Despite the brand-new glass, the elevator was as slow and halting as ever. Whoever had replaced the glass walls clearly hadn't seen to repairing the elevator shaft. No one was riding the elevator, anyway.
At least, Chell thought no one was riding the elevator.
There could be someone here.
The tracks squealed as they moved down.
Wheatley huddled close to her in the tiny space. He clutched the strap of the bag with both hands and pressed his shoulder against hers. His eyes were glued to the elevator shaft; they shifted up and down periodically as the walls of the shaft moved past them, as if he was reading a book the wrong way.
Then he suddenly let go of the strap, letting the bag hang from his side, and removed his arm from one of the sleeves of the camouflage coat. He took Chell and gently pulled her closer to him. Chell stumbled on her crutches and raised an eyebrow, but remained still as he pulled the coat around them both and cowered next to her. She rubbed his cheek on his shoulder; he whimpered.
The turrets passed by. Wheatley watched them go without a word, but through his skin, Chell heard his fans kick up, perfectly timed with her own sharp gasp. She closed her eyes and waited.
The elevator ground on, until finally, it landed in Her chamber.
Coming back to the space where she had found him was surreal. She felt a stirring in the pit of her stomach as she took it in.
There was still a hole in the ceiling. The birds hadn't come back; something, perhaps, had scared them away. The wheat was scattered all over the chamber. Some water pooled in the corners. The smell of science was completely gone from this place now; the air was overrun with the smell of dirt, of sun, of Someplace Nicer.
And She was still dead.
To think, Chell had nearly left Wheatley and Space down here to die.
Wheatley let her hobble out first on her crutches before following her. She made a beeline to GLaDOS and stopped some distance away from Her. While she stared up at the broken machine, he walked to her, hung the coat around her shoulders, and stood behind her, hands on her shoulders, staring at GLaDOS with her.
"Dead as always," he muttered. Chell nodded.
Wheatley placed the bag next to her left crutch. He took a slow pace around GLaDOS's body. Chell carefully put the jacket on.
"I've never really gotten this close," he said, "without being made to." He stopped, looked up at the ceiling. "I mean…" He crinkled his nose. "No, I'm not going to talk about that," he added under his breath.
He continued to pace the chassis. He was thinking, she knew, judging by the slowness of his steps and the vacancy in his eyes.
He stopped, partially turned away from her, his hands clasped behind his back. He stared at GLaDOS's head. It faced the floor, looking almost sheepishly away from his thoughtful gaze.
"I have a plan, love," he said loudly, startling her, "but I don't think you're going to like it very much. In fact, I know you won't." He turned his head away and hunched his shoulders.
Chell moved to him. The methodical tic-tic-tic of her crutches was deafening in the cavernous room.
She placed a hand on his shoulder. He turned around, gave her a thin smile, and jerked his head in the direction of GLaDOS's head.
"Mind plugging me in?" he asked, his voice feeble and unsure through his smile.
Chell's eyes widened. She snatched her hand back.
"I promise," he said, and he put his hands on her shoulders. He hunched down to her eye level and stared at her while he spoke. The smile was gone. His eyes were bright blue and hesitant, almost frightened. There was a quaver in his voice. He was pleading.
"I promise I-I'll get you that cure. It'll be fast, love, fast as anything. I'll know where everything is if I'm plugged into Her systems. She knew where everything was. I can find that cure and direct you to it, and then when we're finished, you can pop me out, and we can go home."
He smiled and brushed her cheek with the back of his hand. Chell turned away. "You'll be better," he whispered. "All healthy and good as new. I'll fix you."
She looked up at the massive chassis, followed the lines of its twisting wires up to the ceiling. He knew the last time he had been plugged in, things had gone massively wrong. He didn't remember, but he knew.
But they hadn't been this close when all of that had happened.
Things could really have changed since then.
She looked down, caught sight of his boots; they shuffled restlessly against the tile floor.
She closed her eyes and nodded.
"There we go!" He patted her on the shoulder, but she didn't open her eyes. Even so, she could hear the thousand-watt grin he had on. "I'll make it up to you, love, I promise. I'll be the best ruler of this facility that you've ever seen. Even better than Her."
Even better than Her.
Chell tried to breathe through the tightening in her chest.
He let go of her. "Now, let's see here…uh…"
She opened her eyes. He was facing away from her, looking up towards the ceiling.
"Maybe someone's awake here…there's always someone…"
He rubbed his hands together. "Uh…"
He raised his voice. "Requesting core transfer!"
No response.
"Um…core transfer. Now. Please."
No response.
He stood on his tip-toes, balled his hands into fists, and shrieked:
"INITIATE CORE TRANSFER!"
"CORE TRANSFER INITIATED," came a man's voice out of nowhere, making them both jump. Wheatley retreated behind Chell. "ALTERNATE CORE, ARE YOU READY TO START?"
Chell elbowed him sharply in the ribs.
"I, uh…yes!" Wheatley said from behind her.
"ORIGINAL CORE, ARE YOU READY TO START?"
GLaDOS, of course, remained silent.
"DEFECTIVE CORE DETECTED," the voice continued, sounding unusually chipper and yet so, so bored at the same time. "A CORE TRANSFER ASSOCIATE IS NEEDED TO CONFIRM DEFECTIVENESS. PLEASE ATTACH THE REPLACEMENT CORE TO THE APERTURE SCIENCE CORE REPLACEMENT DEVICE BEFORE CONTINUING."
The chamber came alive.
Part of the floor slid away, and the Aperture Science Core Replacement Device, looking as much a futuristic torture device as ever, rose out of the ground. It was a long and thick silver plate, with silver restraints for the wrists and ankles that lay open, waiting, as the device came to a stop. One long, thick wire hung just below the headrest at the top of the plate.
At the same time, part of the wall opened, and there, in the dark space behind it, was a podium topped by a large red button.
It was all so familiar that she wanted to turn around and run.
"That's your cue," Wheatley whispered to her. "Go on, plug me in and press the button. So easy, anyone could do it. But you'll be the best at it."
Chell moved towards the Core Transfer Device. Wheatley followed.
He leaned against the silver plate, legs apart and hands pressed flat against the plate. He bowed his head. Chell leaned against him for balance and unzipped the very top of his jumpsuit. She plugged the thick wire from the Core Transfer Device into the large port near the back of his neck.
The second the wire connected with the port, the restraints snapped shut around Wheatley's wrists and ankles. He giggled nervously.
"Is this supposed to happen?" he asked. Chell kissed his cheek, took her crutches, and made her way to the button, moving fast, trying not to think too hard about what she was about to do.
She circled around it, stopped, and reached out a hand, then hesitated. She looked up towards the chassis.
He was facing her, watching her expectantly from the other side of the room. Even from this distance, she could see his hands tremble. His eyes were wide and unblinking.
"CORE TRANSFER ASSOCIATE, ARE YOU READY TO START?" the voice asked her and Chell mouthed Yes and slammed her hand down on the button.
It happened slowly, as if in a dream, one of her dreams.
There was the sight of Wheatley sliding, feet-first, immobile, into the floor, and she could hear his familiar nervous and excited babbling, but this time around it had a touch of fear, of reluctance, of doubt, one that hadn't been there so many months ago.
He was laughing.
Then he was screaming.
And GLaDOS's head, unresisting, was torn off her body and thrown to the side like garbage. It narrowly missed their bag.
There was a ringing in her ears that started up, quiet at first, then getting louder and louder and louder until it blocked out everything else.
And then the white underbelly of the chassis unhinged, the body bowed like a headless snake into a pit in the ground, and then Wheatley was there, his jumpsuit unzipped down his back, all the wires of the chassis snaking out of his spine as he semi-reclined on the white underbelly as if it was a plastic throne, his legs dangling off its end. He was laughing, spinning the chassis in wide circles, throwing his arms up, rippling the walls of the chamber, letting cubes and confetti and dead turrets fly. It was all silent to her; his mirth was completely eclipsed by that ringing in her ears.
He looked at her, and the ringing turned into a roar. He was mouthing to her, gesturing, and there was a smile on his face.
And that smile was friendly and open and loving.
She took hold of the crutches with shaking hands.
She moved forward.
She opened her mouth like a gasping fish and gasped for air.
His gesturing became more animated, his smile bigger, even though a crease appeared in between his brows.
She moved, slowly, to him, then dropped the crutches, stumbled, and fell into his lap. The crutches clattered to the floor.
"Chell! Oh, careful! Don't hurt yourself, now."
She could hear again, and she was aware of his hands on her.
He leaned down and gently picked her up. Chell, bewildered and dizzy, found herself sitting sideways on his lap, her right ear resting against his chest. They weren't far off the ground, but she still felt as if she was about to fall.
"Look, look, everything's gone swimmingly! Everything's going to be fine now. I'm in control. Look what I can do!"
There was a flash to her left, and she turned.
There were holograms, screens, curving in a half-circle on a flat plane in front of him: camera views of long-abandoned test chambers, algorithms and code flowing in rapid lines, lists of everything from different cake recipes to common human behaviors when faced with a pit of acid and thermal discouragement beams. Wheatley's hands moved to them, and they came alive.
"Oh wow, this is cool," he muttered, and rested his chin atop her head as he slid the holograms around, as if they comprised an enormous touch screen of their own.
Chell closed her eyes and leaned against his chest. He was as docile as always, as if he was sitting on a chair at home with her on his lap. At the feeling of her relaxing, he kissed the top of her head.
She moved a hand around to his back, but felt hundreds of wires that weren't his instead. She grimaced.
This was not the same.
She had to remember that.
Wheatley was saying something, but she didn't register it. She looked up at him with a confused tilt of her head.
Two things nudged her arms.
He, using metal claws from the ceiling, had retrieved her crutches. He held them steady for her as she took them. The chassis lowered further, and he helped her onto the floor.
"Let's go find you that cure," he said, and grinned at her. She nodded and turned away, biting her lip.
Another side of the chamber opened up, revealing a catwalk. As if hypnotized, she wandered to it, her crutches setting up a quick rhythm that competed with the double-time thump of her heart in her chest.
"Off you go! I'll be keeping an eye on you, I'll move things around to make it easier without a portal device. And…and…"
She stopped and turned around to face him.
Wheatley had been waving to her, but his hand now hung, drooping, in mid-air. His mouth was half-open, his original smile gone. His eyes were vacant, and he stared at a point in space just above her head, as if he had caught sight of a very large, very angry monster behind her.
He slowly lowered his hand.
There was something in his eyes.
It was very large, very looming, very empty.
Very hungry.
"You…you go along…" he murmured. "I'll…I'll do what you need…Chell…"
The way he said her name, how empty and lifeless he sounded, sent something boiling in the pit of her stomach, something black and long-dormant that made her feel sick and dizzy and very, very frightened.
And very, very determined.
"Go ahead," he said, sounding dreamy. "I'll be here if you need me."
She turned around, shook herself…
And moved onto the catwalk.
