Title: Night of the Living Wheatley - Part 6
Rated: R
Warnings: Murder-y funtimes with Wheatley.
Summary: …hands work better than bombs. Y'know. For the part where he kills you. As always, a reminder that this piece is based off of rubitinmyeyes' evil Wheatley which - if you haven't seen it yet, you SHOULD.
Kevin Thompson yawned and leaned back, watching his two friends blasting zombies on the videogame screen.
"Guys. I'm kind of bored. Let's go out and do something fun."
"Won't your mum bitch at you if we haven't done the homework yet?"
"Nah, she won't if we don't tell her."
"What did you want to do? Movie?"
"Nah, it's already too late. She'll be pissed if she has to drive us anywhere."
"Fine then, what?"
"Wanna go TP something?"
"So what are we doing? The school?"
"Nah, I was thinking we'd go give the crazy lady something to go with the eggs. Such a waste of time that it went and rained that night, but it's an awesome idea. Picking wet toilet paper off a house is gonna take fuckin' ages!"
"Seems as good an idea as any. I can dig it."
The trio crept down the stairs. Predictably, Kevin's mother called out to him. "Where are you going? It's past nine o'clock. I don't want you out late and you'd better have done your homework."
"Yeah, I know, I know. Jake just forgot one of our books at his place and stuff. We're gonna go get it and come right back, promise."
Kevin's mum shook her head. "Alright. Be back in half an hour, okay?"
The streets were quiet as the three rode their bikes to the late-night convenience store.
"Fuck robots are dumb." Jake pointed out as the automated cashier rang their packages of toilet paper. "Guess we should count our blessings. Any human would know what we were planning to do."
The boys trooped outside. The was one lone man who seemed to be looking around for someone.
"Aw fuck…" Kevin whispered. "You think he heard us?"
"So what if he did? It's just the Worth place. Nobody gives a crap."
"Dude, he's coming towards us! Shit dude."
"Matilda Worth?" he asked.
The three boys were agog as the man approached them. "Holy fuck there is something SERIOUSLY wrong with your eyes dude!"
The man with the glowing eyes stared them down. "What do you want with my human?"
"Your…"
"She's missing. I want her back."
"Shit she's probably at her house, I don't know dude."
A flicker of recognition arose in the man's face. "I know your voice."
Kevin stared. "Don't know you man. Don't want to."
"You were at her house that night. Now, I know my human's been naughty but I am trying to right a wrong here."
He caught the boy's wrists before he could react and gave a sharp twist to both. The bones cracked and a little more pressure was even enough to separate the wrists from the fingers. "Lobbing little yellow bombs at my human isn't nice."
All three boys screamed at once, one in pain and the other two in horror at what they had just witnessed.
"By the way you smelly, dirty little humans, I am NOT a moron."
With his long legs, Wheatley soon caught up with the remaining two boys. "That will be the last lesson you lot will ever get. Oh and by the way, this IS the part where I kill you."
Snapping necks just worked so much better than bombs. He should have gotten himself a pair of hands years ago.
Sometimes, Chell dreamed of the labs. It was difficult to truly leave behind somewhere you had literally spent several lifetimes. In those dreams GLaDOS and Wheatley were there, somehow magically kind instead of respectively acerbic and demanding. Before she knew what was happening, a harsh banging cut through those pleasant thoughts and the warm comfort of sleep.
"Please, please please!" were the first words she registered. There was something familiar about the voice. GLaDOS, not even in a topsy-turvy dream world, was capable of begging. That thought eventually woke her enough to realize that the noise was not in fact a part of her dreams. It was increasing in pitch and ferocity; the banging on the door intensifying with every yell.
Matilda was caught mid-bang her fingers falling short of the door. She braced herself on the frame, just in time, her cheeks blotched with tears and her hair in a worse, rumpled fright than was usual.
Unsure of how to proceed, Chell could only wait for her to continue.
"He…I…Wheatley…"
"Wheatley? Wheatley is…" It was Chell's turn to be embarrassed. "I saw the deactivated core. I came by your house after you ran off from me in the store and I saw him in your trash."
Now Matilda looked surprised and for a moment a look of betrayal crossed her face. Et-tu, Chell? The words hung unspoken in the air between them.
In the next second however the other woman was contrite, the urgency once more flooding her tone. "I made him a body and Chell, he murdered Arthur!"
The gravity and absurdity of the situation took a long, agonizing moment to sink in. Unfortunately, it didn't quite have to. The door splintered and fingers that looked human but glowed with veins of eerily blue blood made short work of even the strong metal locks.
Chell could only gape and somehow reflexively coiled her fingers around Matilda. Even though he was no longer spherical it was somehow impossible not to recognize Wheatley. If Chell had not known him by sight, the unlikely Bristol lilt in the middle of small-town Michigan was a dead giveaway.
Matilda quailed behind Chell, whose brave stance belied the real fear she was experiencing. She had no real idea as to how to cope with a moving, mobile menace.
Then again, Wheatley himself was new to his body and although it was a small consolation the chance that factmight give them a window of time was an opportunity to be seized.
Perhaps the acquaintance between the two women was tenuous at best but Chell had never witnessed Matilda expressing such terror for a machine.
"Wheatley, please…" the thin tone that came from Matilda's throat should have melted even the stoniest of hearts. For a moment it looked as though it may have worked.
"Now, why would you rush off like that, luv? It's just not nice, is it?" he asked, low and dangerous. In Chell's mind's eye she could see him above her in the elevator, blue optic flaring out as he drew himself up.
Matilda seemed to gather herself. "You killed him! Humans don't kill other humans! What did he ever do to you?" she asked desperately, her brown eyes meeting the unnatural nano-bot enhanced blue that were now darkened almost to an indigo.
"You're mine." Wheatley replied simply. "No one else has claim on you."
Chell had heard this speech before. She had been 'his' property to test as he saw fit she knew what was coming. Even then, only her honed reflexes saved them when he lunged. The whimper of pain from the other woman barely registered to Chell.
"Make yourself useful!" she snapped. Luckily, this mess she'd created aside her companion was less of a fool than she thought.
"I brought my car!" she huffed and Chell in spite of her annoyance admired the woman's tenacity as she tried to keep up with Chell's pace. Chell never drove if she could help it so she all but threw Matilda into the driver's side of the car.
Wheatley was hot on their heels and his powerful fingers closed over Matilda's bad leg as she struggled to right herself. "No getting away from me, luv. You're the weaker one and you're the one who made me strong. You should have listened to my lady friend there." He chuckled, reveling in his own sense of power.
Chell knew just how true that taunt was. Her keen mind struggled between fight and flight the realization that stealing a vehicle she had no idea how to operate was as potentially deadly as dealing with this this new Wheatley.
Thankfully Matilda made the decision for her, gritting her teeth and kicking out as hard as she could with that mangled leg and mercifully catching Wheatley by surprise, hard in the jaw. Both human and android made noises of pain and anger. Miraculously the two women were suddenly both in the car with the doors slammed shut and locked. Chell's stomach turned over with vertigo as Matilda jammed down on the gas, rubber tyres smoking as she peeled directionlessly away from Wheatley.
When her heart had settled, Chell turned to the driver who was still doggedly burning petrol. "Where are we going?"
The response was what Chell had predicted.
"I don't know."
Fortunately, the former test subject had already thought of a better answer. "I do. Take a left here."
"Oh, okay…" Matilda heaved a deep breath and obeyed.
"We're going to the wheat fields."
Matilda's head snapped over to Chell so fast she worried they would crash the car. "WHY!"
"Because I know someone."
Matilda did pause the car at that point. "You know someone." It was a statement, not a question. "In the wheat fields."
"I know someone."
"I don't like the way that sounds." Matilda whispered. She would have been glad that Chell had not heard it or she might have indeed found herself the victim of a carjacking.
"Trust me this time, would you?"
Matilda nodded and they started up again.
Even Chell was impressed by Matilda's reaction to the labs. Considering the gravity of the situation it felt like coming home to Chell. Matilda understood the need for silence on Chell's part though the gentle gasps and intrigued noises were inspiring rather than irritating. She felt conflicted. This woman had made Wheatley dangerous, she'd specifically disregarded her warnings and she'd made him a monster…had she… Chell recalled what she'd witnessed earlier. Had she actually fallen in love with him? Done the things Chell had only read about in books only to pay a dire price from her last hope at companionship? She shook the thoughts from her mind. She'd wondered the same things about herself sometimes. GLaDOS, Wheatley, Caroline?
Matilda in her own way understood this place. The two women were met by testing robots and they seemed to know Chell, nuzzling the woman as though she was one of their own.
Matilda leaned down and smiled. She knew their language better than her own. "Hello!" She bent forward and within seconds the little robots were giggling like they had shared in a private joke.
They probably had, Chell mused. It would have been a beautiful moment considering the pity she'd been feeling earlier if the situation was not so dire and a very angry, acerbic voice hadn't chosen to interrupt. Matilda's attention was drawn to the metal construct hanging down from the centre of the room, a baleful yellow optic now trained on the both of them.
"Well, you're back. I wish I could call it a pleasure, but I said goodbye for good a long time ago. I can see you've let yourself go soft. I'm afraid I will be having to expend more energy to want the extra amount of you gone from my sight. I don't know what that interesting-looking thing you brought with you is, but I doubt it's a 'friend'. Do you need me to help you give her some of that extra weight you're carrying around?"
There was an exorbitantly long pause until finally Matilda broke in. Chell for whatever reason seemed to have gone mute. "Ma'am, We've come to ask for your help."
The A.I. performed a spectacular interpretation of an eye roll. "Maybe you can take some notes from this one. It's parents must have at least taught it well in spite of it's monstrously unusual looks. Very commendable of them. Humans love maudlin idiots."
Chell glared at Matilda.
Still confused with regards to Chell's sudden silence the older (by how much she was she was in fact younger, she did not realize.) woman elaborated. "I met Wheatley."
"The I.D. Sphere."
"Um, I'm not a hundred percent sure what that's about but I guess you know him." Matilda cast a desperate look at Chell, begging her to speak up. No such luck. "He's gone mad…ma'am. Utterly mad, and, it was my fault."
GLaDOS optic swiveled towards Chell. "Oh so you did create some new disaster. I was waiting for that to happen."
The silence that ensued was broken with a crash, created by a construct who ore a striking resemblance to a human. "Well well." He drawled. "You are predictable. I thought to myself, where would my test subject go for help? And the answer just popped into my brilliant mind. Running off to her best friend of course! Hello, how have you been, PotaDOS?"
GLaDOS' optic widened in shock. For once the A.I. seemed incapable of a smart retort.
Matilda gave a small yelp of horror.
"Don't think I haven't forgotten you missy. I think you need a little payback for hitting me like that, not to mention all the running you've been doing, messing about with other humans behind my back. How many have you got. Hm? Squirreled away like little…squirrelly things?"
GLaDOS, Chell and Matilda all reacted at the same time.
"You did WHAT with the moron?" the A.I made a noise of disgust, just as Chell looked at her sharply and Matilda shouted at the same time.
"I didn't…I've neverl!"
Wheatley was already taking advantage of the confusion to advance towards them.
"Please Wheatley!" She turned to GLaDOS desperately in the same breath. "Help us, please!"
There was a clanging of plates and to Chell's relief a wall sprang up between the two women and the advancing android. That bought them some time, Aperture was made to last, but then so was Wheatley. Chell was beginning to wonder if the only thing they could do was keep putting obstacles in his way until they both die gave up or GLaDOS got bored. The look on Matilda's face suggested that she was wondering the same thing.
"Now you know what quid pro quo is, don't you?" GLaDOS piped up once again. "The unfortunate thing about having to phase out human testing is that it does get boring, and the two of you brought the moron into my facility which he will destroy trying to get to you. So I have a solution I think we'll both be happy with. I have test chambers, you can test or you can wait here and become part of the not being alive club."
"Test?"
Chell sighed with resignation as two ASHPD guns were dropped for them. They were slightly different than the one she'd worked with. Two guns, specifically for two test subjects.
Matilda was staring at hers. Chell just hoped that her skill with technology would extend to the one and only weapon GLaDOS intended to let them have against Wheatley.