"You are an idiot! Do you hear me? You've lost her! You've trapped her in a human body; she'll go mad!" – Molly Grue
The massive robot was already turned toward Chell, and her yellow optic light narrowed in recognition – but the woman did not return her gaze. "Oh. It's you. I should have known that from the moment the elevator sent a distress signal. Well, why are you interrupting my experiments this time? I sent you away specifically to stop thi- What are you doing?"
Chell, ignoring GLaDOS entirely, ran to the middle of the room and knelt next to the young man who lay limp, face down on the ground. His hair was the color of caramel, and he was clad in a pale gray outfit and long-fall boots as black as a moonless night. Some sort of metal brace wrapped around his torso and connected to a circular white panel just below his shoulder blades, emblazoned with an azure Aperture logo. It couldn't be, it couldn't possibly!
She hesitantly turned the unconscious man over and cradled him gingerly in one arm as she checked for a pulse above the sapphire orb adorning his cravat, and as she did this, more evidence of the man's identity – what Chell already knew but could not believe – revealed itself. The front of the brace around his chest resembled the handles on a core, and there were three black buttons on the right lapel of his jacket. She looked at his face: calm as if in sleep, lips parted slightly, with thin-rimmed glasses perched atop the bridge of his nose.
The woman lifted her disbelieving stare to meet the angry yellow light above her. "The little moron isn't dead, if that's what you're wondering. At least not yet. I have to finish testing how long a Personality Construct's programming and memories last when uploaded into a wetware environment – to see if this is a viable alternative to testing real humans. They only last so long, you know, and that gets expensive after a while," GLaDOS crooned with sugar-coated spite. Chell's expression turned to shocked anger – shocked, not at GLaDOS's cruelty, but at the severity of the situation – and she glared at the AI until her attention was drawn away by the man stirring weakly in her arms.
When his eyes opened, they removed any and all doubts that may yet have lingered within Chell; nobody but Wheatley could have eyes so blue, so bright and vivid that they seemed not just to reflect the light of their environment but to produce some of their own. Chell shook her head, brow furrowed slightly. No, no, no, was all she could think. The robot-turned-human looked up at her in dizzy confusion, blinked rapidly as if in a sudden brightness, frowned, and suddenly understood his circumstances. His eyes widened, but his face remained calm – or perhaps, disbelieving – as he looked down at himself, still halfway lying on the floor and propped up in Chell's arms.
He raised a trembling, pale hand slowly, as if carefully steering its movement with great effort, and held it in front of his face. "What… what've you done to me…?" he murmured, his voice quivering and uncertain. Wheatley stared at his new hand, at the fine, nearly-invisible hairs on the back of it, at the thin wrinkles on the knuckles, at the way tendons – tendons! – shifted under the skin as he moved his fingers. He sat up unsteadily, and lifted his other hand to examine the blue veins showing through the underside of the wrist, the texture of wrinkles and ridges on his palms and fingertips.
Wheatley shuddered and closed his eyes tightly, as if to hide from himself, and he shook his head from side to side as he said again, "What have you done to me?! Turn me back! I- I'm a robot; I'm a bloody robot! I can't-!" He silenced himself, or else lost his voice, overwhelmed by this smelly, soft, mortal prison of a human body. He could feel blood in his veins, and a pulse to drive it. There was mucus in his throat; there was oil and sweat in his skin; there was saliva in his mouth, wetting teeth and a fleshy tongue, with which came an unpleasant fifth sense, the taste of his own mouth. Wheatley lifted his bony knees up into his chest and made a pitiful attempt to curl into the safe and reassuring shape of a ball. "I can't live in this body…!" he protested almost inaudibly, his voice catching painfully in his throat like a bone.
Chell did her best to calm and comfort him, but he lifted his head and looked at her with the eyes of a caged animal, and she knew there was nothing she could do to help him – only GLaDOS could help him now, and that was as good as no help at all.
The woman wrapped her arms around Wheatley as he buried his face into his knees, and she held him to her chest as one might hold a frightened child. Then she turned a stare as sharp as swords toward the uncaring AI hanging above. She neither knew nor cared just how GLaDOS had done it, but she wanted it undone. "Why are you looking at me like that?" GLaDOS sounded more irritated than anything else. "Why should you care what happens to this little idiot, anyway? He tried to murder you, remember." The AI lifted herself toward the ceiling slightly, and swiveled from side to side in silent, sadistic glee. "Besides," she added, reveling in the irony, "I could have turned him back, you know – if someone hadn't broken the elevator."
Chell glanced toward the ruined elevator's shaft, then looked back up at GLaDOS with one eyebrow raised. "That's right: that was the only elevator that went down to the chamber containing the Aperture Science Organic and Inorganic Transmogrification Device. And now I have to waste valuable time repairing the elevator. Nice job breaking it, hero." Chell continued to glare at her, and tilted her head expectantly as GLaDOS turned her attention to troubleshooting the lift. Chell couldn't tell what was going on the way the AI could, but she could guess from listening.
Something inside GLaDOS beeped, and a dull hum rose faintly from the shaft. The robot beeped a second time, but this input just caused a creak and groan to echo in the shaft. A few sparks leapt off a wire like startled frogs. "Well, how about that. It goes up, but not down. Convenient. Why don't you just take a ride back up to the surface, and waddle on back to… wherever you've been hiding since I released you. And we can all forget any of this ever happened. No strings attached. I won't try to murder you; you won't try to murder me… I'll just let you go, and you will never come back. How does that sound?" Chell shook her head in defiance.
"Alright, fine. I can see I'm not getting rid of you that easily. There is one other way into the Aperture Science Organic and Inorganic Transmogrification Device chamber, but you can't get there directly from here." A panel in the ceiling opened up, and one of GLaDOS's claws descended with a portal gun in its grasp. "So I propose a solution that may benefit some of all of us. You can take the moron and try to find a path through the testing tracks from here to the Aperture Science Organic and Inorganic Transmogrification Device. I will be able to repair the elevator without distractions, and you will get to try this idiotic course of action you seem so bent on taking." Tired of attempting diplomacy, she leaned forward and narrowed her optic in annoyance.
"Of course, I am not letting you loose in my facility without supervision. There will be Personality Constructs and surveillance cameras monitoring you every step of the way. This is the best offer you are going to get before I just pump this room full of deadly neurotoxin. Take it or leave it."
Chell knew there was no other option. She stood up and begrudgingly retrieved the portal gun. GLaDOS drew back in mild surprise. "Really? Okay… If you want to risk your life for a moron who tried to murder you, be my guest." Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, she supposed. Free data was free data. The giant robot leaned down and forward, to put her optic right in front of Chell's face as she opened the wall to reveal a catwalk. "Now go, before I change my mind. Do not make me regret my mercy."
The woman did not waste any time jumping at this opportunity. She helped – or rather, hauled – Wheatley to his feet and rushed him, tripping and stumbling like a newborn foal, toward the catwalk.