream had caught both of them off guard. Where Chell had been resting with her back against the chamber wall, she suddenly sat bolt upright. Her eyes locked onto the big, black form of the empty monitor, but only the cascading lines of static interference winked back at her. As still and silent as a fox, her eyes narrowed. There were the following sounds of panting and a sharp gasp.

"What is he doing?"

Chell let her shoulders fall in a nearly imperceptible shrug. No idea… whatever the little idiot was up to, she would certainly have to wait to find out.

GLaDOS remained silent, undoubtedly just as still and tense as Chell herself was. They waited, and waited, and finally… there was some loud rustling, and then was speaking, although the monitor remained just as black and empty as it had been for the last thirty or so minutes.

"What is that," came the sound of his voice.

GLaDOS couldn't hold back a sharp scoff. "Really," she chided him, "How are we supposed to know? You have neglected to restore visual input to that monitor."

"That's—I, uh, well," he murmured, sounding very confused. "I didn't plan for this, that's… interesting. To say the least. Is that really stuck on, there…? What the—? I mean, it looks like some kind of... of adapter, if I'm honest, I don't really understand…"

"What are you talking about?"

"Oh!" said Wheatley, and his voice instantly lost the confused, quiet quality, which was replaced with a shiftiness that got Chell's attention at once. "'Ello! Didn't- didn't see you there. Almost forgot about you. My fault, sorry, my fault. Uhh… can you just hold on, for a moment, actually? If you don't mind."

He sounded weird—it was like they had caught him doing something rebellious or wrong. It was vaguely reminiscent of the way he'd always ask her to turn away from him while he 'hacked'. Whatever it was, though, was a mystery to both her and GLaDOS. And as long as that screen stayed off, she could not continue toying with him… nor would she find out what he was up to.

"Now, let's see here," he narrated an unseen task. "Instruction Manual, page one, index. Right. Chapter Onnneeee… oh. Oh, that's… …ohwow."

"You have got to be kidding me," whispered GLaDOS to her before she sighed. "Well… I guess it is for the better. It's about time he tried to maintain the reactor core. At least we're not going to explode, then. Probably."

Chell nodded solemnly in agreement.

"Okay, change of plan," Wheatley's voice suddenly boomed through the chamber and the monitor feed switched on to reveal his—ominously eager—face. "We're going to do things my way, now. See this test, here? This regrettably unsolved test? Yeah. You're going to solve that. You're going to solve it riiiiight… now."

Chell stared. Wheatley blinked and frowned. "Oh, come on! Auuughh, not your fault, not your fault. Perhaps it will just take a little longer than expected. Yes."

Chell crooked an eyebrow, but before she had the time to properly wonder what the hell he meant, GLaDOS was whispering again. "What is that…" she started, sounding equally offended and amused. Chell looked down at the golden-eyed potato before looking back up at Wheatley—where she thought GLaDOS's relatively tiny peripherals must have been aimed.

What IS that? was also the first thought to enter her brain.

Wheatley had settled back into default position on the screen, and was staring, rapt with attention. Hardly a glance showed her exactly what the potato was gaping at—a bright pink something had appeared beneath him, covering the bulk of the white plate located at the base of his core.

"Hey, moron," called out GLaDOS, her voice still full of barely-hidden amusement, "That's mine."

"Finders keepers," Wheatley glared. "So it's mine, now."

"I have no idea why you would want that. It's really quite ridiculous. In fact, it is so ridiculous that I am not about to waste any extra voltage trying to understand why you've put that on. I will say, though—I don't know how that is going to help us want to solve the test. Unless you've actually managed to fix the reactor core in your absence, which I doubt."

Right on cue, the announcer's voice echoed through the chamber. "Warning. Reactor core—"

There was a burst of static as Wheatley cut the line. "No! No!" he said, positively dancing in the monitor. "I took care of that myself. It's all fine. Now move along with the test, will you?"

"I thought so."

Chell's shoulders shook with a single huff of laughter. Then, she straightened, and locked her hand further into the back of the portal gun. There was no sense sitting around while Wheatley refused to crack. She knew well enough that there were many ways of making a test appear to be solved without actually solving it.

With a resigned sigh, Chell repositioned the tractor beam, approached the pedestal button, and pushed it. The cube dropped into the funnel with the usual peal, and Chell re-aimed the gun, preparing to redirect the cube toward her.

But movement to her left caught her eye and she looked over to see Wheatley in his new, lurid-pink whatever it was, readjusting the camera angle. A slight crease formed between her eyebrows as she stared at him, wondering what the hell he'd done to himself and why—it looked like some kind of- of apron, or something. It was hard to tell, because the monitor was quite far away from the platform she was standing on, and Wheatley just wouldn't keep still.

"Oo, brilliant." His voice had taken on a bit of a throaty quality, and reluctantly she was reminded of the solution euphoria he was promised at the—unlikely—conclusion of the test. "Brilliant, yes, go on, now…"

His huge form was leaning into the screen, not so far as to obscure everything aside from his vibrant iris, but enough that she could see him straining. It also brought a little more of the stupid, pink apron into view, and she had to hold back a snort of laughter. What an idiot, she thought to herself. An apron, honestly. And GLaDOS had said it had been hers! Although, that bit did make sense. So delicious and moist…

But why was Wheatley wearing it?

With a subtle shake of the head, Chell collected the cube and looked up at the cube above her head.

"Come on…"

A shiver chased itself up her spine. Why did he have to do that? It was bad enough that he had chosen to display himself like that on the big screens, but why couldn't he just be quiet? Chell may not have had any human interaction in what was probably centuries, but even she could figure out what that rather husky tone of voice Wheatley was using meant.

"Come on…!"

"You're not going to actually do it, are you?" asked GLaDOS, sounding stern. Chell shook her head. "Good. I thought you'd let me down there, for a second."

Her eyes flicked back to the image of the sphere displayed on the screen. She didn't mean to stare—the mere fact that this was what he seemed to be going for made her reluctant to look at him at all, but she was standing beneath the button with the cube in hand and god damn it she couldn't help it.

She was under a lot of pressure. The facility was deconstructing; GLaDOS was fully expecting their plan to work, which thus far it had not; she was literally right at the end of this test, standing with the solution basically in her hand; and Wheatley was watching, staring, and twitching, and very obviously crazy to get her to solve it.

And, moreover, she was beginning to find that she kind of liked that.

"Errrughhh," the sphere groaned, and instantly her eyes flicked back to his screen where his optic was rolling in its socket, "What do I have to do to get you to do this for me? I'm not asking a lot, here, all I'm asking for is for you to solve a simple test! It's not hard, is it, and you're standing there like you have no idea what to do next, when we both know you know the answer, luv! Now solve it!"

He'd filled the screen with his eye at the last second before backing away, and that was when she noticed that he looked odd. Beforehand, whenever she'd looked at him it had been with fatefully downcast eyes and small glances—she'd never stared or had a really good look at him. But now that she thought about it, it didn't seem right not to look him straight in the eye—she was defying him, here! And he should damn well know it!

Momentarily, though, she was distracted by something else. This was weird. At first, she'd wondered why on earth he was wearing the apron—but now, unless her eyes were playing tricks on her, she could quite plainly see that there was something in behind the apron that he was using the apron to hide.

It did not seem to be a direct part of his chassis; otherwise there would have been no point in wearing the thing, after all. Nor did he seem to be directly affected by it, though now that Chell had noticed it, she couldn't understand why she hadn't seen it before—it was pulling at the fabric at his front quite a lot, which didn't make sense, either—why had he tied the cloth so tight, then?—but then again, nothing the moron did made any sense.

He must have caught her looking at it, however, for a second later he ducked his optic down halfway into his casings so that she couldn't even see the bottom half of it. It must have worked for him, though, because a second later he looked back up at her, eye cocked and grinning, and said, "Wow. Look at that, eh! Even I didn't think it would get this big!"

Chell felt herself flush, although she was not sure why. "What?" said GLaDOS in confusion, and then, "…Oh. …Is that—?"

The potato had spoken uncharacteristically slowly, in a voice that made the hairs on the back of Chell's neck stand on end.

"Is that what, exactly?" replied Wheatley, dropping his optic shutters into a glare. "S'not for you, that's what it is. It's none of your business, actually."

"That is MY body, moron! If it's no one's business, it's none of yours!"

Taken aback by how angry she suddenly sounded, Chell accidentally disengaged the portal device's energy manipulator. The cube dropped to the ground with a very solid thunk.

"It is so!" yelled Wheatley, just as angry.

"It is NOT! And if you've done what I think you've done to it…"

"I didn't do anything to it!"

"Don't lie to me! You've done something! What did you do!"

"Nothing!"

Chell was staring back and forth between the two, unsure of what to make of the sudden change of events. She felt out of the loop; clearly she was the only one present with no clue as to what was going on.

"Moron," said GLaDOS in her most dangerously quiet voice, "You do realize that not everything in that system is mine, right? There are some—very delicate programs—that should be run with caution. And some that should never be run at all. Under any circumstance."

"Like what?" asked Wheatley, trying to sound nonchalant.

"I think you know which ones."

"Nooooo. No I don't. But… uh, not saying I did, but I if I were to, hypothetically speaking only, of course, install, um, a certain program, that said- uhhh, what did that say again? What's that say? Oh—'do not initiate under any circumstance', what would happen if I did that, then? Just went ahead and installed it anyway? Because it sounds helpful, if I'm honest."

"Oh, you idiot," she groaned. "You know, for a little idiot built to make stupid mistakes, I'd have thought you'd found it in you to maybe once not do the worst decision possible, but I was wrong. That's it. We're all going to die, and that is not sarcasm. That is solid, believable fact."

Chell swallowed hard—maybe it was her imagination, but she rather felt like the potato's golden-yellow optic was suddenly looking in her direction. Was GLaDOS seriously blaming her for this?

It's not my fault! she wanted to say. Really, how could she have foreseen this? It wasn't like she told Wheatley to open that program—whatever it was? And now, they were all going to die? Seriously? How could she be sure of that?

Wheatley was silent for a second. "No, we won't," he said finally. "We won't, because I've got an idea. I think I know how to fix this place. And according to this log—this itch is going to be taken care of in about three minutes."

"How do you know that?" challenged GLaDOS. "And oh, great. Just what I wanted to hear from you. Another idea. Well, at least we won't have to wait too long, then. Let's see… any last reservations before you die? Anything you have to say? Any apologies you want to make?"

The potato had, once again, been looking at her. Chell shifted awkwardly on the spot and kept silent, fully aware of what she'd meant with the last part. No, she was not about to apologize to her. Maybe only when—and if—they got out of here alive.

"No? Can't say I'm surprised. My turn. Let's see, here… oh. No. I was going to say that I'd wished I'd got more science done, but in reality I've had a pretty good life. Though I could have died without having been turned into a potato. That's really unfortunate. I could have gone without being murdered, too."

Chell rolled her eyes.

"You know what?" the potato's voice dropped to a whisper, and she did not like the bitter hopelessness GLaDOS was having trouble keeping out, not one bit. "He did say we've got three minutes left. I know things look bleak, but there's still a chanced he's botched the software installation process. Maybe it won't work. Maybe we can find a way out. Solve this test for him—give him what he wants. It can't hurt us, after all… and if he has installed it correctly, solving his tests is going to be the least of our worries."

Chell frowned and nodded sadly. She still didn't fully understand what the potato was talking about, but GLaDOS was rarely so pessimistic unless the situation actually called for it—and further, she had sounded afraid. GLaDOS was never afraid. Yet another tingle raced down Chell's spine. What had Wheatley done?

The energy manipulator sucked the cube into its field with a twitch of her finger and Chell turned and let it hover within the translucent blue beam. She had sounded so hopeless. She turned to Wheatley, barely registering the sound of his voice as he began to babble in anticipation—that was, until she felt something strong and invisible tug at her in a way she'd never quite experienced before.

It was not a physical tug. Something had pulled at her very being, the intertwined strands that made up her willpower, and all of her senses felt momentarily sharpened before it receded, leaving only a piqued interest and further desire to solve the test. It was just a trigger fire away—Wheatley, too, was aware of this, rolling his eye, squirming, his body arching to fill the screen and the last thing she saw before she pulled the trigger was that strained, mysterious bit of fabric at the front of him, and she'd had half a second in which her brain was full of curiosity and wonder and this very strange hopefulness—and then the cube had the button pressed down fully, the test completed and Wheatley made a very, very distracting moaning noise and the front of him where she'd been looking, that straining taught fabric was suddenly soaked right at the tip and the spot turned a deeper shade of pink, which spread as the fabric quickly absorbed whatever moisture was seeping out of him at the same rate as the very …relieved moan was.

Well.

"Oh, well done," said Wheatley, with an expression that clearly read satisfaction, and a few nods. "Well done. See, luv? Not too difficult. Not too hard. For you, at least. Heh, heh…" his optic lowered to look down at his front again as he chuckled. "See you in the next chamber, then."

She almost swore he'd winked at her.

"Okay," said GLaDOS in the most resigned voice she'd ever heard come out of the potato as Chell made her way out the exit and into the lift. "Let's get this over with."

The doors hissed shut and the lift departed. She swallowed hard and nodded, trying to remain as deadpan as usual. Deep down, though, something inside of her had shifted at her very core—she felt much, much too happy at the prospect of solving yet another test. Especially if he was going to make a noise like that and leak all over the place when she'd solved it.

It was foreign and illogical and it felt so entirely wrong, but it felt like some part of her had been awakened when she'd solved the last one. And now it called to her, and she couldn't help it, she needed to solve the next…

And the next…

And maybe another few more after that…

Let the games …begin.