[Part 4]
The first time he ever slept, after zipping up his jumpsuit following his brief and bewildering self-exploration, he found himself—his real self, his sphere self—suspended on a guide rail in Her chamber. He was unable to move, unable to speak, hanging there helplessly as he watched Her take hold of her frail hands and legs with metal claws and tug at them viciously until the flesh began to tear and the bones separated with a sickening crack.
Terror unlike any simulated emotion he'd ever experienced coursed through every circuit in his hull, paralyzing him, locking his optic on the gruesome sight. He couldn't even squeeze his shutters to block out the image of her eyes staring straight at him in unspeakable horror, contorted with pain, mouth gaping in a silent cry as She pulled and pulled and pulled—
He woke up screaming.
Utterly disoriented, he lay there panting, heart pounding, chest wracked with something heavy and painful, until the haze of sleep left him and he realized with a start that he'd never even left his room.
It had only been a dream.
Wheatley was familiar with dreams in an academic sense. They were visions and experiences the human brain occasionally invented to occupy test subjects while they were asleep. But this vision had seemed so real, so tangible, that he couldn't believe that it was merely a construct invented by his own mind. His hands, still shaking from the shock of sudden consciousness, gently cradled his belly, which hurt terribly for no reason he could understand.
As the beating in his chest slowly quieted, that same tugging numbness of exhaustion claimed him again, and he fell back into a fitful sleep. This time upon waking, he could not remember what he had dreamed about—or even if he had dreamed—but the unavoidable situation in his jumpsuit, and the accompanying opportunity to further explore the function of that strange and wonderful appendage, gave him some clues.
Over the course of perhaps a few days—he couldn't really be sure, as he no longer possessed an internal clock—he slept, dreaming alternately of her body and of her demise.
With each waking, he glanced at the door, but eventually thought better of it.
He practiced walking, steadily improving his short, halting steps until he could walk with a long, purposeful stride, taking full advantage of the length of his legs, but not before several painful missteps and graceless tumbles to the floor. Despite his efforts, though, he could not work out what his arms were meant to do while his legs carried him across the floor and opted to hold them straight at his sides rather than bother with them.
As he grew more confident in his physical abilities, he practiced jumping as well, his thoughts returning fondly to their first meeting, when it had seemed that was all she could do. He found the beginning part relatively easy, the middle part fairly exhilarating, but the end part involving the ground again painful and difficult.
Following a brief moment of panic during which he was convinced an animal was living in his stomach and was angry with him, he managed to scrounge some small items of nonperishable food from various locations within his room. After nearly choking several times, he remembered once seeing the researchers moving their mouths while eating, and gradually taught himself to chew, though he found it somewhat difficult to keep the food in his mouth. He felt pleased at his own ingenuity when the rumbling discomfort in his belly quieted in response to the nourishment—it was hunger. He had felt hunger.
He had no idea what it was that he was eating—the flavor was strong and unpleasant, but nothing he could place, having never tasted anything before—only that it was food, and eating it would allow him to stay alive. And rescue her.
Wheatley glanced at the door again.
He slept.
His eyelids cracked reluctantly open, a soft groan emerging from his throat. His head swam with fleeting memories of the wild, incomprehensible images that always seemed to haunt his sleep.
As the hours bled into each other, he continued to find small reasons not to venture past the door.
For a while he contemplated Her parting words to him. This, whatever this was, was meant to be a punishment, but he hadn't heard a word from Her since she wedged a drill into his eye. Now that he thought of it, he honestly had no idea how much time had passed since then—Chell could be an old woman or long dead by now,he mused.
Could that be the punishment? To hole him away somewhere long enough that the only human She knew he wanted to see was dead? The thought distressed him and he pushed it from his mind.
She'd mentioned testing him, too—but he was nowhere near the functional test chambers. It was as though She had simply discarded him there, hoping that he'd rot or starve to death rather than bother Her again. Although extreme neglect was something She was entirely capable of, he couldn't believe that She would use it as a weapon of revenge—certainly not against someone who'd wronged Her quite as much as he had.
He shuddered a bit at the memory of Her shrill screams.
Perhaps she'd simply forgotten where she'd put him. The thought briefly satisfied him, but he knew that She was far too brilliant for that—he just couldn't convince himself that She could lose him in some relaxation chamber somewhere. No, She very probably knew precisely where he was. He glanced about the room, suddenly aghast at the thought of Her watching him, listening to him from afar. He couldn't see any cameras or microphones on the walls, but the oppressive stillness of the room was enough to stoke the rising paranoia sending shivers along his skin.
Had She been watching him the whole time…?
Sitting upright in his bed, his face suddenly at the thought of her watching his past days' activities, he quickly decided that further contemplation would only upset him.
Wheatley glanced reluctantly at the door. As much as he wanted to simply remain in his room and touch himself, it was time for action. Time for him to venture forth and find out just what was going on outside, whether she was still out there, whether she needed his help…
Whether she could ever forgive him.
He tied an extra shirt he found in a drawer into a makeshift pouch, stuffing it full of several items he felt confident were food. Thus prepared, he stood facing the door, catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror. His hair was ruffled and misshapen from sleep, his jumpsuit hopelessly rumpled, the tiny hairs on his face now just a bit longer, his eyes just as sunken and exhausted as they'd ever been. He slung the pouch over his shoulder, frowning slightly at the sight of himself.
He made a futile effort to smooth out a wrinkle in his jumpsuit, then made his way to the door.
After several minutes of fumbling at the mechanism, he managed to turn the doorknob, releasing the door from its position locked within its frame. Though he wasn't sure why, he held his breath as he swung the door open before him.
A blast of cool air hit his face and his body shivered involuntarily. Hesitantly, he peeked to the left and right. Outside was a dimly lit metal corridor lined with wooden doors that seemed rather out of place. Squinting through the metal mesh of the catwalks above and below the corridor, he could see countless stories of rooms likely identical to his, stretching far past his ability to see them. As he'd suspected, he was in the middle of the massive complex of cryogenic storage rooms, each one likely to contain a dead human, he thought with a shudder. He did not dwell on the reason why the humans were dead.
The corridor was eerily silent.
Wheatley cautiously stepped outside of his room, pulling the door closed behind him. A hiss escaped his lips at the sudden, uninvited chill of the icy metal catwalk against his bare feet. Temperature sensitivity—yet another inconvenience of possessing skin. After his feet had adapted to the unpleasant sensation, he began to walk.
The relaxation facility was enormous. There were no markings or numbers on the doors by which he could navigate, and as he turned each corner, every corridor looked identical to the one he'd just left. After what seemed like hours of trudging through the complex, he knew he was hopelessly lost and likely no closer to escaping than he had been while still in his comfortable, secure room.
To pass the time, he listened to the echoes of his footsteps against the brushed chrome walls, enjoying the steady, plodding rhythm the sound made.
Wheatley very suddenly became aware of a slight change in the sound—did he hear something else just then?—and halted. The sound of his footsteps faded away.
Cautiously, he began to walk again, concentrating on the familiar sound of his own two feet padding along the cold catwalk—there it was! He paused mid-stride. It was a sharp tapping, in time with his own steps.
Very quickly, his mind conjured up a terrible image of the mechanical death machine She had obviously constructed and let loose in the relaxation facility to stalk and dismember him. That would make sense—that would be sufficiently messy, painful, and unpleasant to serve as Her punishment for him. He glanced over his shoulder but saw nothing but the empty catwalk.
Of course, another possibility was that his flawed mammalian brain was now conjuring up its own sounds in the absence of any outward stimulus. He knew that humans were capable of losing their minds after living in utter solitude for a certain period of time—but a few days? Was this body really that fragile?
No, the mechanical death machine was a far likelier scenario. Although he knew there was no point in fleeing from such a creation, he couldn't help but make a token effort at self-preservation. He began to walk a bit faster, turning corners at random, hoping that his efforts would earn him at least a few more minutes of life. That maddening tapping began again, much more rapidly this time, almost more rapidly than his own footsteps—well. It was definitely chasing him.
He broke into a full run, a bit surprised at the sudden surge of strength from his body under stress, feet pounding the metal floor in his frantic attempt to escape whatever currently wanted him dead. His lungs burned at the unexpected strain and his eyesight began to blur, his head feeling lighter and lighter with each heavy footstep. Turning a blind corner, he found himself facing a dead end, inexplicably constructed with no doorways and seemingly no function but to trap him—but before true panic could set in, he saw a burst of blinding light and realized abruptly that he was on the ground.
The back of his head throbbed mercilessly.
Something had hit him. Something that had been stalking him for the past he-didn't-know-how-long had hit him and was, therefore, directly behind him and obviously wanted him dead and why had he even left his room in the first place when lying in bed rubbing himself all day was so much more fun than being murdered?
Trembling, he wrenched his body into a crude fetal position, arms wrapped around his face for protection, braving a quick glimpse at his attacker.
He gasped.
It was her.
Messy black hair, piercing blue eyes—she was even wearing that same silly jumpsuit, and a scowl that scared him far more than any mechanical death machine would have. She loomed over him, portal gun gripped tightly in her hands.
He was speechless.
She seemed frightened.
He scrambled clumsily to his feet, but before he could gain a steady footing she was on top of him, tackling him roughly to the ground, knocking the wind out of him, his throat in one hand and the portal gun in the other.
He gagged and choked at the familiar sensation of a hand constricting his throat, his own hands instinctively and frantically attempting to pry her fingers away, his body bucking under the unfamiliar sensation of another weighing it down. There wasn't nearly enough air in his lungs to call her name, but he tried anyway.
"Gghk—Chh—Chhkkk—"
Her eyes widened at the sound and her grip loosened slightly.
"Ohpleasepleasepleasedon'tkillmeChell!" he croaked.
As quickly as she'd tackled him, she leapt backwards, dropping to crouch low in a defensive stance, her face a mask of utter bewilderment at the sound of his voice.
"Pleasedon't—oh. Y-you've stopped," he noted weakly, sitting up.
Her eyes narrowed dangerously.
Wheatley wilted under her glare, his heart racing. He'd found her—well, she'd found him—but here she was, not old and not dead. This was the opportunity he'd been planning for for days, in between restless sleeps an even more restless bouts of self-exploration. He opened his mouth to explain—everything, anything just to keep her from looking at him like that, but it felt as though his brain had locked up. Fighting the strange sensation, he emitted an odd, garbled vocalization with all the inflections of a normal sentence but none of the words. He clasped a hand over his mouth.
She raised an eyebrow at him.
"L—l—li—li." he frowned. "Lll—lis—lis—lllisss—"
It was no use. Try as he might, the words weren't coming. He knew what he wanted to say, he knew how to make his lips form the sentence, but every time he looked at her his mouth stopped working, his lips freezing up and stumbling over the simplest of syllables. He'd been speaking just fine when he was talking to himself, but now, with an audience, nothing seemed to work right.
He shakily stood, drew a deep breath, and tried again.
"Y, y-youaarrgghh," he paused, frustrated. "Y-youaargh… awwll… rooiight." He pronounced each word slowly, carefully.
There. One sentence down.
Her fist connected hard with his right jaw and he went down a third time, howling in pain.
"P-p-lease—please—s-s-stop—stophurtingme—what did I ever do to you—" he wailed, grasping at the source of his discomfort but finding no relief.
She raised an eyebrow at him.
"—o-other than. Try to. K-kill you," he finished lamely. "Yeah, I de-de-dese… I-I should be punched. 'N a lot more. For all that."
The words began to come more easily, but he remained on the floor, unwilling to risk prompting another attack. She eyed him suspiciously, examining every inch of his contorted form, the question obvious in her eyes.
"Y-yes, it's… it's me. Your o-old pal, Wheatley. I-I know I'm probably th-the last thing you want to s-see right now. But Sh-Sh-She pulled me in from sp-sp-sp… she pulled me in and did something to me a-and put me back in my… my old body," he stuttered with some difficulty.
He noticed her incredulous look.
"B-bit of a long story, that, but I used to be a human. O-or so She told me. Long time ago. This human," he finished, gesturing toward his body.
She nodded slowly, body still tense, still ready to flee.
"L-lis-listen. I have something to tell you th-that I've been thinking about for—well, I don't know how long it's been since all that, so I don't know how long, but I have to tell you—I'm s-s-sorry. For, for being monstrous and mean and for trying to k-kill you. It was terrible and I should've died and I don't know why She didn't let me unless She thinks this is worse than dying—" he rattled on, covering his eyes with his hands. He couldn't stand to look at her—every time he did, something in his chest and throat hurt.
"—but y-you have to understand, I didn't mean any of it, wh-what I said or did, it wasn't me—not really—" Something hard rose in his throat and his voice grew strained.
"I-I was never built to do what she does, m-my processors, my programs, none of it could handle—all of THAT. A-as soon as I was plugged in th-the chassis was eating away at me, jamming itself into my head a-and ch-ch-changing me. I was consumed by the desire to test… I wanted to kill you because it wanted to kill you and I'm s-so sorry and you deserve so much better than this and—and—I should have died." his voice cracked. His eyes ached, his face felt unbearably hot, and he pulled his hands away to find them soaking wet.
He looked up, searching for her face, for some small glimmer of forgiveness in her expression, but the water in his eyes made it impossible to see any definition. He could only make out the edges of her form as she moved toward him, kneeling next to him, pulling him up to a seated position. He shied away from the contact, bringing his hands back up to his face, not yet prepared for another assault.
"No, please—"
She wrapped her arms around his torso and he cringed, steeling himself for the end—but the end didn't come. She seemed content to merely hold him, squeezing his body in her arms. He didn't quite understand the gesture, but it didn't hurt—it actually felt fairly nice.
Something in him broke at her unexpected gentleness and he sobbed softly in her arms, low wavering moans interspersed between shaky, gasping breaths. She reached up to smooth her hand through his hair, gently rocking his shaking body from side to side. He was reminded of a test subject he'd observed long ago—an older woman who had held a frightened child test subject while it made sounds similar to these.
They sat together in relative silence as he marveled at the terrible and wonderful sensations his body was experiencing. Her arms wrapped around him, warm and tight, felt like absolute heaven, but the gnawing pain in the pit of his stomach, the uncontrollable spasms of his guilt-wracked body—he felt like he could die.
The water continued to trickle down his face.
His breathing gradually steadied and he fell silent, rubbing his face dry with the sleeves of his jumpsuit and looking up at her with cleared vision. She didn't seem angry or frightened anymore—only sad. That was a start.
"Th-thank you for... for holding me until i-it stopped..." he whispered.
She nodded with a soft smile.
"S-so She… She put you right back down here? After all that?" he glanced up at her.
Her face hardened a bit. It was all the answer he needed.
"B-but I'm going to… to make it all right," he murmured shakily, taking hold of her arm with one hand. "I've got arms and legs now so I'm going to rescue you. A-and you're going to get out of here. I promise."
She nodded again, wiping a stray tear away from his cheek with her own sleeve.
They remained in the dead end corridor for a while as he composed himself.
When his breaths had slowed to a normal pace and his face had dried, she stood, then helped him up. It struck him for the first time that she really was quite a bit smaller than he was—the top of her head only barely reached the level of his chest. How had she managed to take him down so easily?
She scooped the portal gun off the floor, turning to look up into Wheatley's aching eyes. The softness her face had held while she'd comforted him was gone, replaced with a far more familiar look, her lips set in a grim line. As he watched, she backed away from him a few steps, then made an odd gesture, raising her hand with two fingers extended, pointing them first to her eyes, then to him.
"I—I have no idea what you're on about."
She scowled. That one he knew—exasperation. She'd shown a fair bit of that to him before.
She balled her hand into a fist and held it very close to his face. He flinched, her meaning becoming clear.
"A-ah, y-you're going to hurt me if I do anything bad again? 'S that it?" he asked, laughing nervously.
She nodded.
"F-fair enough."
They began to walk.