Wheatley's List of Brilliant And Original Ideas For Wheatley Laboratories Dot Text

By Wheatley

*Consider exchanging soothing music for something more upbeat and poppy. Get test subjects moving faster. Faster tests = more euphoria!

*Paint that one test chamber purple.

*Find purple paint. We've got to have a supply of it somewhere. -DONE. Though it's really more of a "mauve" but beggars can't be choosers, can we?

*Lavagators. Contingent on finding supply of alligators and lava. May take some time.

*Panels + spikes = mashy spike plates. Panels + lasers = zappy laser plates? Investigate.

*Figure out how to make gravity in a test chamber go ←- that way.

*Companion turret cubes -DONE

*Write song about self. Important song! Play it in test chambers.

*Make GLaDOS Core, aka Gem, sing important song about me.
*Killer potatoes. Not sure how yet, but we've got a bloody giant potato plant growing through the facility and I ought to do something with it. Can't eat it. What have I got to combine with a potato? Birds. Birds are vicious. Bird + potato = potatobird? Keep this in mind.

*Mobile Turrets -DONE

"Ah, it feels good to check that off the list!" Wheatley nodded his core with self-satisfaction as he looked down at his six new creations, lined up in his chamber like little red-eyed soldiers. "You should feel proud, you lot. 40 test turrets and you're the ones who didn't completely fall apart during the alterations. Or explode, or fall apart and explode, that sort of thing. But hey, six out of 40 isn't bad, is it?"

The first six Mobile Turrets were a bit unwieldy-looking, he had to admit. The tiny legs of the turrets had been removed, their lower bodies instead attached to small tank treads granting them full mobility on flat surfaces. They could swivel their bodies up and down to a degree for better aim and range. He'd even printed a little 'WHEATLEY' on their backs as proof that they were his creation and not something he'd merely inherited from Her and Her creators. That was his favorite part.

"You should be proud. Proud, I say! This is a great day for Turret-kind. Why, it's the moon landing of turret history. As soon as I switch your treads on, you'll have a power none of your ancestors had. You'll be free to frolic! Well," he amended with a tilt of his eye, "perhaps 'frolic' is the wrong word. Don't get me wrong, I did try to give you springy legs! Didn't work. Lots of turrets bouncing against walls uselessly and falling over. So we had to sacrifice fun and whimsy for functionality. But you know what? You'll be able to move! Anywhere that isn't, um, stairs. Stairs wouldn't work. Also do try not to roll off of platforms. But while you're on platforms? Free reign! And here she was saying I don't do science. Doing a bloody deal more science than she ever did, right? Just the same test over and over and over. I," he affirmed with a flare of his panels, "am improving things. Little by little. Don't you agree, mates?"

"We love you!"

"We love you!"

"I don't hate you. In fact, I love you!"

"We love you!"

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;

Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou growest;

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee."

"I love you!"

Wheatley stared for a moment at Turret S1564-42316PR.

"...Well, that's...interesting. We'll, uh, we'll look at your programming later, eh mate? Nothing wrong with the occasional 'weird' turret. They've happened before. But anyway! Let there be movement! That was-God, I was paraphrasing God there. I don't think he ever actually said 'let there be movement,' just sort of assumed it. Hand-waved the thing, presumably as soon as he made, um, fish I guess. Anyway, hitting the switch now…"

The turrets immediately started moving, just as he planned. Granted that it was a bit of a slow movement, and they seemed to have trouble turning. He hadn't thought of that. As a result, some collided into one another, both knocking the other over, while at least two turrets ran into walls and got stuck. They let out little whines, pleas and affirmation of their preprogrammed unconditional love as they wiggled on the ground.

"...Ah. Yes. Okay, well...it' s a start! A start, yes. I think we'll go ahead with it and just make sure not to put you lot near corners or, um, ledges. Yes. Science comes in increments! It-augh. Bloody hell, it's getting worse…"

A shudder ran through him, transferring to a tiny shake of the chamber itself that knocked over the last mobile turret. The Itch had intensified the entire time he'd been working on the turrets, a process which had taken the equivalent of a night even with the processors and information he had at his fingertips. Test solved by his robots had alleviated the pressure from time to time, but in the meantime the discomfort had been distracting. Most of the time it had been a dull irritation he could ignore, but now it was welling up like a wave of choking heat. "But-but this is science! This is bloody testing! Why'd they even program me-I mean Her-I mean this chassis like that if they wanted us to do more than one bloody kind of test?"

He turned towards the cameras, displaying all of his testing subjects on panels at once while broadcasting to all of them at top volume. "Will you HURRY UP and solve the tests, you bloody useless bags of metal?! We have important work to do and you're all playing around doing whatever it is you do when you're not solving my tests!"

Atlas and P-body both jumped and hugged one another, making frightened chirps. Space's pupil shrank and he hid behind a cube not big enough to conceal his body, muttering about "space monsters." He appreciated those three for how easily they were cowed and how much they clearly respected the authority due him; their terror assuaged his temper for a moment. Carefully he turned his gaze towards the other three testing units, hoping for a similar reaction.

The newly-rebuilt Adventure Sphere Testing Robot was ignoring him entirely, singing his own theme song while swinging on a loose chain over a pit of toxic waste. Wheatley had begun to suspect the Adventure Sphere was not programmed to experience fear at all, or humility for that matter. "I don't know what I expected," Wheatley muttered to himself. Fact Core was responding dispassionately with information about the sea cucumber. As for Gem, the one he really wanted to see cowering…

She didn't notice him. She wasn't pushing cubes or manipulating panels. As far as he could see, she wasn't doing anything but sitting in the center of the test chamber, ignoring him.

"...Excuse me? Hello?!" He shut the feeds off from the other robots to focus on her. "Are you functioning? I haven't gotten any signs you aren't functioning, and I am informed of such things as they happen so I can re-download the testing robots into a new body with memories intact, so I assume you are, in fact conscious. And not listening me, and ignoring me, and wasting my time not doing a test. Is-is there a particular reason for that? Not rebelling, are you? Not some form of petulant resistance, is it?"

Again, no response came from Gem. The creeping they're-all-against-you-laughing-at-you-planning-your-inevitable-demise feeling washed over his mind again, whispering to him that she was up to something. She was still Her, after all, or close enough. He should have deleted Her the moment he found Her; he should never have woken Her up again, even if it was under his control.

But to go back on his experiment would be to admit failure; worse, it would be failure at something designed to prove his superiority to Her. Besides, Gem was not a Her, merely a testing robot who complained about corruption and nitpicked his building skills. Gem was his. He couldn't let Her-no, her control him like this.

"Okay, well, usually the plan for a test subject refusing to participate would involve filling the room with neurotoxin. That was obviously programmed in back when it was more common to use humans as test subjects. Which we did, once upon a time as you might have gathered. Very impractical. They die and need to be fed and leak all sorts of disgusting substances and sometimes they betray you and break your heart into a thousand pieces, and when they do it's entirely their fault and not yours at all." He was trying to keep his cool this time, refusing to let Gem ruin his day with her obstinance. "On you the neurotoxin would be rather wasted, I'd think. On the other hand, I could discipline you the way I did Rick when he got a bit fresh, eh? Hmm?" He flipped a panel to reveal a spike plate on the ceiling, slowly lowering it above the Atlas-type robot who still failed to respond. "Hmm? Anything? Any...insults? Quips? I could mash you. Into pieces. Just-just saying." He lowered the panel further, to no avail; it hovered five feet above her head. "Oh, it's no bloody fun if you don't do anything! Just wake up, would you?...Man alive, maybe you are malfunctioning-"

GEM CORE REBOOTING! The announcer's cheerful voice startled Wheatley. "What? Huh? Uh...wow, she did," he said as the chassis confirmed it. "She is, she's bloody rebooting. Wonder why? Guess those complaints about corrupt files were correct. Well, um, once that's over we'll get back to testing, eh?"

The spiky plate wiggled right above the Gem core, whose eye-light had gone out. The creeping feeling kept whispering to Wheatley, advising him to smash her and delete her program while he had the chance, and he continued to ignore it.

Two Hours Earlier

Okay. Let me walk you through this. You exist. You're some kind of entity or program, and your presence is interfering with me and my smooth operation. To put it straight, I do not want you here.

Here? Here. I am here. i am here which is to say i should not be here i should be-

No. Stop. Focus. Gem did not know why she was bothering to try to communicate with the Thing in her head. She'd spent hours almost coaxing it out of hiding, but it would degrade back into aimless, mostly incoherent rambling, slipping in and out of her detection. It was affecting her concentration; in the last test chamber she'd nearly taken a bad spill. In this one she was taking advantage of Wheatley's apparent negligence to stop and concentrate on the Thing.

If she could identify where it was, she could isolate it and delete it.

Okay. How about this. You seem to be an independent program of some sort. It's astonishing to me that he has an entirely separate intelligence installed into this thing and never so much as mentioned it, but maybe he intended it as some kind of surprise. She could never tell what Wheatley intended or not. It's obviously causing us both trouble because this thing only has enough memory storage for one complete AI program. In fact, we probably have a few shared data blocks and I can't delete them without wiping out chunks of my own already unstable self. That said, it is a risk I am willing to take if you do not pull yourself together and FOCUS.

...Focus. Focus focus, the other thing said, and somehow it seemed to speak in a clearer voice. Its communications with her were less disjointed and choppy already. I can focus! I have quite the focusing capability. Very, um, sorry. I lost my train of thought. But I had one! That's a start, right?

...I suppose, yes. Gem confirmed that It was an independent entity, and deleting it was going to be even more complicated than she thought. The first thing you should do is give yourself a name, so we can keep our identities separate as long as we're both in this core. I'm identified as Gem, and apparently my job is to test whatever it is we test here. I was built for that purpose. What about you? Let's pick a name for you. I was thinking Tumor.

TUMOR?! The other thing had no true voice to raise, but Gem detected a spike of anger. So, she concluded, it also had emotions. I am NOT going to be called Tumor. I don't even know what that is, but it just sounds disgusting. I am...I am-I am-Intelligence Damp-... Another wave of static hit just in time for Gem to avoid turret fire by leaping through a portal onto a higher platform.

Be careful, she advised the Other. Testing is pretty dangerous, and we're in the process of one now. I can be rebuilt if this body is destroyed, but when He re-downloads me He will probably notice you. And I guarantee you, if He didn't intend for you to be here, he'll wipe you out to erase evidence of His mistakes. He's pretty insecure.

He? He who? There was a sense of confusion; Gem realized she could detect the emotions of the Other without really feeling them herself. It was a peculiar sensation.

Well. She swiveled her optic around the room, seeing no sign of a giant blue eye leering down at her. You'll meet Him soon enough. Earlier, you said Intelligence Dampen. What does that mean?

Another crackle of interference briefly warped Gem's vision this time, the camera flickering. Are you sure you want me to do that? Every time I try to identify myself we seem to experience some trouble. Not that I doubt I have some kind of identity. I mean even when I tried to read my own program name, Intelligence was in there. So obviously I'm an intelligence program! Maybe some kind of spy software. Oh, you imagine if I was? At any rate, it's good to know I'm intelligent. Smart apple, that's how I like to think of myself. But I don't know what to call myself. Intellidam? No, that's pretentious nonsense. Mr. Dampen? That just sounds like a diaper, to be honest. Some awful diaper brand…

As The Other babbled endlessly through her mind while Gem attempted to navigate over a pit of bubbling black sludge, she began to miss when It was just an endless stream of incoherent questions. Besides that, there was something terribly familiar about It in a way that didn't quite make sense. Did Aperture reuse personality types as well as voices for their AI programs? It would make sense as a cost-cutting measure, but such laziness of design! If she were in charge she'd encourage much more pride in their products.

She brought herself to a stop in an apparently empty and relatively quiet test chamber. Something was distracting Wheatley again if he sent her here. That meant she had time to work through this problem, at least, on her own.

Hey. She started communicating to the Other again. Not to interrupt your insightful self-examination, but let me make the process of naming you easier. After all, I'm the only one who will ever have to know your name, unless you want to risk exposing yourself to our boss-and I would not suggest doing that. Your initials are I.D., right? Let's call you Id.

Id? That short? I mean, not very fancy, but...well. It is your body, Id conceded. Isn't it? Far as we know, anyway. Wait, isn't that some kind of term for something or other? Should have been programmed with a dictionary if I am an intelligence program. Let's see, dictionary, diction-AUGH! This time the interference actually triggered the part of Gem's core capable of simulating pain, and she cried out at the same time he did, her arms wrapped around her Atlas-type body until it passed.

...Look. Patience. She had to have patience with Id at least until she could get him separated from her. When she started thinking of Id as male she wasn't sure, nor why. You've only started thinking in sentences in the past hour. Don't push it, especially since we're both heavily corrupted programs right now due to our situation. By the way, I am 90 percent sure this was unintentional on His part. He grabbed a program that must have been you and jammed you in here arbitrarily to try to fill in holes, which opens up even more questions about what exactly I am and paints His worth ethic in a terrible light. Let me give you something else to concentrate on in the meantime. You said you're a smart apple, right?

Oh, yes! Got to be, with a name like that. Somehow, Id managed to sound smug despite communicating in nothing but data. Yes, you're quite lucky to have me in here, especially if your job is to solve tests. We'll be doing them so fast it'll get boring. Completely boring!

Good. So why don't I give you the wheel for a little while and you get used to having control over our current body while you solve this test chamber. By the way, that's Him over there on the left wall. Wheatley. He's our boss. I wouldn't say anything if I were you while you're in control. Wouldn't want Him to see you there. I did say how he reacts to his own mistakes.

With that, Gem forced a reboot and experimentally relinquished control, feeling herself slip back into the recesses of her own mind. She hated the idea of it in theory, but she had to know more about the alternate identity she was stuck with in order to confirm her as yet unbelievable suspicions about him. There were two possible outcomes to this test: either he would live up to his bragging and solve the test easily, or he would get them killed and she would be downloaded into a new body, interference-free.

Ah, but she loved Science.

"No, really," Wheatley warned as he wiggled the spike plate a mere foot above the idle Gem. "what'd you go rebooting for? Completely unnecessary if you ask me. If you're just stalling for time to make up for being unable to complete my brilliant test, do say so! I'm a forgiving sort. I'll just laugh for hours, that's all. In your face. Broadcast all over the facility. Just for-"

Gem's eye lit up again, and she stared up at him for a moment with her pupil shrunk. Then she turned upwards, stood, stumbled on her own mechanical feet and ran for it moments before the plate hit the floor. "AHHH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAHHHHH!"

That was just too much. Wheatley burst out laughing for real, his entire chassis body shaking. "Oh my-oh god, oh crumbs! That's the best thing that's happened in a month! Thank for that, really. Did you plan that? What scared you, the spike plate or the thought of being made a joke of? Because if you hate teasing, maybe you should have thought of that before-you know, nevermind." He caught himself before he revealed too much information to her. "Go on then, solve the test! No moving on 'til you do. I know stress gets to us all, except me, but you'll just have to deal with it. We've got all day. Or, you know, one hour before I set the test chamber on fire. Either way."

Scaring her didn't grant a drop of euphoria, but it did wonders for his mood and self-confidence. Wheatley puffed out his plates despite knowing no one was around to see it before flipping a few panels in the chamber, sending in several of his new creations. Even now Gem was standing and staring at the walls as if she'd never seen them before, clinging to her Portal Device like a security blanket. She recoiled as six Mobile Turrets emerged from all sides and started moving towards her.

"Oh, and to thank you for that lovely display, I'm letting you test my new creations. See? Look at all the science we're doing here, eh? Don't worry, more to come!"

What is this? What's going on!? Id seemed a little displeased with Gem's decision to put him in the driver's seat. What did you bloody throw me into here? What are those things, and-what? Why are they firing at us? What exactly did you do to that big boss guy anyway, lady!?

This is Testing, Gem advised Id from within, trying not to let the irritation slip into her tone. The results of this experiment had better make up for hearing Wheatley laugh at her for this goofball's lack of control. There's no better way to learn than to jump into the deep end and start swimming. You'll figure it out. Or get us blown up. Better start paddling.

She couldn't see as clearly when she wasn't in control of the body, but she could make out the body of a turret moving on treads as it approached Id, aiming its laser site right at them. "Hello. You know what? I love you…!"