Title: Prometheus
Status:In Progress
Fandom: Portal (2)
Rating: T
Genre:General
Warnings: Swearing, violence, drug abuse, discussions of human physiological issues, a crapsack world in general, original characters
Pairings:There is one pairing that will become central but as of now this information is irrelevant.
Summary:The world outside beyond the Aperture Labs is not exactly paradise.
Disclaimer:The Portal franchise and associated characters are the property of Valve.
Part 4:
He wouldn't have called it the most gracious recovery but Prometheus recognized his very unfortunate opening statement for what it was almost immediately. All the while, his internal processors continued to remind him in the background about his increasing improvements in functionality.
"I am. I mean, that's not what I mean. Not exactly." Words had always come easily to Prometheus. Not to any great degree of eloquence either. They consistently came out wrong and vague or at worst, insulting. It was a simple but irritating branch of his primary function as the I.D. core. He had been cursed with the compulsion to allow his voice to fill any silent space, whether or not the sound was welcome. With a Herculean effort, he struggled to overcome the program which so often resigned him to this baseless babbling. He needed to tell Chell clearly exactly what he had wanted her to truly know about him for so very long.
"What I meant to say is that I should have said something other than that, but it has been a long time, hasn't it? It really has except that I completely forgot that She said that to you too and I guess I'm already bringing up some bad memories, but I think you can tell that since we didn't exactly part on the best of terms." He paused in his still-rambling narrative to smile thinly. She did not return the gesture and so he continued. "I guess you can add that to the list of things I really have to be sorry for. I wasn't thinking straight, I never really do, which you kind of know, which is um…. Why I'm apologizing in the first place. So. Here it is luv, take it or leave it but I am really hoping you'll take it. Right, here: I'm sorry!"
It took him a moment to realize that the white noise of his internal recharge had stopped somewhere around sixty percent half-way through his speech, and he winced as the final 'I'm sorry' sounded to his own ears twenty times louder, like a canon boom or an ill-timed comment going off in what seemed like a suddenly silent room. At roughly the same moment, it came to his attention that Eileen was also no longer endeavoring to repair his arm and an over-whelming sense of self-consciousness engulfed him. He and Chell had an acquired an audience. Both the Butcher and the Medic were silent and still, watching the scene unfolding before them.
The butcher come mechanic recovered herself first and stood with a slight wobble from having frozen in place for so long. She gave a half-satisfied, half-painful groan for the sudden stretching of her stiff limbs. It was quickly supplemented with a mild flush of embarrassment for gawping at something that she had the grace to assume was none of her business. The colour stained her cheeks like a sudden application of rouge and she ducked her head to stare at the floor in obvious guilt. She crossed the room with too much fixated purpose, locking her fingers around the Doctor's wrist in an almost childish school-girl gesture. "Come on, M, this isn't one of your television shows. I think they want to be alone. Prometheus, we'll come back and finish fixing you later, okay? I think I've worked past the most difficult kinks."
"Of course…" Prometheus muttered distractedly by way of a reply, unable to tear his gaze away from the former test subject across from him. He was unaware of the mild but ultimately half-hearted struggle between the two women behind his back as M made a bid to remain for the purposes of eavesdropping on the duo.
Slowly, he raised his chin and forced himself to focus on Chell's face. He locked his optics with her domineering gaze. Trying to fathom what the stony expression chiseled somehow permanently into her features meant was like trying to count all of the stars in space. It was near impossible. As long as he waited for some reaction, her colourless eyes remained as solid and frosty as ice chips and her mouth was set into an unreadable line. If he had to guess however, it was not a totally unhappy expression but, of course, nor was it one that suggested she was about to tearfully forgive him. It wasn't like he had been expecting it that way at any rate. The most positive thing about the moment was that she did not look disappointed. That was something he didn't believe he could have been able to bear.
In spite of her apparent distaste for him (and who could blame her), at long last she took a few tentative steps towards him, right up until she came to stand in the spot right by his bed that Eileen had occupied earlier. She froze there, as ramrod straight as a military cadet. Her line of vision dropped down the bridge of her nose to once again meet his own.
"I'm deeply sorry." He repeated. "So sorry."
When her expression still did not change and the silence stretched on, he could feel the words threatening to erupt in a torrent from deep within, somewhere in his central processing unit. The little exclamations of apology were just the first tremors. The warning signs of what was to come. Erupt it did too, with everything bubbling up in a deluge which rocked his damaged body like an earthquake, each syllable trying to escape his voice box at the same time.
All the while his mechanical body tried so hard to mimic the grief, regret and an experience of human physiology. For the second time in a mere few days, Prometheus longed for the release of tears. Inside he felt as though he was being torn apart. His human like emotions were begging for the opportunity to take the correct physical response while the mechanical side of his programming feared the phantom threat of water that would undoubtedly fry his internal workings and end his existence.
"Ol' Wheatley is very, very sorry."
"That's very interesting." The Voice muttered from inside his head. "I don't like it."
Prometheus could only begin to guess at what Caroline was on about and frankly he could care less.
He winced blearily through his perpetually dry eyes and hiccupped over the invisible tears. "I was bossy and rude and a complete monster, I tried…" he made a swallowing noise, the same one that had fascinated Eileen earlier. "Well of course I was a monster! I actually tried to kill you! It wasn't me though, not entirely me, you have to believe I'd never ever ever hurt anyone like that, especially not you! It was that chassis, it does things to you." His voice floundered as he searched for a vocabulary he did not own, for exclamations that were increasingly difficult as whatever vestiges of pride still existed in him struggled to override the apologies with excuses. "It makes you mad! I wasn't able to fight the control it had over me, I was too weak-willed for that. I knew, I knew that the neurotoxin was harming you but I turned it on anyway. I didn't stop you from testing because…because…it. It felt good."
Whoever said honesty was the best policy was possibly a bigger moron than he was. He felt no relief in admitting to her how unbelievably weak he had been. The excuse sounded flimsy. 'It felt good'. Had that been the only reason he had caused her pain? It was, wasn't it. At least, when he really thought about it.
He wanted to go on. He wanted to warn her about Rick and the danger he represented, wanted to tell her about Caroline and her machinations to revive the dangerous corporation. He even for a brief, crazy moment considered that he should include an apology to GLaDOS for the appropriation and 'plagiarism' of her testing chambers, claiming his pathetic modifications of their content as his own work. The torrent of words seemed to have stemmed however and as quickly as the thought came his mind protested that final idea with a flash of rage – if he had not done it, Chell would still have gone through all those test anyway by Her proverbial hand.
His damaged arm gave a mild whine, similar to the popping of a joint as he flexed the half-repaired servo motors. He discovered he could bend and stretch the fingers and raise the whole arm at the shoulder, though the crease in the elbow remained unresponsive. Chell's fingers were in reach of his limited grasp however and he moved to take her hand in his own. He was hoping that the sense of touch, that this gesture wherever he had learned it would erase the stoniness from her face and prove to her the depth of his sincerity and regret.
You don't deserve her apology. It's useless to try. She will always continue to hate you, Prometheus.
Prometheus found it equally easy to dismiss the intrusion of the Voice into his mental dialogue a second time. Primarily because he had told himself precisely this so often that he was unsure whether the thought was his own, borne of guilt or was a bid on Caroline's behalf to unseat him. He decided once more that he didn't care.
Chell's fingers were cool and dry under his own, the feel of them reciprocating the expression on her face. He was pinching her fingers together, but she made no move to lace or coil the appendages together or tuck her thumb around his. She continued to simply stand there, her gaze drilling past his eyes and into the cogs, gears and wires in his head.
"Please say something. I mean, you don't have to, but um, just one little gesture. Maybe a jump?" his voice quavered on the last note and he struggled to keep going. "Just like the good old days. The good old days, remember those? Before Her?"
Her eyes simply widened in response and she wrenched her hand free of his, violently jerking her fingers free of the clasp of his. She backed up, holding her wrist with her opposite hand as though he'd burned her. With his wires half-connected, he was sure it was possible that he had, but the anger in her expression was rapidly becoming obvious.
With one last poisonous look Chell turned on her heel and marched out in an uneven dance of altering quick and purposeful steps. She glanced back at him several times, as though he were a dangerous animal that had her cornered and whom she had been advised not to provoke by moving too quickly.
When she was gone, Wheatley lay back on the table. He preoccupied himself briefly by hefting the dead weight of his arm back onto the table.
"Right then." He muttered aloud to fill the now deafening silence. The Voice was absent of course. At the one time he would have welcomed its presence.
Chell found that her frantic and directionless march from Prometheus' 'bedside' had brought her to the Doctor's personal toilet where her well-timed bathroom breaks took place. She stood at the counter with its chipped mottled plastic surface meant to resemble marble and lifted her eyes to stare at her reflection. The novelty of looking at herself in a reflective surface rather than a through a nearby portal always caught her off guard, even if it did not provide her with information she did not already have at her disposal. The reflection itself, she realized, did not mean for her what it meant for the others around her. It took very little effort on her part to understand that much. Her fingers touched her hair, fingered the unfamiliar weight of it resting free on her shoulders and craned her arm at an awkward angle to scratch the tickle where it brushed her shoulder blades in the back. She continued to stare forward but her mind had long drifted elsewhere. She did not want to have to deal with it but avoidance was no way to solve a problem and Chell was not about to start using that method for coping with her troubles now.
It seemed impossible that Wheatley was back and yet here he was. She'd hoped to find one person to share her life and experiences with after her escape from Aperture but instead, she'd got yet another robot. Not just any robot but Wheatley. Wheatley in a lie of a human-esque body no less. No matter what he said, that alone: the fact that he dared to try and deceive her by looking human and mocking her by maintaining silence when they first met was proof positive that he hadn't changed a bit from what she could see.
At first, his damaged form lying there with wires exposed had almost, for just a split second caught and tugged at her heartstrings. The image of his broken form here was superimposed in her mind with GLaDOS smashing the chatty metal ball with such force into the wall of the facility that the hull cracked like an egg. She could well remember his wails of terror and apparently pain. Even now it seemed unfathomable that any one, human or not could have been so cruel as to imbue a creature that could think for itself with fear of pain, not to mention death as a means of control. Chell had tricked herself into seeing a kindred spirit in Wheatley once before, but that was before she truly knew him.
Wheatley liked to know he was the biggest, baddest player on the field before he made any legitimate threats or made any of his true positions known ('smelly humans', indeed), not to mention that he was a lot more clever than his ridiculous ramblings let on. He'd been one step ahead of her in the test chamber and it had been sheer dumb luck that had saved her from Step Five. She gave an involuntary shudder at the heat of the blast exploding into her face and the force of it tossing her into a panic-ridden, twisting and painful freefall drop. I had practically been a miracle that she had landed where she did. It was even more of a miracle that her portal gun could transcend the incredible distance between Earth and the Moon.
No she would not trust Wheatley again, she decided firmly. She would leave and allow her actions here to set an example for the people who were offering him amnesty. They could make up their own minds.
Her thoughts drifted back to what he'd said when he hadn't known she was around witness to his repairs. Something about a man named 'Rick' who worked for GLaDOS. The name felt like one she should know but she couldn't put her finger on it. For the present, all that it meant was that Rick was capable of severely harming Wheatley, to the point of raw damage. Rick, whoever he was didn't need her support. He had GLaDOS and she hoped to remain as ambivalent as possible about anything Aperture for the remainder of her existence.
The second face appearing suddenly in the glass startled her out of her thoughts. She internally cursed her ever-dwindling lack of attention to detail. Stupidly, she realized that had neglected to close the door behind her. She really was going soft.
"You don't cry do you?"
The word swam up through her memory like an old forgotten friend. She knew, somehow that tears were connected with sadness. It was true enough observation though, she didn't cry. Not even when she felt that she would like to. She eventually nodded her affirmation of the statement.
"Yeah, well so much the better.' M switched sides, moving to Chell's mirror-self's left but standing just behind rather than drawing level with her. The Doctor's fingers moved to clutch at the cloth of the shirt on her back.
Chell still had no clothes of her own and so had been wearing whatever the Doctor could spare. M was shorter but considerably wider than Chell so naturally all of the garments were clownishly loose. The faded yellow shirt she had donned today hung to the middle of her thighs and the sleeves puddled in folds of cloth to her elbows. She didn't know what had happened to the jumpsuit or her tank top but she didn't rightly care.
As she watched in the reflection, the Doctor reached down to the middle of her back and pulled on the excess fabric, causing the shirt to meld to her form in the front, rooching the hem up just to where her legs joined to her upper body.
M smiled in a sort of approval. "Yeah, if I can…just…" she muttered, apparently to herself. "It might work. You're pretty." She added the last to Chell directly, meeting her eyes and giving her a nod in the glass. It was not a particularly complimentary statement. It was just meant as a fact, as though the Doctor was announcing something as obvious as the colour of the Chell's hair or the fact that they were both women.
By this point Chell was careful to keep her face neutral and calm, even though the words did make her wish to smile. Right after apparent defects in her personality, (particularly ones she now felt might be at least in part true), GLaDOS' second favorite method of decimating her confidence had been to attack her appearance. There was a certain grim and haughty satisfaction that welled up in her like a glass filling steadily with water to hear a compliment.
It was in part for that reason that she allowed M the privilege of touching her further. There was something quite detached about the experience of the Doctor patting down her body. When a hand moved to tuck a fold of cloth underneath the swell of her breasts, it did not inspire in her the feeling of physical invasion she felt when Wheatley (she couldn't bring herself to call him Prometheus) so much as touched her hand.
Apparently satisfied with her brief wardrobe modification, the Doctor allowed the shirt to billow out loosely around Chell's form once more.
"It's just a pity about that voice."
This time, Chell did flinch back when the woman took hold of her jaw, pinching it gently between one meaty thumb and forefinger, forcing her to open her mouth. She shied back and nervously away, watching her mirror-self's eyes widen in fear. To her relief, the Doctor dropped her hand.
"Alright, calm down there girlie. I told you I have a use for you."
Chell tried to put the disbelief and rebellion she immediately wished to express into her face. She raised her eyebrows into her hairline. She sank back on her bare heels into a more aggressive stance, away from the hand that beckoned her back to the mirror. Her lips turned down into an exaggerated frown.
"I know you don't like it. You'll listen though. I have something you want."
How was this person never perturbed? Once more Chell was painfully reminded of GLaDOS. She raised her shoulders however, indicating her confusion. She couldn't fathom what, if anything, M could possibly own that she would want. The last vestiges of the Neurotoxin were pulled from her system and she had survived so long on her own. The ideas of comforting meals and warm beds were nice but she knew she could do without them, she knew from long experience that she would not suffer or die without them. Visions of escaping to her own private sanctuary permeated her every waking hour and had now been driven home. What could possibly be offered her that she couldn't achieve on her own?
"I need to have a good look at you."
It was simple curiosity that caused her to follow the Doctor back to the surgery, secure in her knowledge that once she was deemed healthy that she could leave. It was that same curiosity that made her sit obediently where she was directed to on the cold metal table that had more often than not served as her bed for this brief chapter in her life.
The Doctor turned to retrieve a few tools: one square-topped stick ending in a conical shape with a small glowing light affixed to the tip and a wooden depressor. "Open up."
Obediently Chell parted her lips, staring at the top of the blonde head of hair and tasting wood as the flat end of the stick was laid against her tongue and the all-seeing eyes tried to stare deep into her being.
The voice came as a low rumble that flowed up out of the top of the Doctor's skull, entering Chell's body through her own open mouth, thrumming up through her like a living breathing thing that settled in her brain like a wriggling worm, burrowing deeper and deeper into her and growing into a desire that filled the most remote corners of her self.
"How would you like to be able to talk?"
Chell's whole body wanted to answer this instant with a resounding yes, but she could only gawp, long after the stick holding her jaw ajar was removed.
"Sweetheart, I told you I'd find something you wanted." The Doctor grinned. "Everyone has their price. In return for restoring your voice, you'll tell me everything I want to know about what happened to you and most importantly where to find this 'Her'. If you want to leave or go somewhere after that, then by all means leave." She ducked into a mocking bow and swept her hand towards the open doorway. "Plus, if I myself can't accomplish it, then I will let you go without asking anything more."
Chell stared hard at her, narrowing her eyes. She'd been made promises – very elaborate promises - of this nature before. All sorts of fantastic things she was told she could have if only she'd just complete one more chamber. Her freedom had figured on this list no less than three times before she was allowed to actually have it. On the one hand, these humans had thus far given her no reason to mistrust them. On the other, her track record on securities was definitely against all of them and now with Wheatley here as some kind of mobile force, her guard was up. To top it all off, she had just only moments ago given herself a vigorous pep-talk as to why exactly she should leave immediately and without fanfare.
Interpreting the guarded look quite well, M bobbed her head in a single nod. "You can trust my word." She settled back on her heels after that, watching for a long time while the former test subject mulled the issue over in her brain.
Decisively, Chell seized up the long-untouched pad of paper and the writing stylus that had remained since the first inquiry into failed written communication. She had a test of her own to execute.
She was pleased that M's gaze turned wary at the gesture. It seemed she herself was wondering if she'd been the victim of a lie. Perhaps she was concerned Chell knew how to communicate as well as anyone and would begin to make clever demands of her own. The fact that the Doctor felt that she was fallible or worried that she could be duped in her own right strengthened Chell's decision to trust her, but not by much. One potential error in judgment would more than likely increase her vigilance rather than diminish her ego.
She too would not back down from a decision. It was only fortunate that no one besides herself knew of the one she was in fact reconsidering by thinking over the Doctor's offer at all.
Chell gripped the pen inexpertly in her fist and scratched out a few failed illegible squiggles before she was able to find an angle that allowed her to etch out reasonably steady lines.
The Doctor plucked up the discarded and failed attempts as she tore them off the pad of paper to expose clean pages underneath. Each time she smoothed them out to scrutinize them before eventually disposing of them in a waste basket. Nothing that was written on them looked anything remotely close to any kind of writing character or alphanumeric-based communication. In fact, her expression seemed very disappointed.
Chell scowled and worked harder, putting every ounce of her tenacious personality into conveying what she wanted on the paper. It would not do for the Doctor to revise her opinion of her intelligence or usefulness now. Her voice was a worthwhile prize.
At long last she held up the pad in triumph, tapping it twice to get attention.
"I don't understand. You're not trying to write…" it was more a musing out of the puzzle to herself than an attempt to speak to Chell.
Chell tapped the paper again and pantomimed picking a fistful of something up with her hand and taking a bite out of it, working her mouth in exaggerated chewing motions. Still holding the pad in one hand she spread her hands in a shrug.
M blinked and took a more careful look at the paper, the crude triangle on it, the weird round thing on top of it. Chell could practically see the cogs turning in her head. "You want something to eat? You're wondering if I'll feed you while you're here? I have to do that or else you'll die and unless you actually do die by natural causes or stupidity I'm not personally hoping for that to be the outcome. I did say I had a use for you and I certainly wouldn't put in the effort if I didn't. By the way, that'll be another little clause in our agreement. If you do happen to die by natural causes, I'll be using your body for medical purposes. I won't let a thing like that go to waste and let me tell you honey, you're better off with me then you are outside. Ever since the Green Flu, 'grave yard real estate' is at a premium."
Chell was so unfazed by casual discussion of her potential impending death that she merely nodded her permission in stride, then tapped the picture again, more insistently.
"Like an immature child!" M muttered, a note of annoyance creeping its way into her voice, tempered with an eyebrow quirk of mild interest in her casual acceptance of terms that most people would protest or at least react negatively to.
For her own part, Chell worked as ever to keep her scowl at the statement under control.
"Alright, let's see." The Doctor held her hand out for the paper and turned it over in her hands to examine it from different angles.
Chell was not about to give this up. This was the one possible test she had at her disposal. She had to discern if whatever M was offering her was just hearsay to get her to comply or if her words held legitimate truth and follow up action. It always had come down to this one item in the past. It figured in every promise, right there alongside freedom. It had to be important. It had to be something other humans habitually wished to have. It was, in fact the only thing that she knew humans might potentially bargain with or desire in this world. Once more she pantomimed the eating motion while extending her hand towards the paper.
"It's a drawing of food."
This time, Chell rewarded her guess with a nod.
"Something…you want. A type of …you're asking me for…" M half laughed, half hummed as she turned the paper at different angles. The thing that was nearly everyone's price these days and all too obviously her own, but something quite specific evidently. This one was even smarter than she'd initially thought. "I promise nothing on that behalf, but I may be tempted to try. Intelligence should be rewarded after all. That and compliance. However I just can't figure out what this…IS." She sat the paper aside. "That's good though I'll come back to it. If you want it that bad it means you'll be willing to work harder to explain it to me yourself. Now, we're in agreement then. Listen up because we're going over this once and once only."
Chell sat up and nodded. Her memory was impeccable at least.
"I'm going to fix your voice by whatever means necessary. I will keep you here on my own dime under a time frame based on how long I estimate the process to take, perhaps extended in advance by any complications that may arise. Once that is done, you in return will tell me everything I need to know about Prometheus, 'Her' and whatever you had to do with Aperture Science and you will do it on video. Like on the television screen." She elaborated, gesturing to her sitting area and the now blank and silent television. "After that, you may leave. If I am unable to complete this within the time frame, you may leave at any time you wish. If you die for whatever reason while under the time frame, I will be using your body for medical purposes and my own education."
Chell mulled this over. This sounded fair, but her cake test had ultimately failed. Or had it really? M had not promised she would do it outright, she said it might be possible or not depending on her resources and whims. That was a very different sort of wording and it meant something very different than an outright promise.
"Do we have a deal?"
Slowly, Chell shrugged. She tried to keep her expression interested but she wanted to know what it was that the Doctor truly wanted. Why did she want to know about Aperture or Prometheus or what had happened to her? It couldn't possibly be simply a burgeoning appetite for gossip. Only a few days under the Doctor's care had been enough to teach her that.
"I'm not interested in sharing my world with another Doctor. Particularly one that torments and tortures." M said frostily, surprising Chell with her forthright and frank reply. "I want whoever 'She' is, shut down. The world's changed a lot but not by much. People will listen to a pretty victim. This'd be a lot different if you could write or read but I don't have the time to teach you a bunch of artsy crap. I can however figure out how to fix you physically and you'll do the rest for me. Let's bring them to tears and incite them to rage."
Very slowly, Chell nodded. She didn't quite understand what the woman was driving at, but M was most definitely providing her with a way to destroy Aperture from the outside in, perhaps shut it down for good without heading back into its depths. That was a reason to stay.
The Doctor bounded up, a glint in her eyes of excitement and something Chell could not immediately place. She moved across from the desk, bringing something down towards Chell.
"Let's get started, shall we? No time like the present!" She extended the something on its retractable arm toward her and Chell leapt back in alarm, the extending head of the thing all too familiar to her eyes, even while guided by a human hand. "Well I'm assuming you've got a healthy fear of medical equipment. I don't get to use this one much." There was a hint of disappointment in her tone. "I've figured out how though so not to worry."
Chell blinked at that statement, almost forgetting to be concerned for her well-being a moment. That was actually very telling. It was almost as if the people here knew only as much technology as they had learned. They weren't experts. They weren't scientists. They weren't GLaDOS who knew her facility inside and out. They were more like Wheatley, trying out things for the first time, albeit with more success. It was a thought both nerve wracking and comforting. If these humans could learn to do these things, use these machines without causing permanent damage to themselves or others, then why could she not do the same and let them fix her? She relaxed, slowly, arcing her head up to her chin and craning to look over to the Doctor who had disappeared out of her line of vision.
"This is an X-ray machine. It takes pictures of your insides without my having to open you up." There was almost a slight whine in her voice at the last, but it was still tinged with interest and excitement nonetheless. She came to coax Chell onto the operating table, pressing her firmly down and arranging her limbs, covering her body and face with a heavy blanket but leaving her throat and upper shoulders exposed. "Don't panic. I have to do something like this to make sure you're not exposed to anything dangerous."
Chell didn't like it but she had promised and it had always been her experience in similar situations that holding still was always much less dangerous than not. She already was wary that any failure to comply might still provoke a sudden 'natural death'.
The room went darker still under the weave of the blankets and there was a hum of machinery powering up. It was a much different sound than the DOS chassis and given that she was now deprived of yet another of her body's abilities, it was a small mercy for which she was grateful.
Actually, it reminded her of the rather comforting hum that permeated the back hallways of the facility. The hum grew slightly in a pitch, the doctor said something she couldn't quite make out, and there was a click. It was followed by another and another and the machine powered down, the sound diminishing until there was silence once more. She felt nothing. No pinches, prods, pokes or any kind of pain other than the leather and metal of the operating table against her back and the itchy wool that covered her eyes and torso. There was another hum, another slow crescendo of a whine and a few more clicks before a glow filtered through the blanket's weave and then it was being lifted from her person. The Doctor was holding a sheaf of little white clips that meant nothing to Chell but had M nodding with satisfaction.
"Wait here a moment." She said and disappeared into another part of the surgery.
Chell did wait, for what seemed like ages. She looked up once when M reappeared, grabbed a rather thick book from a shelf and disappeared once more without a word. It seemed like an eternity of patience and eventually Chell grabbed the paper and pen again, struggling to force the ink to recreate the one thing she'd always been promised but had been told irrefutably was a lie.
Finally, many torn and crumpled sheets later the Doctor reappeared and approached her. "Well. I think I have a good idea as to what's wrong with you." She began, holding the book propped against her right arm open to a page. "It'll take some doing and definitely some speech therapy. We'll need something familiar for you to work with. A noise or sound you've heard for a long time. For that it seems we're going to have to use one of your un-favourite un-people."
A wide, satisfied grin spread over the Doctor's face and Chell did not have to think very hard to know what, or rather, who she meant. The idea of wringing them both for information at the same time had been perhaps not her immediate plan but her definite goal all along.
Much more than that, it meant that sooner or later, she was going to have to face Prometheus again.
She would be ready for him this time. He was the tool to be used this time for her own gain. When she spoke to the cameras, she could find some way to betray him and all of his lies and tricks and leave him to lie in the bed he had made for himself.
Prometheus glanced at the mess of wires sticking out of his left arm and the large tear in the synthetic flesh that covered his stomach. He watched as Eileen heated it, fusing the torn edges seamlessly, as though the wounds had never been there at all. Once more, at least in that area he appeared as human as ever.
The rest of his body still boasted evidence of the machine he truly was. In particular a long, jagged scar across the side of his face where a large strip of flesh had been entirely lost. Eileen had explained she'd gone to search for it however had come up empty handed. Likely it had been taken by the wind or washed away by the rain.
"Do you think I could have my husband come by? I think he could engineer a replacement."
Do it. Caroline hissed in his ear.
Her input was backed unusually by the doctor who happened to be passing through, a handful of what appeared to be a set of photo negatives clutched in one fist.
"Jack's good with secrets." She clipped out and Prometheus knew better than to question her when she was on a mission.
In fact, given how badly the whole apology had gone, he didn't believe he would have cared if someone had told him that Jack was the best Robotics engineer in history or the best at something like melting down androids for spare parts.
"Sure."
Eileeen pursed her lips as she punched numbers into her communication device. "Look, Prom-Wheatley. Anyone can tell you're…" but exactly what anyone could tell he was, he would never know. "…Hello?"
The remainder of the conversation passed in a blur. There were a lot of tender repetitions of epithets like "honey" and "I miss you" and "I love you' surrounding whatever she was saying about him. Prometheus tuned it out. Rick was floating around and he wasn't liable to allow Prometheus to forget his warning. It begged the question too: who else was out there? What kind of an army was Caroline putting together?
The Voice had no answer, even though he could feel it there in his half-defunct state, picking at the corners of his mind. It wasn't 'magic', he was a computer program. Whatever the voice was doing in his mind, it had to be through mechanical means. A transmission. If he could just find the right wire he could pry it loose and silence Her. Forever. It was a puzzle with potential dangerous consequences for failure and he was not the one who was good at solving puzzles. To be honest, he figured the Voice had said what it had during his talk because it recognized that it had already succeeded. Chell obviously hated him and she was unable to talk, read or write to tell her story or warn the small handful of humans who knew of what he truly was…or scream if the Voice decided to extinguish her life permanently. He might not do that but Rick seemed to have no troubles with the command.
He realized abruptly through his reverie that there were suddenly more people in the room.
"Hello, Prometheus."
"Wheatley." Eileen corrected him.
"Wheatley now, is it? Fair enough. I don't suppose you remember me?"
"What?" It took all his effort not to yell in horror. What had the Doctor…or he himself for that matter been thinking, telling yet another person what he was? Then again, Caroline had actually told him to take the offer. He tried to stammer out a reply. "Oh. Um. Yes. I do think so…the uh, the military bloke." It wasn't the smartest thing he'd ever said, not even by his standards.
Standing a full 5 inches beneath Eileen's 5'11" frame, it was the same man he'd remembered meeting upon his inglorious arrival to the Detroit Sectors. The one who had introduced him to Eileen and, Prometheus realized with despair, unwittingly brought Caroline closer to her goal. He seemed pleased to see him again despite the revelation that the supposed human was in fact mechanical. His eyes were more tired than Prometheus remembered but he seemed to remain in good health even though his chest drooped a little now, there were more lines in his face and his greying hair was in short close-cropped curls rather than his old military buzz-cut.
"Eileen explained to me what happened. If it's okay by you, we'll just take a small sample of the synthetic skin."
"Yeah. Go ahead, mate."
Prometheus watched as Jack leaned in and tore a fingernail sized half-moon chunk out of the loose flap Rick's attack had wrought on his arm, depositing it with careful precision into a clear plastic bag. For a moment, his warm, alive human hand, covered Prometheus' wound, momentarily sealing the flesh back into place. Jack's dark hand amplified the paleness of Prometheus' own flesh, making him seem more unnatural, more fake. Only it was backwards from the simple stories he knew about good and bad, black and white, the things he now recognized as lies that the chassis had put into his brain. There was no question in his mind now as to who the danger, the 'evil' was.
"It looks a little like the synthetic skin they put into the health kits that were given to the Green Flu survivors." Jack was moving away now, musing aloud as he held the plastic bag up to the light. "This is much more advanced. I think if I copied this for Prometheus I could also engineer something for humans as well." He turned to his wife. "I may need your help on this all the way along honey. First things first, we fix up Prometheus the best we can with what we have." He turned to address Prometheus once more. "This stuff isn't fool-proof."
Both the android and his wife looked over when he tapped at his leg.
"Yes, but…" Eileen started, a frown creasing her face
Prometheus took advantage of her indecision to speak up. "Pardon me, but I am not following here, mates. I mean, I may be a bit daft but all this back and forth is really starting to get confusing."
"Sorry for keeping you out of the loop. Look, Prometheus, you might have 'scars'. Whoever came up with this synthetic flesh had a limited 'palette', you might say, to work with."
"I still don't really understand."
"Well, they tried to make flesh terms that were 'generic.'" Jack's lip curled a little at the phrase and tugged on the leg of his tearaway pants until they came apart along the button seam.
Prometheus prudishly turned his head.
"It's okay" Eileen intoned quietly and the android turned back albeit apprehensively.
Jack split the pants to mid thigh where an oddly light-coloured pucker in the otherwise dark skin stood out almost as starkly as his own finger against Prometheus' fish-belly flesh a moment ago. The large shiny gash ran the length of the man's knee and disappeared under the hem of his boxer shorts.
"Sorry." The android whispered.
"Well it's certainly not your fault." Jack shook his head sincerely but it was Eileen who crossed the room to stand by him.
"What we think the problem is, that whatever Jack and I can come up with might work okay if it's just this little nick on your arm." She ran a practiced thumb along the more jagged looking split from where Jack had removed the tiny scrap of skin, ghosting over the exposed wires. It was already easy to tell that the remainder of the 'tissue' on Prometheus' arm was not going to fit and fuse together like the cut in his stomach flesh had. "No one is going to notice that, particularly if you wear shirts with long sleeves."
Prometheus considered. He'd only felt anything remotely like vanity when he had been plugged into the chassis and there was only one human whose positive opinion of him he truly cared about right now. She already hated him and as he'd never found humans incredibly attractive anyway so he supposed that it didn't matter much if he somehow became even less attractive. "I guess that's okay, mate."
"A small scar's not the worst thing that could happen. It says you were in a minor fight perhaps which is not so hard to believe these days."
Prometheus nodded. "I guess that makes some sense."
"Besides," she continued, the barest hint of bite creeping into her normally pleasant tone. "You are skilled at playing the fool."
"No, I'm not." Prometheus sighed, even as The Voice snorted derisively in his mind.
Jack gestured to the uneven gash that ran the length of Prometheus' face. "Either way, what are we going to do about this? Whether or not we can engineer medkit tissue that looks like your old flesh, you're going to have to put up with a temporary scar. There may be questions asked. Investigations put forward."
He could feel Caroline panic in his head a little. For the first time, Prometheus felt like laughing. Jack and Eileen had unwittingly given him the tools he might need to start beating her at her own game.
I wasn't kidding when I said I could have your 'friends' killed. The Voice whispered as if she were reading his thoughts, putting an unkind emphasis on the word 'friends'.
Prometheus tried to mask his horror but it seemed that he had no need to worry. Jack and Eileen were debating stratagems of household accidents and dark nights where the features of a potential attacker could not properly be seen. They had not noticed his sudden absence from the conversation, given that he had not been terribly useful to it to begin with.
"I think the best thing is to fix you first and then decide what kind of cover story is appropriate." Jack nodded once over at Prometheus then addressed his wife once more. "Where did you say he works now?"
"Lovett's."
Jack's eyebrows shot up in surprise at the same time Caroline gave a triumphant little hum of satisfaction in Prometheus' head.
Prometheus knew that his wife must have regaled him with tales of his clumsiness when he had made his disastrous career debut in her butcher's shop. "It's alphanumeric filing and typing. I'm an android."
Jack chuckled somewhat contritely if not good-naturedly at the not-quite defensive sentiment. "I'll bet. Do you think you can get him fixed up for tomorrow? I guess we wouldn't want Lovett firing him for being late. I'll see you at home honey. I want to take this back to the base lab really quickly and before anyone misses me for too long."
"Right." The two exchanged a quick peck of a kiss before Eileen returned to Prometheus' side and knelt to begin restoring his elbow once more.
Whatever they tell you to say to Lovett, go along with what Rick says tomorrow at work instead. He'll be there before you. The voice was threatening but not overtly so. Evidently Caroline felt that Prometheus was sufficiently cowed enough to not resist.
The Doctor entered at that point. "How's it coming?" Although she feigned interest, it was plain to see that her question was just a formality.
Eileen attention was on the task before her as she carefully began to refuse a frayed copper wire and did not notice the obvious lack of interest on M's face. "Not quickly but not too slow either."
"Excellent. Prometheus, I have a job for you that I know you're going to love."
Both the mechanic and her patient turned sharply to look over and up into M's face which was suddenly twisted with nearly maniacal glee.
"I'm going to need you to help with our little mute friend's speech therapy and I need to use you."
"Speech…therapy?" Prometheus stared at her, curiosity mixed into the trepidation. "Chell can't speak. She's mute!"
"Chell, eh?"
Determined to keep his mouth shut from now on, Prometheus tried to set his lips into the firm line that the former test subject had demonstrated with him earlier.
"I am a doctor and it's not like her vocal chords are missing. They're just damaged, somewhat atrophied from extensive lack of use. At least part of it at least from what I can discern is psychological. She needs a familiar voice, something to relate to. From what I gather you're about as familiar as it gets. A chance to help your little friend recover. Pretty noble, I should say."
Prometheus glared daggers at her, the fat old spider. He couldn't help it. He'd never be strong enough to refuse and M knew it. He had a chance to come near her. To help his lady without hurting her. A chance to prove he wasn't some monster or at the not-so-tender mercies of a horrible program trapped within a much larger program (no matter what Caroline herself might say). He grit his teeth. "What if I refuse?" he asked, a slight tremor creeping into his tone.
Eileen now bent her head furiously over the repairs, apparently determined not to get into the middle of this (likely one-sided) battle of wits. M meanwhile said nothing. She simply shrugged her shoulders. Her smile stretched wide towards the contours of her face as her amusement increased and she regarded Prometheus like a teacher patiently waiting for a child to work through a simple logical solution in the classroom.
Logic too did slowly begin to dawn, though perhaps it was not precisely in the conclusion the Doctor expected. Everyone around him had suddenly been thrust into the dual role of someone to fear and simultaneously someone to fear for. Who amongst their number, himself included, was the least potential threat? Every avenue held some potential ruin. He realized a response was expected and moreover he still held one last ace up his sleeve. He could, no, would use it to protect Chell.
"For that matter, what happens if Chell refuses?" he began. It was at least something of a relief not to have to avoid the issue of his friend's name now that the proverbial cat was out of the bag, nor had he received any particular admonishment from the Voice for having allowed the information to slip. How common a name was Chell? Indeed, how much time was 99999? Aperture had never been very clear on that.
M was continuing to smile expectantly at him.
"Have you forgotten that right now, she's not exactly considering herself my best mate?"
"We have an understanding. She does something for me and I give her back her voice. I think she's willing to do quite a bit to get it back." The Doctor added, giving her wrist a casual flick to emphasize the statement.
Prometheus stared, at a loss for anything to say. It seemed almost like a dream come true. Could this human woman really reverse serious brain damage? Maybe, once the brain damage was gone, maybe Chell would listen to him! Maybe she would understand. Maybe she might even forgive him and they could go back to being friends. Good friends even.
"Her hopes and my intentions coincide beautifully with one another." M continued. "I think we all three of us have something we'd like to go away permanently and I believe it happens to be the same thing."
If the Android had had a heart it would have broken. For once, the Doctor's propensity to find out every bit of gossip she could about everyone would prove to be to her undoing rather than her detriment. She would never allow for knowledge to be released without her permission and she would immediately send Rick after all of them including innocents like Eileen and Jack and...maybe even his boss and the little girl…and himself of course to shut everyone up. All of it was equal parts terrifying and horrible to think about.
As he sat there, staring at M and twisting his hands in frustration over these thoughts, a new one struck him. Maybe, just maybe, the idea was not so stupid. Maybe there was a way for this to work in his favour rather than Hers! The Voice had made it clear that communication was a one way street: her to him, save for what he said aloud. She had so easily forbade him from divulging Rick's true purpose after all with that simple tool. His mind, slow and mechanical it may be, was still his own.
He would help M, but only for the reasons that M herself expected his aid.
He so truly wished he never had done what he did within that stupid chassis or that he had been strong enough to resist the test-reward protocols. Maybe if he had, then he could have dedicated his time to taking care of her in the facility. Making it a nice place to live. She wouldn't have been attacked to within an inch of her life by wild dogs or suffered from horrible drug withdrawals, or hated him now. It wasn't difficult or even deceitful to respond with the necessary levels of remorse.
"Of course I want to help. Maybe she won't hate me if I do."
Prometheus felt the Doctor's expression of self-satisfaction reflected within himself. It was a good feeling.
The Voice said nothing by way of suspicion or threat and Prometheus settled back to allow his repairs to be completed. Inside however he held on to that indescribably good feeling. It was the first he had experienced in a very long time. Doing the right thing, being on the right side for someone else was rewarding. Soon, he would be truly free. They both would.
Caroline was pleased with the way her plan was progressing. Prometheus and Rick were playing their parts better than they realized. In revealing himself to a small faction who were willing to aid him in preseving his disguise of an Aperture construct among humans, Wheatley was now able to be deployed anywhere in any capacity on the playing field.
What was dangerous was the brief moments where Wheatley was able to override her Prometheus command codes. They were the ones that she had implanted in him prior to his download and that should have been infallable. The first time had been in the car park where he had somehow called himself Wheatley without any error codes or messages to slow his programming and punish him. Now, it had occured a second time when he had tried to apologize. Ideally she would try to bring him in to refresh and reinstall her personal commands but she had bigger fish to fry. Let his little group continue to trust him and leave it to them to help him. It saved her the risk of bringing him back to Aperture to do it herself. Let him continue to try to incite compassion in the little monster of a former test subject.
Caroline had never much cared for mechanics or doctors. They had, after all been the very parties that had so readily reduced her to the state she found herself in right now. However, doctors and mechanics were as fiercely greedy and territorial as businessmen.
Caroline may now be part memory bank and data but she had never forgotten the experience of having watched one of the most brilliant minds in business duke it out with their Black Mesa rivals for decades. The woman doctor was as much a businesswoman in the running of her pathetic excuse for a 'city' but she had no idea of the depths to which she was being manipulated within the capacity of her own role. She was driven by her desire to get rid of someone she perceived was someone threatening her heretofore monopoly of clientele but in reality she was fighting a much different battle, one that she was ignorant of and thus would lose. Caroline had already proved she was the superior manipulator. What use did she have for petty gossip and useless edible products?
Nonetheless, an unwitting pawn was still a pawn and if she could make GLaDOS' greatest enemy sing, then it was only icing on Caroline's cake.
Perhaps the cake metaphors were tempting fate.
While unwitting tools were often the stronger pieces in a game such as this, willing minions were also necessary. Caroline had to admit that did not have nearly enough of those. There were at least two more that were prime for deployment. As with all things that were in their 'prime', the decline was soon to follow. There was only a window in which to work.
While the Fact Core would make for a more loyal spy, he was already acting in that capacity, albeit in a rather annoying way.
Among the corrupt cores that had comprised the contingency that she and GLaDOS had used to dethrone Wheatley, the Fact core had not joined its fellows in their journey into space. Rather, it had clanked down somewhere into the primary lair. She could access the pink-eyed core's mainframe for short periods of time.
If GLaDOS knew of its existence she either could not hear its ramblings or else she did not care.
Caroline had been careful in manipulating her suddenly discovered 'eye on the ground' so-to-speak. She put no patterns in her viewpoint manipulations and only stayed long enough to ascertain and reassure herself where GLaDOS' attentions lay. The so-called 'matriarch' of Aperture seemed to only care to listen to her test-initiative robots as they clanked around the facility to a chorus of her whims and insults. Lately she seemed to be lavishing attention on a trio of baby birds the duo had retrieved. It was ironic, given the trials and tribulations She (and frankly Caroline as well) had suffered at the beaks of the avian creatures while they had been locked in that potato battery.
Caroline wondered if perhaps GLaDOS was beginning to suffer from the destructive virus known simply as time. While the thought tickled her it was equally sobering as it meant her parasitic position would be in jeopardy. If GLaDOS' power or facilities failed, she would go with it. It meant that she too would have to begin taking greater risks.
This brought her back to the choice at hand.
The Space Core was weak and erratic. The Fact Core was more stable but in a more dangerous position to reach.
Her attention was invariably drawn back towards GLaDOS prattling at her baby birds. The Lovett man – the one whose company she would retool, had some collateral. A child. No parent could stand to have their child threatened.
She wouldn't need to be ruthless with the Space Core. One of the core's strengths was its childishness. It went to Space and within a short while panicked and wanted back to Earth. A childlike structure was an enemy hiding in plain sight. Innocent and friendly but ready to strike at full force when the time came or if the need arose. Still, this was a gamble, given the strange idiosyncrasies that the core itself exhibited on a regular basis, but gambling was exactly what taking on a stratagem of increased risk meant.
It also meant she could not indulge in laughing at the ridiculous ways that the silly machines chose to be human. She would have to organize the core to android transfer on her own terms. The goal was to cross every t and dot every i as far as she could. For the core she chose a body that was in every capacity average for a teenage boy around the same age as Lovett's daughter. The hair and eyes were made a nondescript golden brown. He was not tall or short nor even possessed of any particularly memorable facial features, though for some reason his eyes looked rather doe-like and his lips a touch full no matter how she tried to configure them. At long last she gave up. Perfection was probably not the way to go with humans anyway. She had been a machine too long.
After that it was a simple matter of clothing the empty but now evidently male doll in a nondescript jeans and t-shirt combo. With that she deemed him presentable for personality download procedures
"Your name is to be Neil. You will respond to this from now on. Android, what is your name?" She'd chosen the name from a historic spaceman's achievement during her human self's own living history. It wasn't quite as good as Wheatley's new delegation to 'Prometheus' but she was on a schedule after all.
"My name is Neil." The doll replied as expected.
"Download Construct ID19-16-1-3-5"
The blank android began to emit the string of binary that signaled the download had begun.
She was not sure if it was just her or whether having left the Space Core for so long had caused the booting up procedure to feel as though it was taking longer than normal. Long minutes seemed to tick by as she strained to hear the sounds of memory systems receiving data from outer space over the sounds of the GLaDOS chassis thrumming around her. It was like drums now, pounding with electric power aroud her.
She tried to reassure herself but the truth was no matter how she tried to talk herself through suggestions of human nerves and the fact that she was still human at heart, she couldn't seem to recall the sound space of the chassis ever being quite this loud.
Then again, she was expecting the cold boot of the Space Core with a great deal of trepidation. That voice was so desperately shrill and piercing.
Her thoughts turned next to personal oversights. Perhaps she had waited too long? Perhaps the Space core had failed in the harsh environment of outer space or suffered some lapse in its expected function due to its already damaged and corrupted state?
Caroline killed a few moments by removing the thought from her mind. She hated when she thought too much like a machine and right now she was thinking just like a stupid procedure driven construct!
All at once the voice of the doll exploded into the high, bright voice of the Space Core.
"Hey! Hey! Where am I? Where am I? Hey! I'm on Earth! Oh! Earth! So glad! Space…too big! Too big!"
Caroline winced. The thing was too stupid to be allowed out like that.
"Neil."
"Neil! Neeeeillll! Named Neil! Neil!"
"Neil, run a full schematic on yourself and correct all located errors."
At least the core could be counted upon to take her orders. Obediently, Neil attached himself to the port and the diagnostics check was able to begin. Around her, the internal workings of the chassis rumbled but despite the success with the new addition to her army being rescued from space, Caroline still found everthing around her simply seemed louder.
She was just in the process of reminding herself that she was imagining things before a small power surge rocked through the chassis.
"Orange. Blue. You will remain in testing loadout indefinitely." The thrum of the chassis rang out around Caroline.
As she froze (figuratively) in place, a cool, male voice spoke up, almost in reply. "Mainframe systems scan started. Scanning for: ."
Caroline turned her attention to the still-disk checking half-husk of Neil. The scan showed him at 75% with an immense array of corrupted programs compiling themselves in the cache to be fixed. She had bought herself some time. Her presence was not entitled ' '. That would have been nothing short of moronic. Still, she held her proverbial breath as the systems scan rocked through the carapace like some kind of electric shock therapy, designed to inhumanely rid the chassis of a mental virus.
" does not exist." The announcer proclaimed above.
Neil's systems scan had crept to 95% during the proceedings.
"Scanning for programs that contain any and all instances of 'Caroline'" the Announcer's presence made itself known once more with his voice sounding for all the world to Caroline like the distant thunder of an oncoming storm.
Soon after she could feel the power of the scan that began to sweep the chassis like forked lightening. She watched as Neil's scan time clock ticked slowly but steadily upward in the kind of inhuman attentiveness to detail that all data downloads and virus checks seemed to aspire to in their final moments.
98% and the storm was seething around her.
At 99% the eye of the storm had arrived.
Caroline's entire focus remained on watching those numbers click forward into 100%. Frantically she began the transmission.
"Neil! Leave the facilities by the back B-grate corridors! Take the elevator out and head south to the Detroit Sectors! Sector Five! Find a girl named Lovett and make sure you -"
"Caroline deleted." the announcer stated calmly, the echoes of his artificially cheerful voice barely echoing in the muted acoustics of GLaDOS' lair.
"Fact: men with beards are fifty percent less likely to live past 30, due to being mistaken for famous military generals." The Fact core chimed in from it's crevasse on the floor.
GLaDOS wondered, as she resumed testing Orange and Blue, when the stupid little core would finally bite the dust. It had to be soon, but it wasn't worth her time to simply incinerate it. She could barely hear it anyway. If she simply focused on her testing (and it wasn't hard) he was practically inaudible. Speaking of which, when she was done with this next testing block, and of course after she had finished providing sustenance for her 'little killers', she would investigate just what it was that virus of a human personality 'Caroline' had been doing, squatting in her chassis like some kind of disgusting, fat human hobo.
Neil felt as though he was back in space, drifting lazily among the stars. He could remember waking up frightened, but now he was wondering if he wasn't still in 'sleep' mode. All of the strange frantic pacing of his mind was wearing down.
Did androids dream of electric sheep?
Did androids dream of the stars?
He did, or rather, had apparently.
He awoke to find himself on a white tile floor.
"Systems diagnostics complete. All systems defragmented. All error files repaired. Resuming normal functions." Neil's head snapped up in response and he looked around for the source of the polite and mechanical feminine voice. With a childish chuckle, he noticed the wire protruding from his side and removed it.
How silly of him.
He had barely a moment to sort out everything when his central processing system was hit with a bombardment of hasty commands which swam up into his mind, forming into data. Each was delivered in increasingly poor quality. He found himself starting with a detailed map, route and schematic of wherever he presently was. This was followed by a more crude and polar (NSEW) directional-based map. Just a short time later he was presented by a maze so crude it was grainy to the point of illegibility like a blurry facsimile transmission.
"Find the Lovett girl." The voice was back. It was accompanied by yet another file that had been transferred to his system. A much clearer picture this time of a girl whom, his system boot diagnostics told him ( despite the fact that he had not once looked in a reflective surface) was about the same age he was programmed to look. "Detroit Sector 5."
Neil examined his own hand against the picture he held of her. Her skin was the same shade as what covered his new knobbly appendages and alhough her hair was wispy and dark, he could see little lights reflected in her eyes.
In reality of course it had been the flash of the camera, but Neil neither knew nor cared what that meant. Only one thought permeated his mechanical brain in that instant:
Look. Stars. Space.
He couldn't be sure why or how that thought had come to filter through his consciousness, but suddenly going to the side of this girl 'Lovett' seemed like an impossibly good idea or primary directive to have. He made to inspect the last file that had been delivered.
"File corrupt. Sending request back to host."
Neil waited a long time, still staring at the photograph he had brought up to view in his head and fixating on those little gold pinpricks.
"Unable to contact Host. File Corrupt. Host does not exist. Begin carrying out tasks. Will continue to search for source of corrupt file. Contacting first port."
Neil stood and began to carry out the duties he did have in their entirety. Perhaps at some point that broken file would catch up with him.
"Fact: Craaaaaaaaaaaaiiiig isss the besttttt nameeee…thereeee….isssssssss."
Not for the first time did Caroline liken her present state of mind to that of a human who had recently been exposed to a great deal of duress. Crouching in Craig's simple and corrupted body would not do forever but at least it had helped her to escape that brute GLaDOS' notice once more. She felt almost as if she were stuffed back into that potato, even though the notion was silly. Craig's body was not cramped at all.
The size of the place barely mattered. What was a more pressing issue was the fact that it was clear the Fact Core's number was almost up. She'd have to resume her residency in the chassis and soon. With any luck, Neil was on his way to the Detroit Sectors now.
All she could hope was that all had gone according to plan. It simply wouldn't do if Neil was still corrupted. Or worse, what potential dire consequences might befall her plan if that last file had not gotten through.
